Commentary for Genesis 38:39

ויהי בעת ההוא AND IT CAME TO PASS AT THAT TIME — Why is this section placed here thus interrupting the section dealing with the history of Joseph? To teach that his brothers degraded him from his high position. When they saw their father’s grief they said, “You told us to sell him: if you had told us to send him back to his father we would also have obeyed you” (Genesis Rabbah 85:2).

ויהי בעת ההיא, והמדנים מכרו אותו, [the Torah contrasts the facts with the perception of the facts, i.e. Joseph was alive but the Midianites had sold him. I believe that this is why the author quotes the beginning of this verse without elaborating on it at all. He leaves it to our imagination to fill in this next item in the tragic chain of errors beginning with the fact that Yitzchok had shown more love for Esau. Ed.] at about the same time when Joseph was sold to Egypt at the suggestion of Yehudah who had proposed this instead of bringing him back to his father and had thereby bereaved his father, Yehudah reaped some of the fruit of his ill advised plans, in that the way was paved for him to be bereaved of two of his own sons in due course.

38.1. וירד יהודה מאת אחיו, Yehudah descended and turned from his brothers, etc. Our sages in Sotah 13 say that the brothers demoted him. Ibn Ezra says that anyone who comes from the northern part of the world to the South is considered as "descending." What he said is correct; it does not apply here, however, because then the Torah need not have added: "from his brothers." This clearly indicates that Yehudah's descent, i.e. demotion, was caused by his brothers. It also says: ויט עד איש, "he turned to a certain person, etc." Our sages are quite correct when they interpret the word וירד as a moral descent and the words ויט, etc., are integral to the verse.

ויהי בעת ההיא וירד יהודה, after Joseph had been sold. The fact that the Torah speaks of וירד, “he descended,” seems to imply that Dotan was situated at a much higher elevation than Adulam. According to a Midrash quoted by Rashi, the word וירד does not refer to a physical descent but to the brothers having demoted Yehudah from his role of their leader as they held him responsible for the debacle with Joseph. They had repented their part in the whole episode, and they accused Yehudah of not having been firm enough. Just as they had listened to him when he told them not to kill Joseph, they claimed that they would have listened to him if he had suggested that they should bring him back to their father. In Bereshit Rabbah 85,2 the whole paragraph commencing with וירד יהודה until the beginning of chapter 39 is considered as not relevant to the story, at least not at this point. Why then did the Torah insert this episode here thereby spoiling our concentration on what would happen to Joseph? According to Rabbi Eliezer the Torah wanted to create a conceptual link between one “descent,” and another “descent.” Rabbi Yochanan justifies the “interruption,” by linking one הכר נא “please identify!” to another הכר נא. Yehudah had deceived his father with these words, whereas Tamar reminded Yehudah that he had been deceived by her and that his assumption that she was a harlot who had become pregnant by her customer was totally unfounded.(compare 37,2 and 38,25 respectively)

ויהי בעת ההיא,,”It was at that time,” according to Rashi the reason why the Torah introduces this paragraph with these words is to tell us that Yehudah’s demotion from his position of leadership of the brothers and his moving away from them was because he had proposed the sale of Joseph to Egypt. Many commentators challenge Rashi’s commentary saying that 22 years elapsed from the sale of Joseph to Egypt to the eventual reunion of the family, seeing that Joseph was 17 when he was sold and 39 when the brothers and his father moved to Egypt. Seeing that only so few years had elapsed, how could Yehudah have married, sired 3 sons, married off two of them, and have married Tamar and become the father of Zerach and Peretz, and Peretz siring Chetzron and Chamul, all within such a short space of time? [seeing the last two grandsons of Yehudah are numbered among the seventy members of Yaakov’s familty who left Canaan for Egypt (46,12)? Ed] Ibn Ezra writes that what is related here occurred before the sale of Joseph, and that the story was interrupted in order to contrast the story of Yehudah and Tamar with that of Joseph and the wife of Potiphar. [how Joseph could control his libido, whereas Yehudah could not.]

In dieser Entfernung Judas von seinen Brüdern dürfen wir das Symptom einer Spannung oder Spaltung erkennen, die denn doch in Folge der an Josef verübten Tat unter den Brüdern entstanden, und sich am entschiedensten gegen Juda richtete, unter dessen, als des, wie es scheint, Einflußreichsten, Vorschlag und Leitung sich der traurige Vorgang vollzogen hatte. Schwer übrigens sehen wir das Unrecht in Judas eigenem Familienkreise gebüßt. Frau und Söhne starben, und was noch herber ist, die Söhne starben, weil sie vor Gottes Augen schlecht gewesen.

וירד יהודה, “Yehudah descended;” our sages explained that this choice of words by the Torah means that Yehudah’s brothers, who up until then had considered him as their leader and spokesman, demoted him on account of the sale of their brother Joseph and the anguish this had caused their father. (B’reshit Rabbah, 85,1) Ibn Ezra questioned this, seeing that only twenty two years elapsed between the sale of Joseph and the reunification of the brothers with him and the family’s moving to Egypt. We know that Joseph had been seventeen years old when he had been sold; we also know that he was thirty years old when he interpreted Pharaoh’s dream; we further know that the family descended to Egypt in the second year of the famine, i.e. nine years after Joseph had been appointed viceroy of Egypt. If you count the years from the time Yehudah got married to the daughter of the man described earlier until the descent of the whole family with Yehudah at their head more than twenty two years must have passed. If we count a year each for the time Yehudah’s wife was pregnant with each of her three sons, and add the years after Onan’s death during which Shelah grew to maturity, i.e. was old enough to get married, you already have accounted for 16 years. Add a year till Peretz could have been born and you have accounted for already 17 years. Even if you were to assume that Peretz was no more than 7 years old when he became the father of Chetzron and another year for the birth of his brother Chamul, all of whom are listed in Genesis chapter 46 as having come to Egypt with Yaakov and Yehudah, you already have accounted for 25 years not 22. One would have to say that when Shelah was described as having “grown” up, the Torah refers to his having become 9 years old, at which age it is possible to produce semen fit to sire a child. We can find support for this from the Talmud, tractate Niddah, folio 45, where the Mishnah discusses a nine year old who performed the levirate marriage ceremony on his sister-in-law whose husband had died without having had any children, that he cannot give such a sister-in-law a decree of divorce until he reaches the age of 13, as a minor cannot divorce his wife. Moreover, the original marriage of his deceased brother had been a marriage in the full sense of the word, and what he did was only to substitute for his deceased brother, so that any divorce cannot be less complete than that. According to an opinion quoted in the Talmud tractate Sanhedrin, folio 69, there were periods in former eras when seven year old males were able to impregnate females with their semen.

וירד יהודה מאת אחיו, “Yehudah separated from his brothers;” he could not bear watching the anguish of his father. Rashi here writes that the word וירד, which means: “he descended,” means that he had been deposed from his position of being the brothers’ spokesman and leader by the other brothers. He derives this from the expression: מאת, understanding the meaning of that word as being: על ידי, “through the action of;”You could well ask that seeing that it took only 22 years until the brothers under the leadership of Yehudah went down to Egypt in order to buy grain, how was it possible that during these few years not only did Bat Shua, Yehudah’s wife bear him three sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah, but that two of them had already become married? And a few years after the death of Onan, Yehudah sired twins from his daughterinlaw Tamar, all before the descent of the brothers to Egypt for the first time? The answer to such questions is that in those times girls and boys were able to both sire and conceive and give birth already at the age of seven. According to a historical text accepted by our sages as accurate and reliable, called seder olam, Er, Yehudah’s oldest was born approximately a year after the sale of Joseph. Bat Shua bore Yehudah two more sons in short order, before she died (verse 12). When Er was seven years old he married Tamar. When he died and married Onan, and Onan died, Shelah was still too young to marry. Tamar remained a widow in the house of Yehudah for a year before returning to her mother’s home. When two or three more years had passed and she was not allowed to marry Shelah, she took matters into her own hands and contrived to become pregnant from a member of Yaakov’s family, her dearest desire, i.e. she became pregnant by her fatherinlaw, Yehudah. All of this had only taken about 19 years after Yehudah had been deposed and moved away from his brothers. In the meantime, Peretz, one of the twins Tamar had born to Yehudah had married at the age of seven and had himself become a father of Chetzron and Chamul, (Genesis 46,12) all before Yaakov and his family moved down to Egypt after the brothers’ second trip there. By the time Chetzron and Chamul came to Egypt, only twenty two years had elapsed since the sale of Joseph.[While this is interesting, this Editor cannot reconcile it with G-d having punished both Er and Onan at the tender age of 7 or eight years, for having deliberately failed to produce children (38,7 and 10) Where is the source for the culpability of such young children anywhere? Ed.]

ויט AND HE TURNED away from his brothers.

ויט עד איש עדולמי, he pitched his tent and let his flock graze in the proximity of this town Adulam; eventually he struck up a friendship with the man חירם described in our verse.

Wenn übrigens Judas Vergehen mit Thamar einerseits auch hier ein Moment offenbart, welches dem sittigenden Einfluss des künftigen Gottesgesetzes vorbehalten blieb, so sehen wir doch eben gleichzeitig auch ihn nur in einer Monogamie leben, sehen ihn zu dieser Abirrung nur nach dem Tode seiner Frau kommen, und sehen endlich bereits vor der Gesetzgebung eine Institution durch die Sitte in Jakobs Hause geheiligt, die durch und durch auf dem sittlichsten Begriffe der Ehe und des Familienlebens zu beruhen scheint.

עד איש עדלמי UNTO A CERTAIN ADULLAMITE — he entered into a business-partnership with him.

Dass die Ehe ihren sittlichen Charakter nur in ihrem Endziel, der Erzeugung und Heranziehung der Kinder (פרו ורב) findet; dass eine Ehe, die dieses Ziel nicht erreicht, wesentlich in ihrem sittlichen Charakter getrübt erscheint; dass ferner der Begriff eines Familienkreises, d. i, eines Vaterhauses mit den ihm entstammenden Zweigen zusammen eine spezifische Individualität am Baume der Menschheit, eine charakteristisch einheitliche moralische Person dergestalt bilde, das alle in ihm und aus ihm entstehenden Häuser an dem Ausbau eines bestimmten Grundtypus menschlicher Geistigkeit und Gesittung gemeinschaftlich arbeiten, also, dass, wenn eine Ehe in eben diesem ihrem höchsten sittlichen Endzweck, dem Fortbau des Menschengeschlechtes in einer bestimmten durch die Familieneigentümlichkeit gegebenen Richtung, mit dem kinderlosen Tode eines Gliedes mangelhaft geblieben, dieser sittliche Charaktermangel der Ehe durch Fortsetzung derselben mit der hinterbliebenen Wittwe von einem der nächsten Familienglieder nachträglich ergänzt werden kann und soll: diese, den höchsten sittlichen Charakter der Ehe und die höchste sittliche Dignität der Familie aussprechenden Gedanken scheinen der großen Institution des Jibbum zu Grunde zu liegen, der wir schon hier, in dieser frühesten Zeit des Jakobshauses, in vollster Geltung begegnen. Obgleich Witwe des Verstorbenen, erscheint Thamar als die noch Angetraute des überlebenden Hauses (זיקה) und zwar in solcher Schärfe, dass ihr vermeintliches Vergehen (Raw Hirsch on Genesis 38: 24) als Ehebruch geahndet werden soll, in Beziehung zu einem nächsten Familiengliede aber so sehr das ursprünglich durch den Verstorbenen geknüpfte Eheband fortdauert, dass es zur Fortsetzung derselben keiner besonderen Anehelichung bedarf, sondern dieselbe sich einfach vollzieht: הבא על יבמתו בין בשוגג וכו׳ קנה Jebamoth 43 b.; ein Verhältnis, das zur gerechten Würdigung Thamars nicht unberücksichtigt bleiben dürfte. — Ob übrigens die Wurzel יבם ihre Grundbedeutung in der Lautverwandtschaft mit קום (vergl. z. B. קול יבל — יין יון גפן, —) findet, und demgemäß יַבֵם der Grundbedeutung nach so viel als קַיֵם, aufrecht halten, aufrichten, wäre — הקם זרע לאחיו — wollen wir nur als eine Möglichkeit berühren.

כנעני means A MERCHANT — (cf. Pesachim 50a and Zachariah 14:21).

A DAUGHTER OF A CERTAIN CANAANITE. [In translating “Canaanite,” Onkelos said “merchant.” That is to say, a merchantman who came to dwell in the land of Canaan for business reasons. His intent is to say that Jacob’s sons guarded themselves from marrying Canaanitish women, as Isaac and Abraham, their fathers, had commanded.¹⁰⁷Above, 28:1. 24:3. And thus did the Sages mention in the Gemara of Tractate Pesachim.¹⁰⁸Pesachim 50a. They took as wives women from Egypt, Ammon, Moab, and from the noble families of the children of Ishmael and the sons of Keturah. It is for this reason that Scripture singles out Shaul, the son of Simeon, as the son of a Canaanitish woman,¹⁰⁹Further, 46:10. as he was the only one among them. And even there the Rabbis expounded¹¹⁰Bereshith Rabbah 80:10. that the reference is to Dinah who had relations with a Canaanite [Shechem].
Our Rabbis, however, have differed in this matter. Thus they have said:¹¹¹Ibid., 84:19. “Rabbi Yehudah says, ‘Twin sisters were born with each of Jacob’s sons, and they took them as wives.’ Rabbi Nechemyah says, ‘Their wives were Canaanitish women.’” It is possible that Rabbi Nechemyah was not particular about [ the term “Canaanitish” and did not mean it to indicate] their genealogy. He meant to say only that they took women from the land of Canaan as wives. However, they were from among the strangers and the sojourners who had come there from all lands, either Ammonite or Moabite women, and other peoples. His purpose¹¹²Ramban is pointing out that Rabbi Nechemyah agrees with the Talmudic sages who said that Jacob’s sons did not marry Canaanitish women. See Note 108. was only to differ with Rabbi Yehudah and say that they did not marry their sisters, since a maternal sister is forbidden to the sons of Noah. But according to Rabbi Yehudah it will be necessary to say that the sons of Leah married the twin sisters of the six other brothers,¹¹³This is because “the sons of Noah” were forbidden to marry a maternal sister. Prior to the giving of the Torah on Sinai, our ancestors had the status of b’nei Noach (sons of Noah). Consequently they could marry a paternal sister but not a maternal sister. See Sanhedrin 58 a; Rambam, Hilchoth Melachim 9:5. and they in turn wed the twin sisters of the sons of Leah. It may be that Rabbi Nechemyah does not at all admit the existence of these twins, with Jacob not having any daughter other than Dinah, as the literal interpretation of Scripture would indicate.
It is not logically correct to say that they all married Canaanitish women since there would then have been descendants of Canaan, the accursed servant, among those who inherited the land, just as there were representatives of the seed of Abraham, and Scripture has commanded that he be destroyed until neither remnant nor survivor remain.
In any case,¹¹⁴I.e., whatever the correct opinion be in the matter discussed above. this man [the Canaanite referred to here] was a merchant, for why should Scripture find it necessary to state that he was a Canaanite by descent when all people of the land were Canaanites, of the Perizzites and Jebusites and their brothers, as all of these traced their genealogy to Canaan? Adullam, [from where this man came] furthermore, was in the land of Canaan.¹¹⁵In Joshua 12:15, the king of Adullam is mentioned among the kings of Canaan. Thus if the word “Canaanite” is to be understood literally, why should Scripture have even mentioned it? It would then have been proper for the verse to say: “And Judah took there a wife with such-and-such a name,” just as it mentions the names of the women in the case of Tamar, and Esau’s wives,¹¹⁶Above, 26:34. and others. But the true explanation is that he was a merchant, not of the land of Canaan, which belonged to the Hivite or the Amorite. This then is the meaning of the verse: And Judah saw there a daughter of a certain Canaanite, implying that he married her on account of her father.¹¹⁷This is implied in the expression, And he saw there, meaning that he saw a man there who was not of the regular community. The word “Canaanite” must therefore mean merchant, for they were all Canaanites, and if “Canaanite” were to refer to his genealogy it would not be significant enough to be mentioned. And concerning the verse which states, The sons of Judah: Er, and Onan, and Shelah; which three were born unto him of Bath-shua the Canaanitess,¹¹⁸I Chronicles 2:3. This would seem to indicate that she was indeed a Canaanitess. this is due to the fact that being the daughter of the man called “the Canaanite,” she was also so called, since this man was called “the merchant” by them as he was known for, and expert in, his trade, on account of which he settled there.
Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra says¹¹⁹In his commentary on Genesis 46:10. that because this woman was a Canaanitess, and Judah had transgressed the opinion of his fathers, her children were evil and they died. And this is why concerning Shaul,¹⁰⁹Further, 46:10. Scripture mentions only that he was the son of a Canaanitish woman, but with respect to Shelah the son of Judah it was not necessary for Scripture to mention it¹²⁰Since it is so stated in this present chapter. Shaul, on the other hand, was not mentioned above. Hence in mentioning the seventy souls, it states that he was of a Canaanitish woman (46:10). These are the words of Ibn Ezra, and Ramban now proceeds to comment upon them. [when enumerating the descendants of Jacob who entered Egypt].
If so,¹²¹If Judah, according to Ibn Ezra, went against the command of Abraham and Isaac. the expression, And Judah saw there a daughter, would mean that he saw her and desired her, even as it says of Samson, And he saw a woman in Timnah.¹²²Judges 14:1. And in the Parshah of Vayechi Yaakov, Rashi wrote: “And his sons bore him,¹²³Further, 50:13. but not his sons’ sons. For thus indeed did Jacob command them; ‘My bier shall not be borne by any of your sons since they are children of Canaanitish women.’”¹²⁴Now this text of Rashi would apparently contradict the opinion of Ibn Ezra who states that only Shaul the son of Simeon, and Shelah the son of Judah, were born of Canaanitish women. Ramban, however, proceeds to reconcile the position of Rashi with that of Ibn Ezra.
It may be that, according to Rashi, Jacob said this of Shaul the son of Simeon, and Shelah the son of Judah, who were of the daughters of Canaan, and therefore Jacob excluded all the other [grandsons although their mothers were not Canaanitish]. However, in all of our texts of Bereshith Rabbah¹²⁵Mentioned in Yalkut Shimoni 161. we find this version: “My bier shall not be borne by any of your sons’ sons, as there is among them of the daughters of Canaan.”¹²⁶The Midrash there concludes: “For it is said, And Shaul the son of a Canaanitish woman (46:10).” Thus it is clear from this Midrash that only Shaul was born of a Canaanitish woman, but not Shelah the son of Judah. Tamar likewise was the daughter of one of the strangers living in the land, not the daughter of a man who was a Canaanite by descent. Far be it that our lord David¹²⁷He was a descendant of Tamar and Judah through Peretz, who was the ancestor of David. See Ruth 4:15-22. and the Messiah our just one, who will speedily reveal himself to us, be of the seed of Canaan, the accursed servant. Our Rabbis have also said¹²⁸Bereshith Rabbah 85:11. concerning Tamar that she was the daughter of Shem, of whom it is said, And he was a priest of the most high G-d.¹²⁹Above, 14:18.

כנעני, a merchant, as per Onkelos. The word appears in that sense both in Isaiah 23,8 כנעניה נכבדי ארץ, “as its merchants, the land’s nobles.” The word כנעני also occurs in this sense in Hoseah 12,8 כנען בידו מאזני מרמה, “a trader who uses false weights.” The word cannot refer to the local Canaanite inhabitants as the sons of Yaakov were very careful not to intermarry with these people.

בת איש כנעני. the daughter of a Canaanite. The word "Canaanite" means a trader. Ibn Ezra writes that it is possible that the word Canaanite is to be understood in the usual way, i.e. a local inhabitant of the Canaanite tribes. I maintain that it is impossible to imagine that any of the sons of Jacob would intermarry with the Canaanites, something which their forefathers had so strenuously opposed, as pointed out specifically in Pessachim 50. The Torah was careful to say "the daughter of a Canaanite man," meaning that she herself was not a Canaanite woman. This is only possible if her father was a merchant, not an actual Canaanite. Had she been a Canaanite, Yehudah would have been guilty of a great misdemeanour by marrying her. If this had indeed been the case the Torah would have indicated it by writing "he married a Canaanite woman whose father was called Shua," or something similar. It would not even have required an additional word to inform us of that fact. The Torah should not have let us surmise that Yehudah married a Canaanite woman but should have spelled it out clearly.

בת איש כנעני, we do not know why the woman’s name has not been mentioned although the Torah revealed the name of her father. Her father was a merchant, a resident stranger, an export-import merchant, not a member of one of the local tribes. The sons of Yaakov were very careful in avoiding intermarriage with the local population, and when one of them did so, Shimon, his son Sha-ul is mentioned in a derogatory fashion as the “son of Canaanite” in 46,10. This critical comment on Shimon’s wife sets him apart from all of his brothers.

בת איש כנען, “daughter of a Canaanite named Shu’a.” Onkelos translates the word איש כנעני not as an ethnic description, but as the description given to “traders.” He wants to be sure that we know that none of the brothers married a Canaanite woman. This is the reason why the Torah singled out “Sha-ul, son of the Canaanite,” in 46,10 among the sons of Shimon as an exception. This subject has already been the subject of disagreement of Tannaim in the Mishnah, Rabbi Yehudah claiming that twin sisters had been born with all of the twelve brothers, enabling them to marry half sisters, whereas Rabbi Nechemyah holds that the brothers other than Joseph, married Canaanite women. Rabbi Yehudah is forced to have the brothers marry half sisters, something permitted to Israelites before the Torah was given, whereas according to Rabbi Nechemyah we would have to presume that all these twin sisters died before their husbands moved to Egypt, as otherwise, how come they are not included in the list of descendants of Yaakov who moved to Egypt? If we approach the subject logically, it is hard to understand how sons of Yaakov could marry women of a cursed nation such as the Canaanites. It is therefore most likely that Onkelos was correct in translating the word איש כנעני as “a prominent trader.” This would also account for the Torah writing ‘Yehudah saw there, etc.” Had this girl been an ethnic Canaanite, what was so special in Yehudah “seeing” her? They were a dime a dozen! She struck him as not belonging to the true inhabitants of that region. It is possible to understand Rabbi Nechemyah as not meaning that the brothers actually married ethnic Canaanites. He may only have wanted to dispute the opinion of Rabbi Yehudah that the brothers committed what was incest in terms of Torah legislation. Not only this, but half sisters from the same mother were also forbidden even before the Torah was given. There is little doubt that among the inhabitants of the land of Canaan there were also a minority of Moabites and Ammonites who did not belong to descendants of Canaan who had been cursed. Ibn Ezra writes that the reason Yehudah had sons who were not loyal to their father and grandfather’s tradition was that he had married a Canaanite, and that this was the reason they died so young. This was also the reason the Torah criticized Shimon for having sired Sha-ul from a Canaanite mother [not necessarily his wife, Ed.]. If not for this reason, why would the Torah have singled out the maternity of Sha-ul as the only one of Yaakov’s grandchildren? According to the approach of Ibn Ezra, we would have to understand the line: “Yehudah saw there the daughter of a prominent Canaanite, etc.,” as Yehudah taking an instant liking to that woman, much as Shimshon took an instant liking to the Philistine woman in Judges 14,1 something described by the prophet Samuel as “Shimshon descended to Timnatah, where he saw a woman of the daughters of the Philistines, etc.” According to Rashi’s commentary on Genesis 50,13 וישאו אותו בניו , that “Yaakov’s sons carried his bier,” the absence of mention of Yaakov’s grandsons as pall bearers is due to Yaakov having forbidden Egyptians to be pall bearers as well as his grandsons, seeing they had been born of Canaanite mothers. He had referred at least to Shelah son of Yehudah and a Canaanite, and Shau-l son of Shimon and a Canaanite. In order not to slight these grandsons, he precluded all of them from being his pall bearers. [Tanchumah on Numbers12 explains why also Joseph and Levi were excluded from that task. Ed.]

בת איש כנעני , “the daughter of a Canaanite man of distinction.” According to Onkelos the word כנעני in this instance refers to a merchant, a trader. Yehudah was certainly true to the tradition of his fathers not to marry girls of Canaanite descent. The respective wives of all the brothers may be presumed to have been of Egyptian descent or of Moabite and Ammonite descent respectively, neighboring peoples who were not from Canaanitic stock. The brothers may also have married descendants of Ishmael or Keturah, Avraham’s second wife who had born him six sons. This is the reason that we are told in 46,10 amongst the list of sons of Shimon that there was someone who is described as שאול בן הכנענית, “Saul the son of a Canaanite woman.” Even when the Torah was so explicit, our sages (Bereshit Rabbah 80:11) still explained that that woman was not a true Canaanite, claiming that the “Canaanite woman” was none other than Dinah who had been raped by a Canaanite and that Shimon had married her and had adopted the son she bore as a result of this rape.

A merchant. You might ask: How does Rashi know that this term refers to a merchant? Perhaps Shua was an actual Canaanite. The answer is: Avraham did not want to give Yitzchok a Canaanite wife, and also Yitzchok commanded Yaakov not to marry one, so Yaakov’s sons surely would not [marry a Canaanite] either. But you might object: Rashi explained on 37:35, “R. Nechemiah says: ‘They [Yaakov’s daughters-in-law] were Canaanites,’” implying the sons did marry Canaanites. The answer is: Men from a different nation took Canaanite women and begat daughters, [whom Yaakov’s sons married], for these daughters were not [true] Canaanites because the lineage follows the father. But here it cannot be explained so, since it is written, “The daughter of a Canaanite man,” implying that the father was Canaanite.

בת שוע, איש כנעני, “Bat Shua, daughter of a merchant. She was not a Canaanite, as the sons of Yaakov would not marry women of this nation.

ויקחה, he first legally married her before having marital relations with her, i.e. ויבא אליה.

ער ואונן, some commentators trace the origin of these names to ערירי and אנינות, “childlessness, and pre burial state of mourning.” They had been named so, out of deference to Yaakov’s painful memories of the son he presumed lost. Nachmanides explains that Yehudah called his son ער, as a symbol of awakening, עוררה, whereas his wife called the second son אונן, and the Torah did not bother to inform us why either son was named as he was. It is possible that the wife of Yehudah had a difficult birth with her second son, just as Rachel called her second son by a name that reflected the pains she experienced in order to give birth to him. The word is closely related to the word מתאוננים in Numbers 11,1, where it describes deep frustration of the people and deep dissatisfaction. Yehudah, unlike his father Yaakov, did not bother to change the name his wife had given to their son. According to Bereshit Rabbah 85,4 the name ער foreshadows that the boy would be “poured out from the world,” הוער, whereas the name אונן foreshadows that this child would bring sorrow and mourning upon himself, i.e. אנינה.

ויקחיה, he married her, etc. He performed all the necessary legal requirements for marriage.

וירא, it appears that she was very attractive physically and therefore appeared to him as an appropriate mate.

AND HE CALLED HIS NAME ER. Judah called his son Er, said name being derived from the expression, Stir up (‘Or’rah’) Thy might.¹³⁰Psalms 80:3. His wife called the name of the second son Onan,¹³¹A word which suggests grief and mourning. Ramban makes the point that the name Judah chose for his son can easily be surmised, as it suggests strength. But why his wife should choose a name like “Onan” is not indicated. but Scripture does not relate the reason for this name. Now it is possible that she experienced difficult labor, for it is customary for women to name their children after such an experience, as did the mother of Jabez who so named him, saying: Because I bore him with pain.¹³²I Chronicles 4:9. The name “Yavetz” contains the Hebrew letters of atzev (pain). And so did Atarah, the mother of Onam,¹³³Ibid., 2:26. [call him by the name Onam on account of her difficult labor], the name being derived from the expression, And the people were ‘k’mithon’nim’ (as murmurers);¹³⁴Numbers 11:1. Wherefore doth a living man ‘yithonen’ (complain)?¹³⁵Lamentations 3:39. This is similar in expression to ben oni (the son of my sorrow)¹³⁶Above, 35:18. mentioned in the case of Rachel. Judah was not particular about changing Onan’s name as his father Jacob had done.¹³⁶Above, 35:18.
In Bereshith Rabbah¹³⁷85:5. our Rabbis said, by way of explaining the name Er, that he was destined to be thrown off (she’hu’ar) from the world.¹³⁸Since, as Scripture relates, he died on account of his sin. (Verse 7, and see Ramban there.) Now this is not to say that such was Judah’s intent. However, the Rabbis made their exposition since the names indicate the future.

ותהר ותלד, Yehudah named the first son, whereas his wife named the second son. This appears to have been the custom at that time. The third son actually should have been named by Yehudah again, but seeing that Yehudah was in Keziv at the time of his birth, Yehudah’s wife named him. This is why the Torah explains the departure from the norm by writing of Yehudah that he was in Keziv.

והיה בכזיב AND HE WAS AT CHEZIB — the name of a place. I am of opinion that it was called Chezib because there she ceased bearing. This meaning of the word occurs in (Jeremiah 15:18) “wilt thou indeed be unto me as an (אכזב) a deceiver (one who ceases to keep faith)”, and (Isaiah 58:11) “whose waters do not (יכזבו) fail (cease)". For if this be not so (that it was called Chezib for the reason stated) what is it intended to tell us (what reason is there for telling us where he was at that time)? In Genesis Rabbah (Genesis Rabbah 55:4) I found the following ‘ותקרא את שמו שלה וגו AND SHE CALLED HIS NAME SHELAH [AND HE WAS AT CHEZIB] etc. — פסקת “ceasing”.

AND SHE CALLED HIS NAME SHELAH, AND HE [Judah] WAS AT CHEZIB, WHEN SHE BORE HIM. Rashi wrote: “I am of the opinion that because it was there that she ceased bearing children, the place was called Chezib (deceit). It is similar in expression to the verse, Wilt thou indeed be unto me as a deceitful (‘achzav’) brook.¹³⁹Jeremiah 15:18. If this be not so, what is the verse teaching us by mentioning that Judah was in Chezib?”
Now I do not know why a place should be named for that reason, [i.e., because there she ceased bearing children], there being nothing outstanding in such an event as three sons were sufficient for her.¹⁴⁰Had she been barren that would be a tragedy of some significance. Moreover, at the time she gave birth to the third son it was not yet known whether she had ceased bearing or would give birth afterwards. Only at the time of her demise did it become established [that she had ceased bearing with the third son].¹⁴¹Why then would the place have been called Chezib at the time she gave birth to the third son?
Now some scholars¹⁴²R’dak in his commentary. Also in Da’ath Z’keinim ba’alei Tosafoth. say that it was their custom for the father to name the firstborn, and the mother the second one. It is for this reason that Scripture states concerning the first son, And he called his name,¹⁴³Verse 3 here. and concerning the second one, And she called.¹⁴⁴Verse 4 here. Now concerning the third son, [the naming of whom was the father’s prerogative, Scripture nevertheless] says, And she called, explaining that this was because Judah was in Chezib when she gave birth to him, and he was not there to name him. This interpretation lacks rhyme or reason.
In the opinion of Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra Scripture relates where they were born; the statement, when she bore ‘him,’ is as if it had said ‘them,’ as all three sons were born in one place.
In my opinion, the name Shelah is an expression meaning a thing which stops and deceives. Thus, do not ‘thashleh’ (deceive) me,¹⁴⁵II Kings 4:28. which the Targum there renders as, “Let not your word deceive your handmaid.” Perhaps it is related to the concept of error, for he who commits an error deceives his thinking. Thus Scripture is saying that she called him Shelah, [a word which is traceable to the root of the Hebrew word meaning ‘error,’] because of the name of the place, as he was in Chezib — [a word which means ‘deceive’] — when she bore him. And [the word v’hayah (and he was), although it should really be saying, v’haytha, (and she was), is identical with the expression ‘V’hayah hana’arah’ (And the damsel shall be).¹⁴⁶Above, 24:14. There, too, it should be saying, v’haytha hana’arah in the feminine, except that the word v’haya does not refer to na’arah but to the event itself and is therefore to be understood as: “And it shall come to pass that the damsel, etc.” Here, likewise, it is to be so understood. This is the intent of the saying of the Rabbis in Bereshith Rabbah:¹³⁷85:5. “Paskath was the name of the place.”¹⁴⁷This contradicts the opinion of Rashi, who maintains that it was the mother who named the place Chezib because she ceased bearing children.

והיה בכזיב, Yehudah was at that location and that is where the child was born.

והיה בכזיב, the reason why she called their third son Shelah, a word reminiscent of Kings II 4,28 (לא) תשלה, “(do not) deceive, disappoint, disillusion,” a name which is not exactly complimentary to the bearer of it, was due to Yehudah being in כזיב, i.e. a reference to his being absent, so that she did not have this moral support when she began the labour pains prior to giving birth to her third son. [I am not sure if the author understood the Torah as using to the word כזיב to describe Yehudah’s state of mind, and that there was no such place at all. Ed.] Had he been there, he would never have agreed to the name she gave his son.

ותוסף עוד ותלד בן ותקרא שמו שלה, “She continued to give birth to another child whom she named Shelah.” I find it peculiar that on this occasion the Torah does not mention Bat Shua’s pregnancy before mentioning that she gave birth. Perhaps we may explain this as her having become pregnant with two children at the time she conceived Onan, and that there was an interval between Onan’s birth and Shelah’s birth. This could be borne out by the wording of the verse that refers to the birth of Shelah as an “additional” birth. This would also explain the Torah speaking about Yehudah being in כזיב, The word is understood as describing “interval, interruption,” as in Isaiah 58,11 אשר לא יכזבו מימיו ‘whose waters will flow without interruption.” [how does the author explain Yehudah asking Tamar to wait until Shelah grows up before giving her to him as a wife? Ed.] In other words, Yehudah separated from Bat Shua for some time after the birth of Onan. The Torah would then be telling us that in spite of Yehudah having separated from Bat Shua after the birth of Onan, she bore him another son, something that he had not expected. According to the author, Yehudah’s stalling Tamar was only that, an excuse not to have a third son marry the same woman whose two husbands had already died.

ותקרא את שמו שלה והיה בכזיב בלדתה אותו, “she called his name Shelah, as he (her husband) was in a place called Keziv at the time when she gave birth to him.” (standard explanation) The expression “shelah” and “keziv,” are identical in meaning. They appear in connection with inability to give birth, such as in Kings II 4,16 when the woman from Shunem being promised by the prophet Elisha that she would give birth to a son tells him not raise false hopes as she knew she was past the age when this was possible. The words she used were אל תכזב. When she upbraided the prophet after the son she did bear had died before growing up, she reminded him of what she had said then and used the verb שלה. (verse 28 in the same chapter) The word כזב meaning interruption in the sense of termination, also occurs in Isaiah 58,11: וכמוצא מים אשר לא יכזבו, “like a spring whose waters do not fail.” According to this, the name shelah indicated that his mother knew she would not bear any more children. [This leaves the question of why the masculine והיה, “he was,” is used in our verse Ed.] My teacher told me that כזיב is the place of a town or village. It was customary in those days that mother and father named their children alternately. The father would name the firstborn, so that it would have been Yehudah’s turn to name the son born third. Seeing that he was not at home when this son was born, the mother decided to name him instead. This is why the Torah explains why Yehudah had not named Shelah.

והיה יהודה בכזיב בלדתו אותו, “and Yehudah had been in Keziv (Achziv, according to Atlas Carta) when she gave birth to him.” (about 20 km north of Akko). This was the reason she named this son Sheylah; had Yehudah, the father been present at his birth, he would have named him. Rashi, commenting on this verse states that he has seen a comment in B’reshit Rabbah, according to which the name Sheylah means that Bat Shua announced that her pregnancy had come to an end. The word could be a reference to her being disappointed about her husband’s absence while she gave birth. Compare what the woman from Shunem had said (אל תשלה אותי) to Elisha when promised she would have a son, i.e. and the son had died (Kings II 4,28).

והיה בכגזיב בלדתה אותו, “while he was in Keziv when she gave birth to him.” According to Rashi the location was called Keziv because this was where Bat Shua stopped bearing children. Nachmanides queries this, wanting to know why a place would be named to mark such a non-event. Furthermore, who knew at the time when Onan was born that his mother would not have any more children? No one knew this until after Bat Shua died. Some commentators say that seeing Yehudah had named his first son, his wife had named his second son. This was an accepted custom in those days. It would have been Yehudah’s turn to name the third child. The Torah explains the fact that he did not do so, by mentioning that he was in a different place at the time Bat Shua gave birth Nachmanides writes also that the meaning of the word כזיב indicates some disruption. The translation of לא תשלה by the Targum is also לא תכזב, “do not err in your prediction, i.e. do not deceive by being wrong.” (compare Kings II 4,28) Bat Shua giving birth in the absence of her husband was a mistake on Yehudah’s part, he should have been at her side.

רע בעיני ה' WAS WICKED IN THE EYES OF THE LORD — like the wickedness of Onan, and committing the same sin. This must have been the case because of Onan it is said, (v. 10) “And the Lord slew him also — Onan’s death was for a similar reason as Er’s death. Why did Er commit this sin? So that she should not bear children and her beauty thereby become impaired (Yevamot 34b).

AND ER, JUDAH’s FIRSTBORN, WAS WICKED IN THE SIGHT OF THE ETERNAL. Scripture does not specify the nature of his wickedness as it did in the case of his brother.¹⁴⁸Verse 9 here. Instead, it simply states that he died for his own sin. It informs us that this was not by way of punishment of Judah for his role in the sale of Joseph, since the saving of Joseph’s life by Judah compensated for his role in the sale. There was no case of death of a child in the house of the patriarchs except this one who was wicked in the sight of the Eternal, since the race of the righteous is blessed. This is why Jacob mourned many days for his son Joseph, and he refused to comfort himself,¹⁴⁹Above, 37:34-35. for he considered this to be a great punishment to himself, quite apart from his love for him.

ויהי ער רע בעיני ה', the words “in the eyes of G’d,” are mentioned to tell us that he was not evil to his fellow human beings.

'רע בעיני ה, the addition of the words “in the eyes of G’d,” is needed, seeing that no one else was aware of Er’s sin, something committed in the privacy of the bedroom. Our sages in Yevamot 34 said that the reason why Er ejaculated outside his wife’s vagina was in order for her to retain her beauty and not become pregnant.

ויהי ער רע בעיני ה' וימתיהו ה', “Er was wicked in the eyes of the Lord and He killed him.” Some scholars ask how it is possible that someone as young in years as Er could be held responsible for his deeds by the Heavenly tribunal, which supposedly does not judge anyone under 20 years of age. The forced answer given to this question is that if a youngster is intellectually developed to the level of a 20 year old, he is held responsible in spite of his being a minor in terms of years. According to what I have written earlier, about Yehudah having separated from his brothers and married prior to the sale of Joseph, it is quite possible that Er was 20 years old at the time of his death. Nachmanides draws attention to the fact that the Torah did not spell out Er’s sin, even though we have been told about Onan’s sin. Presumably, the words: “he was wicked in the eyes of the Lord and He killed him,” mean that he died on account of his own personal sin, and not as a punishment for Yehudah for his having sold Joseph. Yehudah was saved from his penalty for having saved Joseph’s life by the very act of selling him. Among all the families of the patriarchs the only one who had to bury his children was Yehudah.

Why did Er waste his seed? However, it is understood why Onan wasted his [seed], as the verse explains: the son is called by the name of his deceased brother, and Onan did not want to do this.

וימיתהו, “He killed him.” The sin was that he did not sleep with his wife in such a way that she could become pregnant with his semen. Tamar had remained a virgin even after having been married to Onan, so that Yehudah was not guilty of sleeping with a close relative whose previous marriage had been consummated, so that she would have been forbidden to him on that score. Our author, at this point raises the same question this Editor had raised at the end of 38,1, i.e. that they should not have been culpable until the age of 20.

והקם זרע AND RAISE SEED — The son will be called by the name of him who is dead.

AND MARRY HER AS BROTHER-IN-LAW, AND RAISE SEED TO THY BROTHER. The son will be called by the name of the deceased. This is Rashi’s language.
But this is not true, for in the same commandment of the Torah it likewise says, And it shall be, that the firstborn that she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother that is dead, that his name be not blotted out of Israel,¹⁵⁰Deuteronomy 25:6. and yet the brother-in-law is not commanded to call his son by the name of his dead brother.¹⁵¹Yebamoth 24a. In the case of Boaz it says, Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Machlon, have I acquired to be my wife, to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren, and from the gate of his place,¹⁵²Ruth 4:10. and yet she called him Obed,¹⁵³Ibid., Verse 21. not Machlon. Moreover, it says here, And Onan knew that the seed would not be his.¹⁵⁴Verse 9 here. Now what misfortune would have befallen him — to the point that he wasted his seed from before her — if his son was to be called by the name of his dead brother? Most people even desire to do so. Again, Scripture does not say, “And Onan said,” but instead it says, And Onan ‘knew’ that the seed would not be his.¹⁵⁴Verse 9 here. This would indicate that Onan had some definite kind of knowledge in this matter which made him certain that the seed would not be his.¹⁵⁴Verse 9 here.
The subject is indeed one of the great secrets of the Torah,¹⁵⁵Ramban here hints to the mystic doctrine of the transmigration of souls. Onan “knew” that when he married his brother’s wife his brother’s soul would become incarnate in his son. Therefore Onan did not consider the child to be his own. See my Hebrew commentary, pp. 214-5. concerning human reproduction, and it is evident to those observers who have eyes to see, and ears to hear.¹⁵⁶Deuteronomy 29:3. The ancient wise men who were prior to the Torah knew of the great benefit in marrying a childless dead brother’s wife, and that it was proper for the brother to take precedence in the matter, and upon his failure to do so, his next of kin would come after him, for any kinsman who was related to him, who would inherit his legacy, would derive a benefit from such a marriage. And it was customary for the dead man’s wife to be wed by the brother or father or the next of kin in the family. We do not know whether this was an ancient custom preceding Judah’s era. In Bereshith Rabbah¹⁵⁷85:6. they say that Judah was the one who inaugurated the commandment of marrying a childless person’s widow, for since he had received the secret¹⁵⁵Ramban here hints to the mystic doctrine of the transmigration of souls. Onan “knew” that when he married his brother’s wife his brother’s soul would become incarnate in his son. Therefore Onan did not consider the child to be his own. See my Hebrew commentary, pp. 214-5. from his ancestors he was quick to fulfill it. Now when the Torah came and prohibited marrying former wives of certain relatives, it was the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, to abrogate the prohibition against marrying a brother’s wife in case he dies childless, but it was not His will that the prohibition against marrying a father’s brother’s wife or a son’s wife or similar wives of relatives be set aside. It was only in the case of a brother that the custom had established itself,¹⁵⁸Prior to the giving of the Torah. and the benefit is likely with him and not with the others,¹⁵⁹Ramban’s intent is that when two brothers come from one father, the soul of the dead one finds closer identification with the child that his brother will beget rather than with that of any of the other relatives. (Abarbanel; see my Hebrew commentary, p. 215). as I have mentioned. Now it was considered a matter of great cruelty when a brother did not want to marry his dead brother’s wife, and they would call it the house of him that had his shoe loosed,¹⁶⁰Deuteronomy 25:10. for [after his dead brother’s wife had performed Chalitzah (the loosening of the shoe) of the brother-in-law], he¹⁶¹The soul of the dead brother. The Cabala has considered the subject of Chalitzah, as one of profound mystery. was now removed from them, and it is fitting that this commandment be fulfilled through the loosening of the shoe. Now the ancient wise men of Israel, having knowledge of this important matter, established it as a custom to be practised among all those inheriting the legacy, providing there is no prohibition against the marriage, and they called it Ge’ulah (Redemption).¹⁶²Ruth 4:7. This was the matter concerning Boaz, and the meaning of the words of Naomi and the women neighbors.¹⁶³Reference is to what the neighbors said; There is a son born to Naomi (Ruth 4:17), meaning that she was thereby given back the son Machlon whom she had lost. This explains why the women did not say, “There is a son born to Ruth or Boaz.” The man of insight¹⁶⁴A term denoting the student of the Cabala, the mystic doctrine of the Torah. will understand.

ויבם אותה, it appears that the practice of the levirate marriage, yibbum, was something accepted long before the Torah was given to the Jewish people.

ויבם אותה, “and perform a levirate marriage with her.” According to Nachmanides this was an accepted custom in earlier times, long before the Torah had been given when it was legislated to perform such levirate marriages and the scope of who was qualified to enter into such levirate marriages was greatly reduced at that time. The Torah made an exception in the laws of incest, permitting a brother to marry the widow of another brother who had died without offspring, although there was an overriding law not to marry the one time wife of a brother under all other circumstances.

The son will be called by the name of the one who is dead. Nachalas Yaakov extensively contradicts Ramban and Re’m, [who explain that the son would literally be named after the deceased]; see there. Nachalas Yaakov rather explains that calling the son after the deceased means that it is considered as if the deceased were his father. That is why the verse says, “Establish seed for your brother,” and not, “Establish a name for your brother,” for the name is not the issue. See there.

ויבם אותה, “he performed a levirate marriage ceremony on her.” This is one of the expressions which can be used positively as well as negatively, i.e. constructively and destructively. Other expressions that are similar are;,פארות, תפאר or מסעף פארה, בסעיפות קננו, in this instance it means he lifted marriage restrictions from her so that she could remarry. The same applies to the expression: ויבמה, “he preformed the levirate ritual of marriage for her.”

ושחת ארצה AND HE DESTROYED ONTO THE GROUND — He 'threshed inside and winnowed outside' (Genesis Rabbah 85:5).

כי לא לו יהיה הזרע, people in those days were extremely fussy about this point.

כי לא לו יהיה הזרע, he knew that not he alone would get the credit for performing this act of love for his deceased brother, seeing that part of the merit would go to his older brother seeing he had first fulfilled the commandment of marrying, so that he would share in the merit of having a son sired posthumously through a levirate union with his widow by his younger brother. [I fail to understand how someone who married in order to use sex only as an act of self-gratification can be described as having acquired a merit by the act of marrying. Perhaps gratifying the sex urge only with someone to whom one is married is by itself a מצוה, and this is what Seforno had in mind. Ed.]

וידע אונן, he realised this only when his father said to him that it was his task to see that his brother’s seed would be perpetuated.

וידע אונן, “Onan realised;” [the author’s problem with this expression is that the term ידע, normally refers to something in the past which was known as a fact. Ed.] The author quotes הידוע נדע, “how were we to know,” in Genesis 43,7 as proof that the term can also be used here.

נתן זרע, the vowel kametz here is in fact a chataf kametz, as every word spelled plene, i.e. with the vowel cholem as the letter ו when it appears in construct form such as here has this vowel shortened to a chataf kametz. The result is that the stress will be on the on the last syllable, whereas the word following immediately afterwards will have its stress on the first syllable. In effect this makes the words נתן זרע in our verse as if they had been connected by the hyphen, makkif. Other examples of similar constructions are Psalms 145,8 ארך אפים וגדל חסד [where the word גדל is a shortened version of גדול with the ו as the vowel cholem. Ed.] Another example is found in Exodus 21,11 ואם שלש אלה לא יעשה לה, “if he will do none of these three things for her, etc.” Yet another such construction is found in Numbers 35,14 אבל את שלש הערים, “however the three cities, etc.”

לבלתי נתן זרע לאחיו, for not having given his seed for the use (perpetuation on earth) of his deceased brother.

ושחת ארצה, he ejaculated outside her vagina, just as we explained in connection with Er.

כי לא לו יהיה הזרע, “for the child would not be named after him;” according to the plain meaning of the text, זרע is used with the production of a crop in the field, not a human being.'והיה אם בא וגו, “and whenever he would engage in marital relations, etc;” he reasoned that if he were to impregnate his wife (the widow of his brother) the result would be that he would at the same time destroy his own ancestral share of the land. For who would then do the plowing and all the other work needed to be performed in the field?

לבלתי נתן זרע לאחיו, “not to provide semen for his brother;” we find similar considerations in the Book of Ruth 4,6 when a potential redeemer declined to perform a levirate marriage with Ruth;” [as the latter had not been a Jewess, and a Moabite even, his consideration was not sinful. Ed.] Besides, there was another redeemer willing and anxious to perform such a ritual for her.

גם אותו. According to our sages Er also died for this same type of sin, as he deliberately wasted his semen by ejaculating prematurely to prevent his wife from becoming pregnant. He wanted to preserve her physical beauty.

גם אותו, both brothers had been guilty of the same sin.

וימת גם אותו, “He killed him also.” The word גם is proof that Er and Onan died for the same sin. Our sages in Yevamot 34 say that it is easy to understand why Onan should have died for this sin seeing he had violated his father’s instructions to marry Tamar and to have children by her (verse 8). He thought that these children would not be accounted as his own but as his deceased brother’s Er, hence he deliberately wasted his semen. The question is why did Er act in such a fashion? Why did he not want children? The Talmud answers that he did not want Tamar to become disfigured through a pregnancy. He wanted to preserve her beauty, i.e. to treat her as a sex object rather than as the mother of his children. This explains why Yehudah had stressed to Onan (verse 8) “and maintain seed for your brother.” Seeing that Yehudah did not add the word המת, “the deceased,” when instructing Onan to have children with Tamar, Onan realised that when Tamar would have children these would not even be considered as his children but as his late brother’s. In other words, he would not even be compensated for Tamar losing her youthful beauty.
The meaning of the letter ל in the word לאחיך in verse 8 may be understood as similar to אמרי לי אחי הוא, “say concerning me he is my brother” (Genesis 20,13). The verse teaches us the lesson that if someone deliberately wastes his semen, i.e. שחת ארצה, this was the sin of the generation which perished during the deluge. We find the word כי השחית כל בשר על הארץ in connection with that generation, i.e. the same word as we find describing Onan’s sin (Nidah 12). The reason the Torah calls the firstborn of Yehudah ער was because these letters are the same as רע, “evil” in G’d’s eyes [same letters in a different sequence. Ed.] Seeing the Torah mentions the word רע in connection with both Er, Onan, and the people of Sodom (Genesis 13,13), it stands to reason that all of these people were guilty of the sin of letting their semen go to waste deliberately.

‘כי אמר וגו FOR HE SAID etc. — that is to say, he pushed her off with a straw (i.e., he put her off with a lame excuse) because he never intended to give her to him in marriage

ABIDE A WIDOW AT THY FATHER’s HOUSE. The meaning thereof is that “you should conduct yourself there as a widow until Shelah be grown up.” He suggested to her: “Place yourself in mourning, put on mourning garments, do not anoint yourself with oil, as a woman girded with sack-cloth for the bridegroom of her youth,¹⁶⁵Joel 1:8. until Shelah be grown up and he will marry you.” Such was the custom of a widow waiting to be married: she who desires to be married to a stranger wears mourning garments only for a short period as is the custom, and then feigning comfort arrays herself in scarlet. And she covered herself with a veil,¹⁶⁶Verse 14 here. Ramban thus interprets the verse; And she removed the garments of her widowhood, and covered herself with a veil, as an indication that she was no longer mourning. See Ramban further, Verse 16. until she be married to a man.

שבי אלמנה, wait for a while in a state of widowhood. This expression also occurs in Hoseah 3,3 ימים רבים תשבי לי, “you will have to go a long time without marrying.”

ויאמר... כי אמר פן ימות גם הוא כאחיו, in commenting on Yehudah’s reasoning, Bereshit Rabbah 85.5 quotes Rabbi Eleazar as saying [Rashi’s interpretation of his statement, Ed.] that although the Torah has enjoined us לא תנחשו, (Leviticus 19,26) not to be superstitious as for instance to allow a black cat crossing our path to determine our actions, there is such a thing as a סימן, a “hint from a higher domain,” to heed which is not idolatrous. Such a “hint” would be a catastrophe of the same kind three times repeated. This is what Yehudah was afraid of.

שבי אלמנה בית אביך, “dwell as a widow in your father’s home, etc.” This was a rejection of Tamar as Shelah’s future wife; Yehudah had no intention of ever letting Shelah marry Tamar. Nachmanides writes that he does not understand why Yehudah had to reject her in such a round about fashion; he could have simply told her to go home and feel free to marry anyone else. Furthermore, seeing that Yehudah was so concerned about Tamar having had sexual relations with someone that he was prepared to convict her of death by burning, clearly he did expect her to marry Shelah, why else maintain the fiction that she was a levirate wife in limbo, and as such forbidden to be intimate with any other man? Moreover, it is most unlikely that Yehudah had not heard that the cause of his sons dying was not Tamar but their own sins. I believe therefore, that Shelah was perfectly suitable to be the husband of Tamar in a levirate marriage, but his father did not want him to marry Tamar while he was still young, (immature) so that he would not commit a sin similar to those committed by his brothers. They died in their youth precisely because they were too immature, neither of them being even 12 years of age. When Shelah would reach maturity and therefore be obedient to his father’s moral and ethical instructions, he would be quite prepared to have him marry Tamar. At the time of Onan’s death, he was not even 10 years old. Tamar, who was older and had an active libido, deserved to be remarried sooner, and when Yehudah did not give him to her she interpreted this as an outright refusal, not a temporary one.

עד יגדל שלה בני, “until my son Shelah becomes of age.” Seeing there was no brother older than Shelah for Tamar to marry, she would have to wait until Shelah was old enough. Had Shelah been of marriageable age already, Yehudah would not have asked Tamar to wait. This verse [the problems caused by Yehudah delaying the levirate marriage of Shelah, Ed.] prompted our sages in Yevamot 39 to say that if a brother evaded performing the levirate union until a younger, under-aged brother had come of age and would perform it in his stead, or if an older brother was overseas and a brother who was present wanted to wait until his older brother returns from overseas and marries this widow, that one does not accept such arguments. The brother who is present and of age must either perform the levirate marriage or release the widow by performing the rite of חליצה, the act of releasing her to marry an outsider, so hat she can get on with her life. In Ruth 1,11 Naomi says to her daughters-in-law: “turn back, my daughters! Why should you go with me? I am too old to be married. Even if I were to be married tonight and I also bore sons, should you wait for them till they grow up?” This suggests that there might be a point in waiting under less extreme circumstances. There are those who hold that Naomi meant that if she had been pregnant at the time she uttered these words she would have encouraged her daughters-in-law to wait till such sons had been old enough to marry. However, people who think along those lines are quite wrong. The Torah in Deut. 25,1 introduces the whole subject of the levirate marriage with the words כי ישבו אחים יחדיו, which the Talmud in Yevamot 17 interprets to mean ”when the brothers concerned are alive at the same time.” In other words, no unborn brother can qualify for observing this legislation for a brother who had died before he was born.

Meaning, he pushed her off with a straw... Rashi is answering the question: Is the verse not self-contradictory? First it is written עד יגדל שלה בני, implying Yehudah intended to give her to Sheilah. Then it is written כי אמר פן ימות, implying Yehudah did not want to do so. Furthermore, when it says כי, how is this a reason for the preceding? If she is a woman whose husbands die, how could Yehudah give her to Sheilah when he comes of age? Therefore Rashi explains that Yehudah offered a pretense when he said עד יגדל שלה בני, for he did not intend that Sheilah should marry her. And when it says כי אמר פן ימות, this is giving the reason for [the verse’s implied statement] why he did not intend for them to marry.

; כי אמר פן ימות , “for he had said (to himself) ‘”lest he die too;”On this line Rashi comments that Yehudah felt that Tamar was one of those women who has a tendency to bring about the death of her husbands. We have a statement to this effect in the Talmud Yevamot 64 as well as in Ketuvot 43, that if two husbands of a woman have died, one risks one’s life if one marries her. Even according to the opinion that such conclusions cannot be drawn unless the same woman had lost three husbands, Yehudah was afraid for the life of his son. The Talmud forbids a potential suitor to marry a woman with such a record.

כי אמר פן ימות FOR HE SAID LEST PERADVENTURE HE DIE — She is a woman of whom it may be presumed that the men she marries will always die young (Genesis Rabbah 85:5).

FOR HE SAID, LEST HE ALSO DIE, LIKE HIS BRETHREN. That is to say, he dismissed her with a paltry reply because he never intended to give her to him in marriage. For he said, Lest he also die, like his brethren, for she has established herself as one whose husbands die young. This is Rashi’s Language.
Now I do not know why Judah, a ruler of his generation, should be shy towards this woman and not tell her, “Go in peace from my house,” and why should he mislead her when she is even forbidden to Shelah, just as the Rabbis have said concerning a married woman:¹⁶⁷Kethuboth 43:2. “Twice establishes a presumption [that the woman is a katlanith — a woman whose husbands die].” However since Judah was angered by her harlotry to the extent of condemning her to be burned, it would appear that he originally did wish her to remain in his family. It is also unreasonable to say that Judah did not hear about how his children sinned against G-d, thus causing Him to deliver them into the hands of their fate, while Tamar was guiltless in their death.¹⁶⁸Ramban thus raises two questions against Rashi’s interpretation. It is obvious that Judah did care to have Tamar in the family, and as for her part in the death of Er and Onan, did not Judah hear how his sons had sinned against G-d, and that Tamar was guiltless?
The correct view appears to me to be that Shelah was fit for the marriage, but his father did not want him to marry Tamar while he was still a youth, lest he commit some sin with her as had his brothers who died young, for they were boys, none of them having attained twelve years¹⁶⁹Seder Olam 2. See my Hebrew commentary, p. 216. of age. His intention was that when he would mature and would listen to the instruction of his father, he would then give her to him as a wife. But when she had waited a long time and it appeared to her that Shelah had grown up — although in the eyes of his father he was still a boy as he was not yet ten years old and therefore his father was bent on waiting longer — then Tamar, in her craving to give birth from the sacred race, hastened and did this deed.

פן ימות הוא כאחיו, so he would not be so preoccupied with Tamar’s beauty due to his immaturity which had deflected his brothers from the purpose of marriage, and he too would die as a result of this.

כי אמר פן ימות גם הוא, “for he had said: ‘lest he die too.’” He felt that Tamar had demonstrated a tendency to cause the death of her husbands. There is an opinion in the Talmud according to which when something occurs successively even only twice we already consider this as an established pattern, i.e. חזקה. This is the way Rashi interprets our verse. Nachmanides questions this, writing that if indeed Yehudah’s fears were based on this consideration why would he not tell Tamar his reason and deceive her by making her think that he would give Shelah to her in due course? According to Rashi, Shelah would be forbidden to marry Tamar as she was a potential killer. This is why Nachmanides explains that actually Shelah would have been a suitable third husband for her under the levirate marriage legislation. Yehudah simply did not want Shelah to marry until he had matured more as otherwise he might become guilty of the same sin which had caused the death of his brothers. When Tamar noticed that although Shelah had matured in the interval her father-in-law had still not given him to her in marriage, she decided to take a different route to secure issue from the family of Yaakov/Yehudah.

עד יגדל שילה, “until Sheylah would have come of age.” Yehudah felt that once Sheylah would mature, he would be wise enough not to repeat the sins of his older brothers who had died. An alternate exegesis of this paragraph: Yehudah wanted to wait until Sheylah would grow up, in her father’s house by which time, hopefully, Sheylah would have married someone else and would have produced children from such a marriage. Once that had occurred, Yehudah was willing to let Tamar marry him as he would have no reason that his semen would given to Tamar in order to keep alive the name of his deceased brothers, would at the same time destroy his own future.

ויעל על גזזי צאנו AND HE WENT UP UNTO HIS SHEEP-SHEARERS — it means: and he went up to Timnah to stand by his sheep-shearers.

AND JUDAH, WENT UP UNTO HIS SHEEP-SHEARERS. He would go there continually to console himself after his wife’s death so that he may turn his attention to the sheep and forget his poverty.¹⁷⁰Proverbs 31:7. [and remember his trouble no more.] Now when it was told to Tamar that he goes up there daily without fail, she waited for him on one of those days. It may be that since Judah was prominent in the land, people would assemble there to make a feast at the time of the shearing, similar to a royal feast, and the poor would go there, and it was told to her before he went up there.

ותמת בת שוע, so that Yehudah should have brought his daughter-in-law into his house as a replacement for his wife. This is what Avraham had done when Yitzchok’s wife Rivkah moved into Sarah’s tent after the latter had died. (24,67) Yehudah’s failure to give Tamar his wife’s quarters to live in may have caused her to despair of having any kind of future in his family.

וירבו, according to Bereshit Rabbah 85,6 the time frame discussed was 12 months.

ויעל על גוזזי צאנו, “he went up to supervise the shearing of his flocks.” The Torah describes a normal occupation of Yehudah, who frequently supervised his shearers. On one of these occasions, which Tamar was quite familiar with, she waylaid him. Alternately, the Torah describes a feast on the occasion of the completion of the shearing, and Tamar knew that Yehudah would participate. Therefore she positioned herself where he would have to pass her.

For she saw … she had not been given. She also saw that Yehudah’s wife had died, leaving him free to perform the rite. And from the fact that he attended the shearing — a festive occasion — she knew that he had finished mourning.

על גוזזי צאנו, “with the shearers of his flocks.” The word על here is used as meaning the same as עם, “with.”

ויעל, here the trip to Timnatah is described as an ascent, whereas in Judges 14,5 Shimshon is described as descending to that town. It all depends on the location from which one sets out.

To shear his flock. At the time that they sheared their flocks, they would rejoice and hold feasts, as is written of Avshalom and Naval. And when a person is joyous, their sexual urges overcome them, and so she chose shearing-time. And she did this licitly, because before the giving of the Torah all relatives could perform yibum, even the father of the deceased. And since Shelah hadn't performed yibum, it fell to Yehuda. And when the Torah was given and the law renewed [תתנה תורה ונתחדשה הלכה], that only the paternal brothers of the deceased perform yibum. Even so, after the giving of the Torah, it was customary [to perform yibbum] even for other relatives who are permitted to her, in addition to brothers, just as Bo'az did to Rut.

על גוזזי, as if the Torah had written אל גוזזי, “to the shearers.” We find a similar construction involving the preposition על instead of אל in Samuel I 1,11 ותתפלל על ה' instead of ותתפלל אל ה', “she prayed to G’d.” There are numerous similar examples of such constructions in Scripture.

עלה תמנתה HE GOETH UP TO TIMNAH — In the case of Samson it is said (Judges 14:1) “And Samson went down to Timnah”. But it lay on the slope of a mountain: from one direction one had to go up to it, from the other one went down to it (Sotah 10a).

“Shimshon went down, etc... to Timnah”... [Question:] In the previous verse it is written, “He went up,” and Rashi explained that this is connected with “to Timnah.” If so, why did Rashi not make his comment there? The answer is: [Based on the previous verse alone, Rashi would agree that] “He went up” could be connected with “to his sheep-shearers.” I.e., he went up the mountain to where the shepherds were, to stand by his sheep-shearers. [Thus, Rashi’s comment depends on the present verse.]

עולה תמנתה, “ascending toward Timnat;” when Yehudah travelled this route it was spiritually uplifting for him (in retrospect) seeing that two righteous people would be born from that union. When Shimshon in Judges 14,1, travelled the same route, this is described as a “descent,” as it eventually led to his being blinded and dying, [and we have no record of his having sired any children at all. Ed.]

לגוז צאנו, “to shear his sheep.” Tamar deliberately chose a time for this encounter when her fatherinlaw, Yehudah, would be in good spirits. At such a time one is more prone to fall victim to temptation, especially as at the conclusion of such a shearing there would be a festive meal and much wine would be consumed. If you were to ask how G-d could have agreed that all of the kings of the Davidic dynasty were the result of the illegitimate pairing of Yehudah with his daughterinlaw through Peretz? The answer is that it was better that David would be descended from the daughter of Shem who had been a priest of Hashem as we know from Genesis chapter 14, than that he should be descended through a Canaanite woman, a cursed nation. [The author appears to contradict what he wrote about Bat Shua, Yehudah’s wife not having been of Canaanite descent. Compare page 281. Ed.] Furthermore, it is erroneous to describe the union between Tamar and Yehudah as sinful incest, seeing that before the giving of the Torah, when the seven laws only plus circumcision were binding for the descendants of Avraham, one could perform levirate marriages with any relative, including with the father of the deceased brother. (Compare B’chor shor) Seeing that Yehudah had not allowed Sheylah to perform the rites of the levirate marriage on Tamar, she was available to him for that purpose. Once the Torah was given, the rules about the levirate marriages were revamped to apply only to surviving brothers of the deceased. However, even after the Torah was given, the practice of the levirate marriage to other members of the family did not stop. [This editor is not sure whether the author means that after the Torah was given it remained permissible but was not obligatory for other members of the family, or whether what had once been allowed could not be abolished in practice, just as the use of private altars, though forbidden once the Israelites settled in the land of Israel, continued in spite of this, and it took until 100 years before the destruction of the Temple to eradicate that practice. Ed.] What Boaz did with Ruth is an example of this practice hundreds of years after the Torah had been given.

ותתעלף AND SHE WRAPPED HERSELF — she veiled her face that he should not recognise her.

ותכס, she covered her head.

בפתח עינים, at the beginning of two major roads. Such a highway is known as עינים, as we know from Genesis 16,7 על העין בדרך שור, “by the road leading to Shur.”

כי ראתה כי גדל שלה, for she saw that Shelah had reached marriageable age. What is the meaning of the word והיא in our verse? Why did it not suffice for the Torah to say ולא נתנה לו לאשה? "and she had not been given as a wife to him" without the additional word והיא? Perhaps the verse wishes to inform us of two things. 1) She saw that Shelah had grown up and it was plain to see that Yehudah had not kept his promise when he asked Tamar to wait until such time as Shelah would grow up. 2) She saw through רוח הקודש, divine inspiration, that she was not destined to become Shelah's wife. This is why she could take up a position at Petach Eynayim and successfully seduce Yehudah. The long term results of Tamar's conduct speak for themselves. She deserved every possible credit.

ותכס בצעיף. She covered her face with the shawl in order for Yehudah not to be able to recognise her.

ותתעלף, “she covered her face.” Ibn Ezra says that the meaning is that she covered her face. The expression is used in this sense in Jonah,

And she removed her widow's weeds. To show that she doesn't want to be obligated to yibbum, after she was not given to Shelah even after he grew up, from this she was freed from the obligation of yibbum. She wanted to say to Yehudah that he should marry her, and with this intention she sat at Petah Einayim

She covered her face so that he not recognize her. [Rashi knows this] because it is written later, “Because she had covered her face” — implying that this was already mentioned before.

בפתח עינים, this expression may be understood as we know from the Talmud, tractate Sotah folio,10, where Rabbi Shmuel bar Nachmeni understands it as giving a reason for her apparently inappropriate behaviour, when Yehudah first asked her about her personal status; she said that she was not married, was a widow, that she was ritually pure, and quite unattached to any other man when she had married, and that even then she was not anyone’s daughter-in-law. [The marriage had not been consummated. Ed.]

ותכס בסעיף, “she wrapped her veil so as to cover her face.” This was not something that widows used to do.

ותשב בפתח עינים AND SHE SAT AT THE ENTRANCE OF ENAYIM (literally, at the opening of the eyes) — at the place where the eyes become opened:) at the cross-road which is on the way leading to Timnah. Our Rabbis explain (Sotah 10b) that it means at the door (פתח) of our father Abraham’s residence to which all eyes עינים)) looked forward to pay a visit.

ותכס ראשה בצעיף, not the customary manner for a widow to wear her shawl.

אשר על דרך תמנתה, so that Yehudah could not avoid meeting her when he would return from Timnatah.

ותתעלף, she donned beautiful garments instead of widow’s garb in order to attract Yehudah.

בפתח עינים, according to Ibn Ezra this was the name of a place.

At the opening of the eyes, at the crossroads... [It is so called] because two roads branch out, each in a different direction than the other, to here and to there, and one needs to open his eyes and think which road to take. פתח עינים means opening one’s eyes.

כי ראתה כי גדל שלה FOR SHE SAW THAT SHELAH WAS GROWN etc. — This was the reason why she offered herself to Judah, for she was anxious to have children from him (as an ancestor in some way or other) (Horayot 10b).

ותתעלף, she covered her face so as not to be identified.

כי ראתה כי גדל שלה, she thought that when Yehudah would see her without widow’s garments he would ask her why she had shed those garments. She would answer him that the time had come for Shelah to marry her. He himself had suggested that she live as a widow only until Shelah would grow up. In the meantime he had already matured.

ותשב בפתח עינים, at the crossroads. This was a very exposed location, visible to anyone traveling in that region.

Our Sages explain it Midrashically: At the entrance of our father Avraham... I.e., at the tomb of our father Avraham. She prayed that a descendant of Avraham should come to her in order to have children by him. So say Chazal in Sotah 10a.

בפתח עינים, at the public square where the road forked off in two different directions. The word עינים is used to describe the fact that anyone standing or sitting there was in plain view of anyone traveling these roads. Commentators who translate the word עינים as the name of a town are wrong, as is clear from the words בעינים על הדרך in verse 21. If there had been a town there, the Torah would have had to write בעינים with the semi vowel sheva under the letter ב. We do not find such constructions as בעינים as in verse 21 when reference is made to other cities such as ביריחו, “at Jericho,” or בבית-אל, “at Bet-El,” or בירושלים, “at Jerusalem.”

כי ראתה כי גדל שלה, she did all this because she realised now that Yehudah had no intention of letting her be married to his son. She therefore planned to be impregnated by him (seed of his family) without his being aware of it.

She desired to have children... [Rashi knows this] because afterwards she went back to her widow’s garb. If she did it to be promiscuous, she would not have gone back to her widow’s garb. (Maharshal)

ויחשבה לזונה AND HE THOUGHT HER TO BE AN HARLOT, because she was sitting at the cross-roads.

AND HE THOUGHT HER TO BE A HARLOT. This was because she was sitting at the cross-roads. For she had covered her face, and he could not see her. A Midrash of our Rabbis explains: For she had covered her face, i.e., that when she stayed in Judah’s house, she had acted modestly, always covering her face, and therefore he did not suspect her. This is Rashi’s language.
Now the Rabbi’s [Rashi’s]¹⁷¹See Note 139, Seder Bereshith. literal interpretation is feasible since it was the way of the harlot to sit at the cross-roads, just as it is written, And she sitteth at the door of her house, on a seat in the high places of the city, to call to them that pass by, etc.¹⁷²Proverbs 9:14-15. Accordingly, the verse states that because her face was veiled he did not recognize her. But according to the Midrasn of our Rabbis which states that she covered her face in her father-in-law’s house, meaning that she hid herself from him while being in his house and that he never saw her face, how would he recognize her even if she were not veiled?
It further appears to me to be correct, in line with the literal sense of Scripture, that the verse is stating that he thought her to be a harlot because her face was veiled, since afterwards it states, For he knew not that she was his daughter-in-law.¹⁷³Verse 16 here. This indicates that if her face were not veiled, he would have recognized her to be his daughter-in-law. This again is at odds with the Midrash which states that he never saw her face. The reason for the covering of the face is that it was the way of the harlot to sit at the cross-roads wrapped up in a veil, with part of the face and hair uncovered, gesticulating with the eyes and lips, and baring the front of the throat and neck. Now since she would speak to the by-passer in an impudent manner, catching him and kissing him,¹⁷⁴See Proverbs 7:13. she therefore veiled part of the face. Furthermore, harlots sitting by the roadside veil their faces because they commit harlotry even with relatives. Sodomites still do it to this day in our countries, and when they return to the city they remain anonymous.
Thus we have learned in a Mishnah:¹⁷⁵Keilim 24,16. “There are three kinds of head-nets: that of a girl, which is susceptible to midras¹⁷⁶A term applied to the uncleanness conveyed by a Zav or Zavah — (see Leviticus 15:2-6; 25-26) — to an object which is used as a seat. An object not so used, but which serves as a garment or a container, is susceptible only to corpse-uncleanness (see Numbers 19:14-17). If it serves none of these purposes, it is not susceptible to any uncleanness. uncleanness; that of an old woman, which is susceptible to the uncleanness of a corpse, while that of a yotza’ath chutz, [literally, ‘she who goes outside’], is not susceptible to any uncleanness.” Now a yotzath chutz refers to the harlot, the nafkat bro of Onkelos¹⁷⁷Verse 15 here. This is the Aramaic form of the Hebrew term, yotza’ath chutz (she who goes outside)., who places the head-net on part of the head. It does not serve her the purpose of lying on it, for in that case it would be susceptible to midras-uncleanness.¹⁷⁶A term applied to the uncleanness conveyed by a Zav or Zavah — (see Leviticus 15:2-6; 25-26) — to an object which is used as a seat. An object not so used, but which serves as a garment or a container, is susceptible only to corpse-uncleanness (see Numbers 19:14-17). If it serves none of these purposes, it is not susceptible to any uncleanness. Nor does she cover her head with it, for in that case it would be susceptible to corpse-uncleanness. Instead, she uses it to dress up the ends of her hair, in order that it be partly visible from beneath the net, and this is why it is not susceptible to any uncleanness.

כי כסתה פניה, only at this point, in accordance with our commentary on the word ותתעלף, (verse 14)

ויראה....כי כסתה פניה, so that he did not recognise her. This is why he considered her a harlot, seeing that she had positioned herself so prominently at the crossroads. Had she not covered her face, he would have recognised her as his daughter-in-law and would not have slept with her. Our sages in Sotah 10 say that on the contrary, she used to keep her face covered in her father-in-law’s house and was extremely chaste. When he now saw a woman sitting at the crossroads, the last thing he would think of was that it was his daughter-in-law Tamar.

ויחשבה לו לזונה, “he considered her as being a whore.” This was because she had chosen to sit at a crossroads

Because she was sitting at the crossroads. Rashi is answering the question: How is, “Because she had covered her face,” a reason for [Yehudah to think] that she was a harlot? On the contrary, it shows she is modest! Thus Rashi explains, “Because she was sitting at the crossroads.” Then Rashi says that he did not recognize her “because she had covered her face.” Had he recognized her he would not have “thought she was a harlot.” You might ask: How could Yehudah go to a harlot? The Patriarchs and their children kept the Torah, so how could he transgress, “There shall not be a harlot” (Devarim 23:18)? Re’m answers: Perhaps he performed kiddushin with her through money or a written contract, and the goat-kid [which he promised to send] was only to appease her [i.e., not a harlot’s fee]. An alternate answer: He had relations with her as an act of kiddushin. Although it says in Kiddushin 12b that it is impudent to perform kiddushin by having relations, this is only when there are witnesses. Privately it is permitted, and here there were no witnesses — only his [close] friend who was considered as himself. Or, it was not in his friend’s presence. Accordingly, the verse says הבה נא (v.16), which Rashi explains as, “Prepare yourself and your mind for this,” it means to prepare for kiddushin by having relations. An alternate answer: Yehudah held that, “There shall not be a harlot,” applies only between a Jew and a Jewess, but a non-Jewess is merely forbidden Rabbinically.

Please (Havah na). The word havah often means “prepare yourself.” Yehudah requested that she consign herself to him exclusively so that no harlotry would be involved.

ויחשביה לזונה, “he considered her as a harlot.” Why should Yehudah have cared? He turned around to resume on his way to the shearing. However, Tamar raised her face to heaven to pray and ask G–d why she should not be able to give birth to a worthwhile and intelligent son from the semen of such a righteous man as Yehudah. Upon hearing her prayer, G–d immediately dispatched the angel Michael who made Yehudah have second thoughts and turn around. The Torah here wrote: ויט אליה, “he turned to her,” and we find the same expression in Numbers 22,33 where it is written of Bileam’s she-ass: ותט לפני, “she turned around before me;” (the angel speaking to Bileam) in both instances the angel Michael was the subject. (subject discussed in B’reshit Rabbah 85,8)

ויחשבה לזונה כי כסתה פניה, “he assumed that she was a harlot because she had covered her face.” She had only done this when he was approaching, in order that he could not recognise her. The letter ח in the word ויחשבה, is vocalised with a semivowel sh’va.

כי כסתה פניה FOR SHE HAD COVERED HER FACE — so that he could not see her face and thus recognize her. A Midrashic explanation of our Rabbis is that כי כסתה פניה means BECAUSE SHE ALWAYS COVERED HER FACE: when she had stayed in her father-in-law’s house she had shown herself a modest woman, and therefore he did not suspect her (of being the woman who was sitting there for that evil purpose) (Sotah 10b).

כי כסתה פניה, “for she had covered her face.” Our sages say that this described her state while married, and while she was in her father-in-law’s house, so that he did not recognize her facial features. Nachmanides writes that the proper explanation, based on the unadorned text, is that Yehudah considered the fact that she concealed her face as proof that she was a whore, as this is what all the whores did in those days They all used to sit at road junctions where there was a lot of traffic. Their shawl would cover part of their hair and leave only a mall part of their faces exposed, revealing their throats and part of their necks. Their lips and eyes were made up. They needed to accost prospective customers, speak to them, even kiss them, so that their faces could not be fully covered by their shawls. Seeing that they did not mind engaging in relations with their relatives, they had to worry about keeping their identities secret.

At her father-in-law’s house, she was a modest woman, therefore, he did not suspect her. [Rashi knows this] because otherwise he would have recognized her when they spoke and also during their having relations, since afterwards she must have uncovered her face. This is why Rashi brings the Midrash. (Devek Tov)

ויט אליה אל הדרך AND HE TURNED UNTO HER BY THE WAY — from the road he was following he turned to the road where she was. In old French détourner; English to turn aside.

כי לא ידע כי כלתו היא, he did not even recognise her after he joined her in her private quarters. Had he recognised her he would surely have spoken to her concerning why he had not given her to his surviving son. G’d has His own agenda; clearly, it was His wish that Tamar bear a child or two children sired by Yehudah who in His eyes was more acceptable than his son Shelah [whose mother‘s antecedents we know little about.] G’d wanted that the eventual Messiah should have had genetic material dating back to Tamar.

ויט אליה, he detoured in her direction from the direction he had been walking.
אל הדרך, to the beginning of the path where she was sitting, there being an opportunity nearby to enjoy privacy.

הבה נא אבא אליך, “if you please, I wish to have relations with you.” If the Torah had applied the rules of grammar here, it should have quoted Yehudah as saying הבי instead of הבה. However, seeing that Yehudah considered the woman a harlot, a woman who demands sexual relations outright in the manner males do, he changed his mode of address and treated her as if she were a male. The Torah preferred to quote Yehudah verbatim instead of observing the rules of grammar. We find a parallel to this in Genesis 19,32 when the daughters of Lot initiate sexual intercourse with their father by first making him drunk. They too acted in a manner which is usually a male prerogative, and this is why the Torah wrote לכה נשקה instead of לכי נשקה. I have explained the matter there.

הבה נא COME, I PRAY THEE — Prepare yourself and your mind for this. Wherever הבה occurs it signifies “preparing oneself”, except in any passage where it must necessarily be translated by “giving”. And, indeed, those signifying “preparation” have almost the meaning of “giving”. (ערבון (17— means a PLEDGE.

What will you give me. If he had offered immediate payment she would not have accepted it, because what she wanted was evidence that she could present later on to prove that he was the father.

הכר נא, an expression demanding an immediate response, similar to such expressions we had explained in connection with הבה נא in Genesis 11,4.

ערבון means a PLEDGE.

עד שלחך. The reason why we have the “weak” mode, i.e. the conjugation kal instead of the transitive conjugation hiphil, is to indicate that Yehudah would send a messenger to deliver the kid to Tamar. We find the use of the conjugation kal in connection with the sending of gifts especially, as for instance in 32,19 where Yaakov had instructed his messengers to Esau to describe the gift in such terms. (מנחה היא שלוחה) We find it again in verse 23 of our chapter where Yehudah says הנה שלחתי הגדי הזה, “here, I have sent this kid, etc.”

אם תתן ערבון, if you are prepared to give me such tokens I am willing to sleep with you as you requested.

ותאמר אם תתן לי ערבון, “she said: ‘if you will give me a pledge;’” some commentators claim that Yehudah did not sleep with Tamar until after he had given her a token to serve as a marriage betrothal. They interpret her question above as her asking for such a token. It was meant to mean: “what kind of token of your intention to wed me are you going to give me?” Yehudah’s answer was that he would send her a young goat. Thereupon she asked for a guarantee that he would indeed send that goat. By insisting that he would give her his signet ring she meant that this would be her wedding ring. According to Rabbi Moshe, this whole interpretation is difficult to accept as the handing over of such a token requires the presence and confirmation by two witnesses in good standing as spelled out in the Talmud, tractate Kiddushin folio 65. Some people claim that an important person such as Yehudah would never travel except in the company of at least two people who could qualify as witnesses, just as a Torah scholar in our time does not travel alone and that therefore the betrothal of Tamar had been duly witnessed. If you were to counter that the betrothal was still invalid as she had never received the promised goat from him, and the Talmud in Kiddushin folio 8 states that even if the suitor gave the bride a token worth a p’rutah (smallest copper coin) as a pledge to cover the remainder, such a betrothal is not legally valid. We would therefore have to say that he gave her his signet ring not as a pledge, but as an outright gift at that time. After having done so, he told her that when he would send her the goat he expected her to return his ring. This is how, in my opinion, the author of the above interpretation must have meant it.

אם תתן ערבון, “if you will leave an item as guarantee.” This is an abbreviated verse, which should have concluded with the words: “then I will accept your proposition.”

חתמך ופתילך THY SIGNET AND THY STRING — The Targum renders it by “Thy signet and thy cloak” — the ring which you use as a seal and the cloak with which you cover yourself

THY SIGNET ‘UP’THILECHA.’ Onkelos renders it as “thy signet and thy cloak,” meaning “the ring which you use as a seal, and the cloak with which you cover yourself.” This is Rashi’s language.
But it is not correct to say that he would give his cloak, and go away from her unclothed. And how is it that a cloak is called p’thil in the Hebrew language? And how can it be referred to later on as p’thilim,¹⁷⁸Verse 25 here. in the plural? Now should you say that on account of its fringed strings (p’thilim), the garment was called p’thil, far be it that Judah should fulfill the Commandment of Tzitzith (Fringes),¹⁷⁹See Numbers 15:38. yet treat it so lightly as to give it away in unchastity! Perhaps, he had with him a small scarf which he occasionally wound around part of the head, and which was called p’thil because it was short as a p’thil (fringe), and it is this which the Targum [Onkelos] rendered as shashifa, [which Rashi incorrectly took to mean “a cloak”]. Now you will not find that Onkelos will translate simlah (a garment) as shashifa wherever it is found in the Torah. Instead, he translates it throughout by a term denoting “cover” or “garment,” excepting the verse, And they shall spread the ‘simlah’ (garment),¹⁸⁰Deuteronomy 22:17. concerning which he says, “And they shall spread the shashifa,” because this is the sudar referred to in the Talmud¹⁸¹Kethuboth 10 a: “Bring me the sudar.” See also Ramban to Deuteronomy 22:17. through which virginity is established. So did Jonathan ben Uziel translate hama’ataphoth¹⁸²Isaiah 3:22. (the mantlets) as shashifa, these being small scarfs which they wound around the head, and distinguished persons spread them over their bonnets and headbands. This custom still prevails in eastern countries.
It is further possible that Judah possessed a seal impressed with the form of a lion or some other known figure, as rulers do, and he also had fringes in his hand, woven in the same design, with which to stroll about, as well as a rod in his hand, as becomes a ruler or lord, even as it is written, A strong rod, to be a sceptre to rule,¹⁸³Ezekiel 19:14. and it is further written, The sceptre shall not depart from Judah.¹⁸⁴Further, 49:10. It was these that he gave into Tamar’s hand.

חותמך, your ring.

ופתילך, your closely fitting sash. The items Tamar chose as pledge were all things which testified to the superior standing of its owner in society. We know from Job 38,3 that a sash is evidence of someone’s manhood, i.e. someone’s superior status. She wanted to own such trinkets reminding her constantly of Yehudah’s status so that her child would be influenced by the thoughts she entertained during her pregnancy and would grow up to be like its father.

חותמך, as per Onkelos, the signet ring.

ופתילך, “and your garment.” According to Rashi the word is equivalent to שמלתך, your “decorative garment.” [normally, as opposed to בגד, an outer garment, שמלה is understood to refer to undergarments. Ed.] Nachmanides disputes Rashi’s interpretation, as, if Yehudah handed over such a garment (normal usage of שמלה), he would have had to walk away naked. Furthermore, how could the Torah refer to a שמלה by the description פתיל? Besides, since when does the word פתיל occur in the plural? If you were to counter that we find this plural in connection with the commandment of ציצית, it is inconceivable that Yehudah would use a garment with sacred fringes and demean it in such a fashion. [the vowel segol in the word פתילך is taken by Nachmanides to indicate a plural form. Ed.] Perhaps he had a small cloth in his hand, something short like a פתיל, a cloth used to wind around one’s head, turban fashion, which Tamar referred to as פתיל because it was short. It is also possible that Yehudah’s signet ring had the shape of a lion, and he had pieces of short cloth that had been embossed with that ring. The staff מטה, he held in his hand in the fashion of rulers who carry a mace.

חותמך ופתילך ומטך אשר בידך, “your signet, your wrap, and your staff which is in your hand.” According to the plain meaning of the text the word חותמך refers to a ring used to seal documents. Possibly, Yehudah’s signet ring bore the image of a lion seeing that his father described him as גור אריה, “a lion cub” in Genesis 49,19. Rashi explains that the word ופתילך means “your wrap,” a garment with which he covered himself. Concerning this Nachmanides disagrees, saying that it is not logical that Yehudah would give a harlot a garment of his without which he would remain naked. Moreover, how is it possible that the Torah would describe a שמלה as a פתיל? Besides, why would this garment be described by Tamar as הפתילים i.e. as garments in the plural in verse 25? If one were to say that the word פתיל refers to the ציצית, the fringes, how can we assume that Yehudah would treat the fringes in such a desultory manner, i.e. giving the part of the garment which lends it some sanctity to a harlot? Nachmanides therefore concludes that פתיל is a small cloth such as a kerchief used to wear around the neck or part of the head. It is still a common practice in the Orient that distinguished people wear such a piece of attire. It is called פתיל as it is short like a שושיפא, short cloak. (Compare Onkelos on Deut. 22,17 where שמלה, bed-sheet, is translated as שושיפא.)

עזקתך ושושיפך, the ring that you use as a seal... Rashi is answering the question: Why does Onkelos translate חותמך as עזקתך, which means “your ring”? In the verse it is written חותם, which means “seal.” Therefore Rashi explains that it means, “The ring that you use as a seal.” Also, why does Onkelos translate פתילך as שושיפך, which means “your cloak”? In the verse it is written פתילך, “your thread.” Therefore Rashi explains that it means, “The cloak with which you cover yourself.” This is because פתיל is written regarding tzitzis (Bamidbar15:38), and about tzitzis it is written, “Your garment with which you cover yourself” (Devarim 22:12). So too here, [פתילך means,] “The cloak with which you cover yourself.”

חותמך פתילך, “your signet ring and your cord;” these were both items that he could not be without for any length of time. He needed the signet ring for confirming any transactions, and the cord to tie up the sheep. (The third item, his staff, was less important as he was in his prime.)

ותהר לו AND SHE CONCEIVED BY HIM (לו, to him) — she conceived men who were strong, similar to himself, and men who were righteous, similar to himself (Genesis Rabbah 85:9).

פתילך, your outer garment,

ופתילך, your outer garment, cloak, as per Onkelos, שושיפך. Or, what is meant is the turban, i.e. a status symbol. In Numbers 19,15 the expression צמיד פתיל, “a tightly fitting lid,” describes a vessel of contours similar to a turban. The expression also occurs in the Mishnah Shabbat 28, as well as in verse 25 in our chapter [because of the plural mode, Ed.] it appears to describe attire each composed of two different cloths and colour.

Strong men, as he was; and righteous men, as he was. Rashi is answering the question: Why is it written ותהר לו? Scripture should have written ותהר ממנו. Just as it says צדקה ממני (v. 26), which Rashi explains as, “‘It is from me’ that she has become pregnant.” Perforce, לו means having similar traits. And we need not ask how Rashi knew they were strong and righteous, because the answer is that [both traits are equally implied. So] which one would you exclude?

ומטך, and your staff. She asked for three items none of which were necessary as garments for Yehudah, but were merely decorative, lending Yehudah a better image among his peers.

ותלבש בגדי אלמנותה, because she was no longer willing to be married, seeing that she had achieved her purpose and was with child from the man whose seed she wanted to perpetuate.

ותסר צעיפה מעליה, from her head and face.

ותלבש, her conduct proves that she had no intention of becoming pregnant by anyone other than Yehudah. Many women of that period had an overpowering desire to somehow be impregnated by the sperm of Avraham the patriarch, even though it might have been diluted with other genes. Being biologically connected to Avraham was an important status symbol.

הקדשה— means a woman who is devoted to, (מקדשת) and who is ever ready for illicit intercourse.

הקדשה, the harlot; a woman who is always ready to have sexual relations with any male. The male equivalent of the term is found in Deuteronomy 23,18. where the Torah instructs the Jewish people not to tolerate this phenomenon, and in Kings I 14,24 where the presence of such male prostitutes is acknowledged with the words וגם קדש היה בארץ, a phenomenon which surfaced immediately after the death of King Solomon.

וישאל..אנשי מקומה, in the alley where she lived. Yehudah must have asked her for her address; how else could he expect to redeem the items he had left with her? She had therefore named a certain alley as her address. When Chirom came there to seek her out at the address she had given Yehudah, and he did not see a harlot in that alley, he asked people of the alley if they knew where the harlot was who had been plying her trade at the road junction. The local residents told him: לא היתה בזה קדשה, that in that location there had not been any prostitute. Both the words בזה and מזה occur in the Torah as references to locations, as we know already from 37,17.

The cult prostitute [hakedeisha; הקדשה]. A woman available/prepared for sex, as in "purify yourselves [hitkadshu; התקדשו] for tomorrow" (Bamidbar 11:18).

וגם אנשי המקום אמרו, in their uninhibited conversation. Chirom warned Yehudah that his pursuit of this search would be liable to hurt his image

תקח לה Let that remain hers which she has in her possession (i.e. LET HER KEEP IT).

תקח לה, not literally “let her take it,” but “let her keep it.” Yehudah said that he would not make an additional effort to find her and to redeem his pledges.

הנה שלחתי, so that I have not betrayed my promise.

תקח לה, “let her keep it for herself so that we will not look like fools chasing these trinkets and the fact that I slept with a prostitute will become public knowledge.” In Bereshit Rabbah 85,9 the Midrash quotes Proverbs 8,31 משחקת בתבל ארצו as the Torah rejoicing (making fun) of people. Yehudah who had deceived his father by inviting him to guess Joseph’s fate by showing him the bloody and tattered remains of his striped coat, now had in turn been deceived and would become publicly embarrassed through the incident with Tamar. It is remarkable that in both instances the male goat, שעיר עזים, is featured as part of the process of deception, i.e. as the sin. [perhaps this accounts for that animal being a prime species for sacrifices meant to atone for sin. Ed.]

Let her keep what she has. Rashi is answering the question: He already gave her it. Why does it say, “Let her take it?” Thus Rashi explains, “Let her keep...”

פן נהיה לבוז LEST WE BECOME A SCORN — if you seek her further the matter will become public and disgrace will follow, for what more can I do to redeem my promise? (for I have sent this kid etc and I can do no more).

פן נהיה לבוז, so we will not make ourselves laughing stocks by chasing after harlots.

The thing will become public and will result in disgrace. Rashi is saying that the disgrace is not due to leaving the security with her.

הנה שלחתי את הגדי הזה BEHOLD, I SENT THIS KID — Because Judah had deceived his father through a kid of the goats — for he had dipped Joseph’s coat in its blood — therefore he, too, was deceived through a kid of the goats (Genesis Rabbah 85:9).

For what else is there for me to do to be true to my word? Rashi is answering the question: How is, “Behold I sent her...” a reason for what preceded? Thus Rashi explains that Yehudah meant: If you say I must [search for her] since I promised her a goat-kid, [this is not so]. For what else is there for me to do? “Behold, I sent her this kid...” I.e., Rashi inserted the phrase, “For what else is there for me to do,” before, “Behold I sent her,” to explain the connection between, “Let her take it,” and, “Behold I sent her.”

כמשלש חדשים ABOUT THREE MONTHS AFTER — the greater part of the first, the greater part of the third and the entire middle (second) one (Genesis Rabbah 85:10). The expression כמשלש חדשים signifies “when the months repeated themselves three times”. The word משלש is similar in form to (Ester 9:19) “and sending (ומשלח) portions”; (Isaiah 11:14), “sending (משלח) forth their hand”. Onkelos renders it similarly כתלתות ירחיא (where תלתות is the infinitive of תַּלַּת “when the months become three”).

AND JUDAH SAID: BRING HER FORTH, AND LET HER BE BURNT! Ephraim Makshoah,¹⁸⁵There are two interpretations for the name ‘Makshoah’: (a) he was a watchman in a cucumber field (kishuim); (b) he was a scholar famous for his great ability in debate (kasheh). See Commentaries to Bereshith Rabbah 84:11. a disciple of Rabbi Meir, said in the name of Rabbi Meir: “Tamar was the daughter of Shem who was a priest.¹⁸⁶See Ramban above, 14:18. They therefore sentenced her to be burnt.”¹⁸⁷See Leviticus 21:9. Rashi quoted this Midrash but did not explain it. And I do not know this law, for a priest’s daughter is not liable to be burned except for harlotry in conjunction with a binding relation to a husband, either espoused or married, as is explained in the Gemara in Tractate Sanhedrin.¹⁸⁸Sanhedrin 51b. However, a priest’s daughter who is waiting to be married by a brother-in-law is not at all liable to death for harlotry. Whether she is an Israelite’s daughter or a priest’s daughter, her punishment is only that of having violated a simple negative precept.¹⁸⁹This would be stripes, but not the death penalty. And should you say that marrying a childless brother’s wife was customary among the Sons of Noah, and that she was regarded by them as having the status of a married woman, and that their prohibitions were punishable by death, it would not be correct. The Rabbis say in Bereshith Rabbah¹⁵⁷85:6. that Judah was the one who first inaugurated the observance of the commandment that a brother marry a childless brother’s widow. And again, in the Gemara in Tractate Sanhedrin,¹⁹⁰Sanhedrin 58a. it is made clear that a childless brother’s widow of the Sons of Noah is not at all liable to any punishment for harlotry.
It appears to me that since Judah was a chief, an officer, and a ruler of the land, his daughter-in-law who committed harlotry against him was not judged by the same law as other people, but as one who degraded royalty. It is for this reason that it is written, And Judah said: Bring her forth, and let her be burnt, for the people came before him to do unto her in accordance with his command, and he declared her guilty of a capital crime because of the superior rank of royalty. Thus he judged her as if she had profaned her father in respect of his priesthood, but this was not the judgment meted out to commoners.
In line with the literal interpretation of Scripture, it is possible that their law was similar to that which is presently customary in some of the countries of Spain, i.e., that a married woman who commits a faithless act is turned over to her husband who decrees death or life for her, as he wishes. Now Tamar was designated for his son Shelah, and in the eyes of their laws she was considered as a married woman.

זנתה תמר כלתך, if you were to ask why Yehudah would believe such accusations which would be hard to prove, the informant added that the signs of her pregnancy spoke for themselves as proof of the accusation being justified.

וגם הנה הרה, she did not even bother to hide her condition which reflects negatively on you. This is similar to a statement by our sages in Yevamot 35 “when a woman had illicit sex she engages in all kinds of bodily convulsions to avoid becoming pregnant and thereby revealing her shame and that of her husband or lover.”

הוציאוה והשרף, "take her out and let her be burned!" The reason for this is that it is the prescribed penalty for adultery amongst the Gentiles as we know from Avodah Zarah 36. It is clear from there that even if the sin did not involve a sexual union forbidden by Biblical law either to Israelites or to Gentiles, the tribunal headed by Noach's son Shem appears to have legislated that a woman who was destined for her brother-in-law was liable to death if she had relations with someone else. As soon as Yehudah realised that he had been her partner, he knew she was free from that decree as it applied only to Gentiles amongst Gentiles, not to partners in a levirate union. Since a father-in-law was not culpable for sleeping with his Noachide daughter-in-law, no crime had been committed seeing Tamar was Jewish. Sotah 10 understands the words ולא יסף עוד לדעתה to mean that Yehudah did not discontinue being intimate with Tamar. This proves that their relationship had not been sinful, i.e. that the father of the deceased could legally perform the rite of the levirate marriage with his daughter-in-law.

ויהי כמשלש חדשים, after, or at the end of. The letter כ is used to describe a quantity, a measure, as in Samuel I 14,14 כעשרים איש, “approximately 20 people.” There are numerous similar examples in Scripture for the use of the prefix כ in that sense. In Bereshit Rabbah 85,10 Sumchus quotes Rabbi Meir as having said that this verse is the source of the statement that we cannot tell by looking at her that a woman is pregnant until 3 months after she conceived. Rabbi Hunna, quoting Rabbi Yosseph, added that what is meant is not that until the end of the third month of pregnancy no signs are visible. The pregnant woman herself can perceive signs after as little as 2 weeks, but outsiders cannot. [I amended the text of Rabbi Hunna’s comment in order to make it understandable. Ed.]

הוציאוה ותשרף, “take her outside to be burned.” Rashi explains this unusual type of the death penalty as due to the fact that Tamar was the daughter of Shem whom we know as the priest of the Supreme G’d from when he blessed Avraham, as well as the fact that he was King of Jerusalem, (Genesis 14) she was subject to this more severe death penalty for adulterous conduct, as per Leviticus Nachmanides questions this, saying that the legislation referred to in Leviticus is reserved for the daughter of a priest who is betrothed but not yet married properly. A widow waiting to be married to her brother-in-law, and therefore forbidden to any other male, is subject to the penalty imposed on violators of a normal negative commandment, not the death penalty. Besides, every capital crime committed by non-Jews is subject to death by the sword, never by burning. Furthermore, Yehudah’s statement צדקה ממני, after becoming aware of his almost fatal error, appears to reinforce Tamar’s guilt even more, a) because he, as the local leader of the region, should have lived a life completely beyond reproach, and certainly should not have slept with a whore; b) she, by engaging in extramarital relations had expressed disdain for the local authority. Keeping these two points in mind, he condemned her to death by burning. [some of these aspects are based on the opinion that Yehudah had realised that the woman he had presumed to have been a whore, was actually a virgin, something that in retrospect made him aware that his sons Er and Onan had never consummated their marriage to Tamar. The people who had brought Tamar before the tribunal had only known that she had become pregnant from someone not her husband and that she had not claimed to have been the victim of rape. Ed.] Looking at the plain unadorned text, we must remember that the law concerning women who had had illicit sexual relations while married, would have been handed over to her husband for him to do with her as he saw fit. Seeing that legally, Tamar was destined to be married to Shelah as soon as Shelah was old enough, she was in the category of a married woman according to local custom. Rabbi Yehudah the pious, explains that Yehudah did not actually condemn Tamar to be burned at the stake, but that she should be branded with a branding iron which would leave an indelible mark on her face so that she would be disgraced for all to see for the rest of her life. As soon as Yehudah found out that he was the father of the child Tamar was carrying, and that therefore she had not been a whore at all, he did not do anything to her. Many raise the question how Yehudah could pronounce judgment, saying: “take her outside and burn her,” seeing that according to Jewish law, a King is not subject to being judged by a court of his subjects, nor is he himself allowed to sit in judgment of anyone. In addition to this legal point, according to Jewish law, whenever a capital crime is dealt with in the court, and a vote is taken as to the guilt or innocence of the accused, the first person polled is the youngest and not the most senior, so as not to sway the judgment of the junior judges. Here we were told only about the presiding judge’s Yehudah’s vote on the subject. A third difficulty is how could Yehudah, a relative, and therefore a biased participant, be allowed to be present at these proceedings at all? [all of the preceding is of course, based on the assumption that just as the brothers observed Torah law although it was not yet revealed to them as legislation, they complied also with the wider ramifications of Torah laws as found in the written text. Ed.] The answers suggested to these various reservations of our sages about Yehudah’s conduct, is that the trial of Tamar was conducted by Yitzchok, Yaakov and Yehudah being the tribunal. Seeing that Yehudah was the junior member of this tribunal, we are told about his vote first, something completely in accordance with Jewish law.. Another view voiced by a Midrash, claims that Tamar’s father, Shem, personally sat in judgment of her. With all due respect, this is chronologically impossible. A review of the relevant historical data will reveal that Shem had long been dead at that time. [According to Genesis 11,11 Shem died 501 years after the deluge, i.e. in the year 2157 after the creation of Adam. The Exodus occurred in the year 2448, after the Israelites had been in Egypt for 210 years. In other words, when Yedudah came to Egypt in the year 2238 he was about 3 years older than Joseph, who we know was 39-40 years at the time as testified by the Torah. This means that Yehudah was born in or around the year 2195, 27 years after the death of Shem. Ed.] As to the statement in Avodah Zarah 36 that the tribunal of Shem decreed that an unmarried male who has sexual relations with an unmarried female is subject to the death penalty, [seeing that for gentiles there is no other penalty, Ed.] and the origin of that law is attributed to the incident between Yehudah and Tamar, this does not mean that Shem, the founder of that tribunal was still alive, but that the academy and tribunal which he founded continued to bear the name of its founder, Shem.

הוציאוה ותשרף, “take her outside to be burned.” All the onlookers accepted Yehudah’s verdict without argument. This teaches that Yehudah was the local judge of that community. It was the custom in that place that any woman found committing adultery would be burned. Bereshit Rabbah 85,10 quoted by Rashi 38,24 claims that Tamar was the daughter of Shem (the son of Noach whom we know as a Priest for the Supreme G’d from the time of Avraham). Seeing that the Torah provides the death penalty by burning for the daughters of Priests, (Leviticus 21,1) she was sentenced to be burned.

Most of the first and most of the last... Although the fetus is discernable only after three months, a third of the pregnancy, that is for [a full term, i.e.,] nine month pregnancy. But Tamar had a seven-month term. For it is written about her, “When the time came for her to give birth” (v. 27). It is not written, “When her days of pregnancy were completed,” as it does about Rivkah. So explains Rashi on 25:Because of this, the fetus was discernable before three months.

זנתה תמר כלתך, “your daughter-in-law Tamar has committed an act of adultery.” Why did the informant have to add that Tamar had also become pregnant as a result of her act of adultery? Perhaps we can answer that in that era when acts of adultery did not result in the woman becoming pregnant as a result, no legal proceedings were instituted against her. Alternately, proceedings used to be instituted after such a woman had committed adulterous acts with more than one individual.

זנתה תמר כלתך, “Tamar, your daughterinlaw, has committed an act of infidelity.” She observed the norms of a woman awaiting the levirate marriage, and therefore was out of bounds to any other male pending the resolution of her problematic marital status. She would be released only if her prospective “redeemer” refused to honour this obligation.

הרה לזנונים SHE IS WITH CHILD BY HARLOTRY — The word הרה is an adjective, meaning pregnant, like (Exodus 21:22) “a pregnant (הרה) woman” (where הרה can be only an adjective) and as (Song. 7:10) “Clear (ברה) as the sun” (where ברה is an adjective; Rashi perhaps quotes this example to prove also that הרה is from root הרר just as ברה is from ברר)

ותשרף, according to the plain meaning of the text this was the standard penalty for a widow of Tamar’s status who had engaged in illicit sex.

הוציאוה, to the site reserved for such executions by fire.

And the entire middle month. You might ask: How does Rashi know this? Perhaps the opposite is true: it was the entire first and second month, and part of the third. Or, it was part of the first month, and the entire second and third month. The answer is: If so, it would be two months and just ten days [when the child would be discernable]. One of the months would be only ten days, i.e., a third of a month. This is a minority of a month, and cannot be considered a month, whereas the verse says: “About three months later,” implying three whole months. Re’m answers: Perhaps a fetus is discernable after a third of the pregnancy only if it includes the majority of the first month, the whole second month, and the majority of the third month. Since the majority is considered like all, it is counted like three whole months — and the months themselves have an effect [on the fetus’ development].

הוציאהו ותשרף, “take her outside so that she may be burned.” Ephrayim from Kahse, (location) says that Tamar was the daughter of Shem who we heard was the priest of Shalem, and as such if she had committed adultery while still in her father’s house, if sentenced to death for harlotry would die by burning; (Leviticus 21,9) (compare also B’reshit Rabbah 85,10). Yehudah’s judgment is hard to understand as there had been no witnesses to the adultery Tamar had been accused of. Neither had she been warned not to commit such an act and been advised of the potential penalty, as is required by Jewish law. Rabbi Joseph, a resident of the land of Israel, answered this by saying that the generation in which Yehudah lived was morally deprived, and in such circumstances warnings and witnesses are dispensed with when her pregnancy was proof enough of how it had come about. In times like that, the Torah applies additional measures to counteract serious crimes as no one would commit such acts in the presence of acceptable witnesses and after being warned. Rabbi Joseph based himself on the Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin folio 46, where we read as follows: “Rabbi Eliezer son of Yaakov said that the Jewish Court is authorized to decree death penalties not according to the legislation of the Torah when the circumstances demand it, in order to be deterrents to potential sinners.” The Talmud quotes several historical instances when this occurred, including the carrying out of a death penalty against 80 witches on a single day, in spite of the generally accepted rule not to carry out more than one such sentence per day. This happened already during the first hundred years of the period of the second Temple. Joshua’s executing Achan ben Karmi for stealing from the loot of Jericho, obviously without witnesses, why else had lots to be cast to find the guilty party, (Joshua chapter 7) is further proof of the authority of the leader appointed by G–d in circumstances that are not normal. We are still left with the problem that if Tamar was indeed the daughter of Shem, and according to the historical data given to us by the Torah for the time when her father died, this occurred long before the sons of Yehudah were born, how could Yehudah have told her to return to the house of her father and spend there the years of her widowhood there? (Genesis 38,11) [According to the chronology of the Torah, Shem was born about 1557 after Adam was created, and died at the age of 500, i.e. in .2007 after the creation of Adam. Avraham was born in the year 1949 after the creation of Adam, he sired Yitzchak 100 years later. Yitzchok was 60 years old when he fathered Yaakov and Esau, and Yaakov was at least 88 years old when he fathered Yehudah, Tamar’s father in law. You, the reader do not need a calculator to understand the problem created by Rabbi Joseph quoted by our author. Ed.] He must have meant that “her father’s house,” was not to be understood literally, but he meant the family from which she stemmed.

וגם הנה הרה, “and she is also visibly pregnant.” She can no longer hide her condition.

ותשרף AND LET HER BE BURNT — Ephraim the Disputant said in the name of Rabbi Meir: She was the daughter of Shem who was a priest (see Rashi on Genesis 14:18) on this account they sentenced her to be burnt (cf. Leviticus 21:9) (Genesis Rabbah 85:10).

ותשרף, for in accordance with the local practice a widow awaiting to be wed to her brother-in-law was subject to the same rules of adultery as a regularly married woman, i.e. death by burning. At the same time, she was not out of bounds to her father-in-law if he wanted to marry her in order to have seed from his deceased son. Both other sons of the surviving father and the father himself were close relatives of the deceased, after all. The surviving brother of the deceased had the first claim on such a widow, but Tamar, under the circumstances had been forced to become the wife of Yehudah seeing that Shelah had been denied her.

An adjective — pregnant... Rashi means as follows: Although הרה is sometimes a future tense verb, such as in, “Behold you will conceive (הרה) and give birth to a son” (16:11), here it cannot mean this. For how would they know that Tamar will conceive? Thus Rashi explains it as an adjective.

ויאמר יהודה, “Yehudah, acting as judge ruled;” was there no one more qualified to sit in judgment of Tamar than her fatherinlaw? Both Yitzchok and Yaakov were still alive! The fact is that they all sat in judgment of her. The reason why Yehudah was the first one to announce his opinion was because according to the rules of Jewish law when sins or crimes involving capital punishment are discussed the most junior of the judges is asked for his vote first.

She was the daughter of Sheim who was a Kohein... Not literally a daughter, for Sheim had died when Yaakov was fifty, and now Yaakov was over one hundred and ten. Rather, she was from Sheim’s family.

הוציאה ותשרף, “take her outside so that she will be burned to death!” Rashi comments that Tamar was the daughter (offspring) of Shem who had been a priest, and the Torah prescribes the death penalty by burning for women of priestly descent if they are found as having committed incest before marriage while betrothed. (Leviticus 21,9). In this particular instance, Tamar had not legally been betrothed to anyone, so that even after the Torah had been given she would not have been guilty of a capital offence. However, in those days people imposed severe penalties for infidelity in order to act as deterrent to eventual sinners. Besides, as pointed out, Tamar’s ancestor had been deprived of the title “priest” after when Avraham had defeated the four mighty kings of his era he blessed both Avraham and G-d but committed a fatal error by naming Avraham ahead of naming G-d. (Compare Genesis 14,1920) Nonetheless, (assuming Tamar was Shem’s his real daughter she would have been quite old. [Shem died in the year 2156 or 2157 B. C. E. having been born in the year 15567 B. C. E., and Yehudah, Tamar’s fatherinlaw was born in 2186 or 2185 B. C. E. At the time Shem was deprived of his status as a priest Avraham was between 75 and 87 years old, seeing that he had been born in the years 1948 B. C. E. If Tamar had been alive, then it does not require a mathematician to figure out how old a lady Tamar must have been when Yehudah selected her as his daughterinlaw for his son Er. Ed.] Some commentators (Talmud Avodah Zarah, folio 36) claim that even if Tamar had not been a daughter of Shem she would have deserved the death penalty if she had committed adultery with someone other than a partner in a levirate marriage ceremony. This is based on the assumption that she slept with a Canaanite. Even though Shem was dead, the court established by him continued to function after his demise. The court continued to be named after its founder. If you were to say that if Tamar was guilty of the death penalty then so was her partner Yehudah, we would have to answer that in that era an adult surviving would perform the levirate marriage rites, but if only brothers who were minors were available, the father would perform that duty.

They, therefore, sentenced her to be burned. You might ask: Why was she liable for burning? She was neither married nor betrothed, and only then is a Kohein’s daughter burned. Although she needed yibum, this does not make her liable for death because [promiscuity in such a case] is merely a Biblical prohibition: “The wife of the deceased shall not marry out” (Devarim 25:5). The answer is: They sentenced her to death so as to cast fear on the people and save the generation from becoming immoral. And once she had been sentenced to death, it was by burning because we find elsewhere that the execution of a Kohein’s daughter was by burning. Also Rashi holds this view, as he explains, “They, therefore, sentenced her to be burned.” This is as Re’m explained. But Maharshal asks: Was she not unmarried [and not liable for death]? He answers: She [was liable because she] needed yibum.

הוא מוצאת WHEN SHE WAS BROUGHT FORTH to be burnt.

היא מוצאת, after she had taken out the pledges given to her by Yehudah and sent them to him via a messenger, she did not want to directly confront him, but said: ”I am pregnant for the man who owned these.”

היא מוצאת והיא שלחה, even at this late stage in the trial when she was already on the way to the site of her execution, Tamar did not despair, as she had a heart as stout as that of a lion.

היא מוצאת, she did not make the matter public even when she was on the point of being executed. Therefore she only hinted at the owner of the trinkets she wanted Yehudah to recognise without accusing him outright as having given them to her after he had slept with her.

היא מוצאת, “when she was taken out,” to be burned. We learn from this verse that a person should rather allow himself to be burned than to cause a fellow man to blanch from public embarrassment. Tamar reasoned to herself: “if he will admit his part in my pregnancy, all well and good; If not, I will rather allow myself to be burned in the furnace than to shame him in public.” Although the word מוצאת, has been spelled with the letter א, (whereas if it meant “being burned,” it should have been spelled without that letter) one may interpret it homiletically as being derived from הצתה, subjecting something to fire. Incidentally, the first letters in the words of the verse ו-יאמר י-הודה ה-וציאוה - ו-תשרף when read backwards yield the acrostic י-ה-ו-ה, the Ineffable Name of G’d. This suggests that at the time Tamar was concerned with saving Yehudah’s “face,” G’d was busy saving her life by invoking the attribute of Mercy.

From here they concluded: Better for a person to be thrown into a fiery furnace... You might ask: How did Chazal know this? Perhaps Tamar did not inform [that it was Yehudah] because she was not yet thrown into the fire, neither was it burning. But had the fire been burning she would have informed. The answer is as Rabbeinu Tam explains in Tosafos, Bava Metzia 59a: It is written here היא מוצת, missing an א, which is similar to, “He has kindled (ויצת) a fire in Zion” (Eichah 4:11). This implies that the fire was burning and still she did not inform. This is why Chazal concluded as they did.

היא מוצאת, our sages in Sotah 10 conclude from this verse that a person prefers to be thrown into a fiery furnace to being publicly embarrassed. They derive this from the words of Tamar, who said (to herself): “if he will own up to the truth, Ok, if not, I will rather allow myself to be burned at the stake than to shame him in public.” Even though the word מוצאת is spelled with the letter א in the middle, thus not being derived from the root הצת, to cause a conflagration, to set fire, one may explain it along that line here as being phonetically connected to Lamentations 4,11 ויצת אש ציון, “He set fire to Zion.”

והיא שלחה, “and she had sent;” the word is spelled with the letter י, [although usually we find it spelled with the letter ו, just like its masculine counterpart הוא, “he.” Ed.]

והיא שלחה אל חמיה SHE SENT TO HER FATHER-IN-LAW — she did not wish to put him to shame in public by saying “It is by thee that I am with child”, but she said only “By the man whose these are”. She thought: “if he is to acknowledge it, let him acknowledge it voluntarily, and if not, let them burn me and let me not put him to shame in public”. From this passage our Rabbis derived the teaching: Far better that a man should let himself be cast into a fiery furnace (even as Tamar was ready to be burnt to death) and let him not publicly put his fellow to shame (Sotah 10b).

לאיש אשר אלה לו, even though she was in extreme danger she did not want to publicly embarrass Yehudah. She is the person who inspired our sages to declare that one ought to prefer to be burned in public to publicly embarrassing a fellow human being (Sotah 10

לאיש אשר אלה לו, this prompted our ages in Sotah 10 to say that it is better for a person to throw himself into a burning furnace than to cause public embarrassment to a fellow human being. Tamar demonstrated this by the conduct the Torah attributes to her in our verse. The word לו, a reference to an unnamed third party left Yehudah the option to ignore her accusation, and for any future embarrassment on that score to be wiped out with her death.

Please recognize your Creator and do not destroy... She did not know there were three lives. Rashi says this because in truth it was so, but she mentioned only two lives. Maharshal, however, explains that Rashi knew this because it is written הכר נא. Why is נא written in the middle [of her plea]? It should be at the beginning or the end. From this Rashi deduces that she first said: “הכר (recognize) that I conceived from you,” [i.e., there are two lives]. Then she added נא, as if to say, “I have another request: Do not destroy the additional life.” I.e., do not destroy three lives.

הכר נא RECOGNISE, I PRAY THEE — The word נא is used as an expression of entreaty: Acknowledge (הכר) I beg of you, your Creator and do not destroy three lives (Genesis Rabbah 85:11).

ותאמר, this she said to the messenger she sent to Yehudah with the pledges that he had given her.

הכר נא, Bereshit Rabbah 85,11 notes how the Torah “plays” with people. She hinted to Yehudah that he had used the same words to deceive his father into believing that Joseph had been devoured by a wild animal. Now it was his turn to be deceived. The punishment matches the crime. (37,32) The Torah, knowing what was to happen in the future, smiled to itself thinking: “wait until you will be deceived by these same words.”

צדקה SHE IS RIGHTEOUS (right) in what she has said

SHE IS RIGHTEOUS FROM ME. “She is righteous in her words. From me is she with child. Our Rabbis expounded that a bath kol (a Divine voice) came forth and said the word mimeni, i.e., ‘From Me and from My authority did these events unfold.’” This is Rashi’s language.
The correct interpretation is that it is similar to the verses: Men more righteous and better than he;¹⁹¹I Kings 2:32. And he [Saul] said to David, Thou art more righteous than I; for thou hast rendered unto me good, whereas I have rendered unto thee evil.¹⁹²I Samuel 24:18. Here too the meaning is: “She is more righteous than I, for she acted righteously and I am the one who sinned against her by not giving her my son Shelah.” The purport of the statement is that Shelah was the brother-in-law, [hence he was the first designated to marry her], and if he did not wish to take her as his wife, his father is next in line to act as the redeemer, as I have explained above¹⁹³In Verse 8 here. when I discussed the law of marrying a childless brother’s widow.

צדקה ממני, more righteous than I. He referred to her accusation (words) as compared to his accusation (words) against her. “I had commanded her to remain in her father’s house until Shelah would grow up. She complied with the terms of our understanding. However, I did not keep my part of the bargain I had struck with her.” כי ..לא נתתיה לשלה בני, the construction here is similar to Job 32,2: על צדקו נפשו מאלוקים, “because he thought himself more righteous than G’d.” Another similar construction occurs in Samuel I 24,18 with King Sha-ul who admitted to David that he had been wrong in persecuting him with the words: צדיק אתה ממני, “you are more righteous than I.”...

צדקה ממני, even though she approached me under false pretences, misrepresenting herself, she still acted more righteously than I did. I did not see her at all when I sent her the goat. [I was too embarrassed to be seen, Ed.] Her deceit was practised for a noble cause. and appears to have been approved by G’d, seeing she meant to maintain the seed of her deceased husband, whereas I was merely wanting to gratify my libido. Immediately she had done what she meant to do she resumed living as a widow as I had told her to do. My seeking her out to let her have the goat I had promised her was meant only to ensure that my good image would be preserved. This in itself is not a worthy cause. Our sages have used this occurrence as the basis for their saying that “a sin committed for noble cause is better than a good deed when same is not performed as such but as something self-serving.” (Nazir 23).

צדקה ממני, "she is more righteous than I." As we have already mentioned the death penalty which had first been decreed upon Tamar was a man-made ordinance applicable to certain sexual offences by the Gentiles. Inasmuch as it was revealed that Tamar's partner had been Yehudah this made her more righteous than Yehudah. Tamar had known all along that she was permitted to sleep with Yehudah, whereas Yehudah, who had not known who she was at the time, had merely been fortunate that she had not been forbidden to him under existing regulations. The verse also means that Tamar had not only been righteous in the manner in which she conducted her defence, but had also been righteous in her conduct. Legally speaking, the episode is comparable to someone who intends to eat forbidden fat but who is fortunate enough to have exchanged the forbidden fat for some which is permitted.

צדקה ממני; she is more righteous than I, for I had declared her guilty of being burned to death while she was innocent, seeing she is pregnant from me and has not acted like a harlot. Our sages in Makkot 23 as well as in Bereshit Rabbah 85,12 say that there are basically three locations where the Holy Spirit,רוח הקודש , was manifest [was needed to confirm a verdict. Ed.] One was the court of Shem, son of Noach. This is based on the word ממני in our verse not meaning “than me, Yehudah,” but “from Me, G’d.” [although Shem himself was no longer alive at the time Tamar’s trial came up, his grandson Ever, probably in conjunction with others maintained the court he had founded, which was administering the seven Noachide (universal laws for all of mankind) laws at the time. Ed.] The sages understand that when the verdict was passed on Tamar a heavenly voice was heard saying that Tamar’s pregnancy by Yehudah had been decreed by G.d, “from Me.” The second such instance was in the court conducted by the prophet Samuel. They base this on Samuel I 12,5 ויאמר עד, G’d confirming that the prophet had dealt fairly with the whole people during his being the supreme authority, before a King was appointed. Without this confirmation we only had his word for it. The third example was the court of King Solomon, during the famous trial of two women claiming a live baby as her own and the dead one as belonging to her adversary. (Kings I 3,27.) A heavenly voice confirmed Solomon’s verdict [which from a purely halachic point of view was quite unsubstantiated. Ed.] The words היא אמו, “she is his mother,” then were not said by Solomon but by G’d. G’d’s confirmation of Tamat’s innocence was needed as people could have argued that while it was true that she had slept with Yehudah, who was to say that other men had not also slept with her and that she was actually pregnant by someone else? The Talmud concludes by citing the heavenly voice as saying ממך יצאו כבושים, “secrets unknown to others are revealed by Me.” [according to Rashi on Makkot 23 the fact that in due course Tamar’s and Yehudah’s son became the forerunner of the Davidic dynasty proved that the seed she had carried was that of Yehudah, both Tamar and Yehudah being of Royal descent, -Tamar as the daughter of Malki Tzedek King of Shalem, and Yehudah by dint of the destiny predicted for him by his father on his deathbed.] There is a variant reading which says that as a result of Yehudah’s admission, G’d decided to appoint him as the founder of the future Davidic dynasties, and that the line ונכבשה הארץ לפניכם, “the land will become conquered before you,” in Numbers 32,29 is addressed to the leading tribe, Yehudah. This is based on the wordכבושים in the Talmud being read as ממך יצאו כובשים, “that conquerors will emerge from your loins.”

צדקה ממני, “she is correct; it stems from me.” Rashi interprets this statement as referring to Tamar’s statement, (words) that she was pregnant by Yehudah, (Though the words were never articulated by her) Nachmanides understands Yehudah as referring to Tamar’s deeds rather than to her words. She was right, whereas he was wrong in not giving her as a wife to Shelah, seeing that she had a claim on him. Shelah’s father would rank second behind his son only if his son had refused to carry out his obligation to marry Tamar. Some commentators feel that the words צדקה ממני, were spoken by Yehudah when he became aware that it had been he who had impregnated Tamar, and had found out in the process that she had been a virgin, and that the unnatural deaths of his two older sons had been the punishment for their failing to fulfill their duties as husbands of Tamar, and their wasting their semen. In the event that someone would claim that according to accepted norms a virgin never conceives from her first sexual experience, so how could Yehudah have impregnated her as virgin, this principle is valid only if the hymen had not previously been weakened, such as by an almost but not quite penetration, as is described as having been performed by Onan. (Genesis 38,9)

In what she has said. Rashi is answering the question: צדקה ממני implies she was more righteous than him. But here, what does it matter whether she was more righteous?

ויאמר צדקה ממני, he (Yehudah) said: “she is more righteous than I am. ”G–d’s methods when sitting in judgment cannot be compared to the way a human judge deals with offenders. When a human judge tries a case, and the accused party admits his guilt, the judge proceeds to carry out the penalty for the offence in question, having proven that he did not act arbitrarily. In other words, if the offence carries the death penalty, it is carried out forthwith. According to Proverbs 28,13, this is not G–d’s way of dealing with the guilty party Solomon describes it as: ומודה ועוזב ירוחם, “if he confesses and abandons sin, he will experience mercy.” As soon as Yehudah’s brother Reuven heard about how he had publicly acknowledged being the father of Tamar’s unborn children, he himself acknowledged his guilt in defiling his father’ couch. (Yaakov’s words in Genesis 49,4) This is also what Eliphas said to Job (Job 15,18) אשר חכמים יגידו ולא כחדו מאבותם, “that which the wise men have transmitted from their fathers and have not withheld it.” The wise men that Job referred to are none other than Yehudah and Reuven. This is why the descendants of those two sons of Yaakov were the only ones whose territory was never invaded by aliens [prior to the building of Solomon’s Temple? Ed.] (compare Moses’ blessing in Deuteronomy 33, 6-7)

צדקה ממני, “she is more righteous than I;” why did Yehudah add the word: ממני? She did what she did because she wanted to become pregnant from him since she was afraid that Shilo also would spill his seed like his brothers had done and he would die. [The meaning is as follows: whereas both she and I indulged our libido, I did it for a merely physical gratification, whereas she was intent on becoming the mother of a member of the family of Avraham, Yitzchok and a Yaakov. I considered her as a potentially bad omen, two of her husbands having died on her, whereas her entire purpose was to bring life into the world. Ed.]

ממני FROM ME is she with child. Our Rabbis, of blessed memory, explained this to mean that a Bath-kol came forth and said the word ממני — from Me and by My agency have these things happened: because she proved herself a modest woman whilst in her father-in-law’s house I have ordained that kings shall be descended from her, and I have already ordained that I would raise up kings in Israel from the tribe of Judah (Genesis Rabbah 85:11) (therefore I have brought it about that these two persons who are to be the ancestors of kings should unite to become so).

AND HE KNEW HER AGAIN NO MORE (‘v’lo yasaph’). After having established progeny for his children, he did not wish to be with her again even though this was dependent upon his wish as she was not forbidden to him, being, in fact, considered as his wife, as is the law when the widow of a childless man has relations with a relative. This is the reason for the explanation given by a certain Sage,¹⁹⁴Shmuel the Elder (Sotah 10 b). who explains the verse as saying, “And he did not cease to know her,”¹⁹⁵Since Tamar did in fact become his legitimate wife, as explained above, he did not cease living with her. since here the expression used is, v’lo yasaph, and elsewhere it is written, A great voice ‘v’lo yasaph’.¹⁹⁶Deuteronomy 5:19. Reference there is to the Divine Voice that came forth from Mount Sinai, concerning which Scripture says, v’lo yasaph [with a kamatz], meaning “and it did not cease,” or “it did not diminish in strength,” unlike the human voice which decreases and eventually stops completely. Here also the identical expression, v’lo yasaph [with a patach], means “and he did not cease.”

ולא יסף, he did not continue to sleep with Tamar. If you were to interpret the words ולא יסף as “he did not stop sleeping with her,” the wording should have been: ולא יסף עוד מלדעתה.

She is righteous, [it is] from me. Alternatively, “She is more righteous than me” — her intentions were pure whereas mine were not.

כי על כן לא נתתיה, as if the Torah had written כי על כן שלא נתתיה, “because I did not give her, etc., she has done this, i.e. pretended to be a harlot, because I did not give her to my son Shelah.” We find a similar construction in Exodus 13,8 בעבור זה עשה ה' לי, “on account of this (that I observe the commandment mentioned) G’d has done this for me” (taken me out of Egypt).”

ולא יסף עוד לדעתה, “he had no further marital relations wit her.” There is an opinion (Sotah 10) according to which the meaning of the above words is that Yehudah did not stop having marital relations with Tamar. According to the opinion that the meaning of ולא יסף is “he did not continue, etc.” we must view Yehudah’s conduct vis a vis Tamar as reflecting the concept of קדש עצמך במותר לך, “sanctify yourself by eschewing even what is permitted to you.” Yehudah did not mean to imply that Tamar was legally out of bounds to him as a wife. Seeing he had fulfilled the commandment to be fruitful with her, he saw no point in continuing a relationship that could be misinterpreted by people who had known Tamar as the wife of one of his sons.

She is righteous in what she has said. But she is not righteous in her act of illicit relations. The verse says, “He did not know that she was his daughter-in-law” (v. 16), implying that if he had known he would not have been with her. But she knew, so how did she permit herself to do this? She should not have relied on stretched explanations [that it was permitted due to yibum]. But she is righteous in what she said, for I do indeed recognize the signs as belonging to me. She assumedly conceived from me, since they said, “There was no harlot here.” Also the calculation of “about three months” is proof. Although she could have conceived from others, who might also have been with her, that is a mere possibility whereas the signs are definite. (Nachalas Yaakov)

Should you question that at the time Yehudah was intimate with Tamar he thought that she was a Gentile; why then did he violate what he knew to be the local ordinance? Our rabbis have answered in Bereshit Rabbah 85,8 that G'd on occasion directs the steps of a man and corrects what was an evil intent in order that the end result should correspond to His plans. [This seems to mean that though Yehudah would have slept with any harlot at that moment when he felt a sexual urge, G'd directed that the woman he did in fact sleep with was ritually pure and permissible. Ed.] The Midrash rationalises this by referring to the line of kings that were to emanate from Yehudah. We suggest that the reader turn to our commentary on Genesis 49,9 גור אריה.

צדקה ממנו, the meaning is as per Targum, i.e. “she has become pregnant from me.” We are puzzled by this commentary, as if true, the sin of sleeping with one’s father-in-law is far greater than that of sleeping with a total stranger. We must assume therefore, that prior to the giving of the Torah, the way the system of the Levirate marriage was practiced was that in the absence of the deceased husband of the widow having any siblings, another close family member would perform that rite with the widow in order to ensure that the name of the deceased would be preserved thereby. Yehudah’s statement at the time when Tamar explained her complaint that she had not been given as a wife to Shelah, must therefore be explained as follows: “actually, seeing that at the time Onan died Shelah was not yet old enough to perform these rites it was my duty to have done so, especially as I could not be sure he would do so even when he would grow up.” At the time when Yehudah, through sleeping with Tamar had actually fulfilled the required rite though not having been aware of it, G–d said to him: “by doing so you saved four lives from death. One was saved from dying in a pit and three were saved from dying by being burned to death. This is based on Daniel 1,6: ויהי בהם מבני יהודה דניאל, חנניה, מישאל, ועזריה, there were among them from the descendants of Yehudah: ‘Daniel, Chananyah, Mishael and Azaryah.’ The verse does not trace their ancestry to Chizkiyah, but to Yehudah. Daniel was saved from a pit, the other three from a fiery furnace. An alternate explanation of the words: צדקה ממנו, “she became pregnant from me.” Yehudah claimed that he had married her legally by betrothing her with his ring, as mentioned earlier in my commentary. Rabbi Moshe queries this interpretation claiming that such a betrothal is invalid when performed by the father-in-law. He bases himself on the Talmud, tractate Sotah folio 10, the Talmud, quoting the dialogue between Yehudah and Tamar there claims that when Yehudah asked her about her marital status, including asking her whether perhaps her father had accepted a token of betrothal on her behalf, she responded by saying that this was impossible as she was an orphan. Rashi on the Talmud there explains that even if she had been betrothed by her father, had he lived, such a betrothal would have been invalid as she would have had to be a minor for such a betrothal to have any legal significance. She is quoted as having told Yehudah that she was completely and legally available and was not ritually impure either. At any rate, when the Torah subsequent to the revelations after the trial writes that Yehudah ולא יסף עוד לדעתה, this line has to be understood that he did not stop to have marital relations with her, as he had now found out that everything had been legal to begin with. (verse 26) According to our author this latest interpretation follows the view expressed in the Talmud tractate Yevamot folio 100, that even a woman with an infant on her shoulder is believed when she claims that her betrothal at the time had been illegal.

כי על כן, “because of this;” if I had not withheld her rightful husband, my son Sheylah from her because I had been afraid that he too would deliberately fail to impregnate her, she would not have felt forced to take such a drastic step in order to become part of my family. A different interpretation: “her righteousness is rooted in me so that I should free her of the death penalty, because if I were to convict her I would be punishing myself; [by killing the son she is about to bear for me. Ed.]

כי על כן לא נתתיה BECAUSE THAT I GAVE HER NOT — For (כי) she has acted rightly, because (על כן) I did not give her to Shelah, my son.

ולא יסף עוד לדעתה, he did not sleep with her again seeing that even this time the act had been unintentional and in a manner not appropriate to her status. It is demeaning for a socially highly placed individual to sleep with a harlot. For Yehudah to have done so again would have been demeaning for him [as she would always be aware that the first time he had done this was in order to merely gratify a biological urge. Ed.] In the Targum we find two different versions regarding the meaning of the words ולא יסף עוד לדעתה. The second version is that Yehudah never stopped sleeping with Tamar, i.e. he treated her as his wife in every respect from then on. The reason why the Torah told us about all these details and how the seed of Yehudah became mingled with that of Ruth the Moabite, as well as how King Solomon was the son of Bat Sheva whose marriage to David did not exactly come about in a normal manner, is to show that the hand of G’d had been at work in all of these situations. G’d’s design had been that the Kingdom of Israel should be David’s on a hereditary basis forever [whenever there would be independent kings, not appointed by conquerors of the Jewish people. Ed.] The somewhat flawed lineage in Jewish kings is G’d’s device to prevent such kings from becoming proud of their pure ancestry, and considering themselves ”ancestrally“ superior to their peers. [perhaps the advice of the Shulchan Aruch that when appointing public officials of high rank one should select someone with a “skeleton in his closet,” a קופת שרצים, is based on the flaws in the ancestry of the Davidic dynasty. Ed.]

Conformed with the law inasmuch as I did not give her to my son Sheilah. [Rashi knows it means this] because it says both כי and על כן, when one is sufficient.

כי על כן לא נתתיה לשלה, "since I did not give her to Shelah, etc." Yehudah explained Tamar's behaviour as due to her having lost hope that she would become Shelah's wife. Hence there was no more זיקה, bond of marital attachment between her and Shelah.

ולא יסף עוד לדעתה, “and he did not stop having marital relations with her,” seeing that originally I had intended to perform the levirate marriage ritual with her,” as explained on verse 25. Some commentators claim that in that era the only valid marriage ceremony was for the parties concerned sleeping together. Such “sleeping” together was legal as a form of marriage only if the manner in which it was performed was the generally accepted method, i.e. the male ejaculating his semen into the female vagina while in the ‘missionary’ position. Seeing that this was so, Tamar had never been married, as both Yehudah’s sons had not consummated the marriage. She was therefore legally married to Yehudah, who had never been her fatherinlaw. Another interpretation of the words: ולא יסף; “he never again had marital relations with Tamar again, as he was afraid she would cause death to any husband. [When he had done it the first time, Yehudah had thought he was sleeping with a harlot. Ed.] Still another explanation of the meaning of these words: he did not sleep with her again as he was ashamed to do so seeing that he was her fatherinlaw. This is based on the grammatical nuance that if it were to mean that he never stopped to sleep with her, [i.e. treated her as his wife, Ed.] the word לדעתה, with the prefix ל, would not make sense.

ולא יסף עוד AND HE KNEW HER AGAIN NO MORE — Some explain that ולא יסף means he did not continue to know her (Sifrei Bamidbar 88): others explain that it means he did not cease to know her (Sotah 10b). An exactly similar instance occurs in reference to Eldad and Medad (Numbers 11:25), where ולא יספו which some translate “and they did not continue to prophesy” is translated in the Targum by “and they did not cease to prophesy”.

ולא יסף עוד לדעתה, “and he did not have further sexual intercourse with her.” Having fulfilled the commandment of ensuring that the souls of Er and Onan would be reincarnated in Tamar’s children, Yehudah refrained from treating her as his wife, even though technically, i.e. from a halachic point of view he could have had marital relations with her. The reasoning of the commentator (Samuel the elder in Sotah 10) who understood the words ולא יסף to mean “he did not stop,” is that seeing Yehudah’s union with Tamar had been approved by heaven there was no point in discontinuing his marital relations with her.

Some say he did not continue whereas others say he did not cease. Some say Yehudah did not continue since his only reason for being with her would be to establish seed in the name of the deceased. As he had done this, he ceased from relations [although Halachically she was his wife]. And some say he did not cease since he saw she yearned to have children from him. Her intentions were pure, so he continued being with her.

Alternatively, Yehudah simply assumed the blame for having caused Tamar's behaviour seeing he had not given her to Shelah. The words צדקה ממני then should be translated: "she is righteous in her deeds; I was the cause of what she did."

בעת לדתה AT THE TIME OF HER BEARING — But in the case of Rebecca Scripture says (25:24) “And when her days to give birth were fulfilled” — in the latter case the months of pregnancy were complete, here, however, they were short of the full term (Genesis Rabbah 85:13).

והנה תאומים בבטנה, she recognised shortly before giving birth that she was going to give birth to twins. This is the reason the midwife tied the red string to the baby first appearing out of her womb.

ויהי בעת לדתה, it is clear from this wording that, in contrast to Rivkah, Tamar had not had any warning signs that she was carrying twins in her womb. There is an aggadic commentary according to which Rivkah’s problematic pregnancy was due to her carrying the seeds of two monarchs within her, whereas seeing that from Tamar only one potential king would emerge, the one being born first had “burst the boundaries,” excluding the other fetus from competition. (similar to Bereshit Rabbah 85,15.) Micah 2,13 alludes to this.

והנה תאומים בבטנה, “and here there were twins in her womb.” The midwife noticed this already before Tamar had commenced to give birth. This is why she had a means of identification ready to make sure the firstborn would be identified as such.

והנה תאומים AND BEHOLD TWINS — Here the word is written plene (with א and י whilst there (in the case of Rebecca) it is written defective (תומם without these letters) because one (viz., Esau) was wicked, but here both were righteous (Genesis Rabbah 85:13).

תאומים. This is the only instance when this word is spelled with both the letter א and the letter ו, i.e. pointing to the fact that these two were properly matched twins, i.e. both boys would grow up righteous.

ויתן יד THE ONE PUT OUT HIS HAND — one stretched forth his hand outside, and after she had bound the scarlet thread upon his hand he drew it back.

על ידו שני לאמור, a scarlet thread on his hand, as though to say, etc. The midwife had a sudden flash of Holy Spirit and did something without being aware of its true significance. By tying Shani scarlet thread around his hand she indicated that the baby was Sheyni the one born second, though it had left the womb first. The Torah adds the word לאמור, "meaning to say" that this one emerged first. Although the midwife said so the truth was the reverse. The red thread was to prove יש אם למסורת, that there is a distinct significance to the spelling of a text as well as to the accepted way of reading a text.

ויהי בלדתה ויתן יד, one of them stuck his hand out of his mother’s womb, signaling that he wanted out. Seeing that he did not succeed, he withdrew his hand.

One extended his hand outside and after she tied... Rashi explains that it means “extended” because ויתן יד [would seem to] imply that the fetus intended to give her a hand. And Rashi says “one,” meaning that it was one of the two, because the verse does not state who put out his hand, nor does Scripture state המוציא or הנותן [as is usual when the subject is unidentified]. And Rashi adds, “After she tied the thread on it he withdrew it,” because כמשיב ידו [implies he put his hand back out, which] is understandable only if he had withdrawn it.

ותקח המילדת, she took hold of his hand before he could withdraw it.
ותקשור על ידו שני, as a sign who had been first.

פרצת THOU HAST BURST FORTH — What a strong effort hast thou made!

HOW HAST THOU BURST FORTH? THIS BURSTING UPON THYSELF (‘PARATZTA ALECHA’). “What a strong effort you have made!” thus the language of Rashi.
But the word paretz, wherever used, signifies the breaching of a fence and passing through, just as: I will break down (‘p’rotz’) the fence thereof;¹⁹⁷Isaiah 5:5. Why hast Thou broken down (‘paratzta’) her fences?¹⁹⁸Psalms 80:13. And in the language of the Rabbis: “Pirtzah (a breach in a wall) calleth forth to the thief.”¹⁹⁹Sotah 26a. Indeed, the Sacred Language²⁰⁰Hebrew. See Ramban on Exodus 30:13, as to why Hebrew is called “a sacred” language. uses the term p’rotz when referring to anything that oversteps its boundary: And thou shalt break forth (‘upharatzta’) to the west, and to the east;²⁰¹Above, 28:14. Here referring to the conquest of land. And the man broke forth (‘vayiphrotz’) exceedingly.²⁰²Ibid., 30:43. Here referring to an unusual increase in wealth. It is thus clear that the word p’rotz is used to refer to anything which breaks forth from its normal boundary. It is for this reason that the verse here is saying, at the time that the first child drew back his hand, and this one hurriedly came out, “What great breach hast thou made in the fence in order to hurry out before him?” The verse says, alecha (upon thee), to indicate that ‘the fence’ was upon him, and he was imprisoned in it. The sense of the verse is thus: “What great breach did you take upon yourself to make in the fence, with the result that you came out of it?”
Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra said in explanation of the verse: “Mah paratzta? What have you broken, in the manner of a man who makes a breach in a fence and exits through it, and now the responsibility for this breach is upon you.”²⁰³That is, “if in the process of your hurried exit you would have caused harm or death to your brother, you would have been held responsible.”
There is no point to this interpretation. In the Midrash of Rabbi Nechunya ben Hakaneh²⁰⁴Sefer Habahir, 196. See Note 42, Seder Bereshith. there is mentioned a mystic principle in connection with the name of these children, Peretz and Zerach. Thus they said: “He was called Zerach (shining) on account of the sun which always shines, and Peretz (breaking) on account of the moon which is sometimes dismantled²⁰⁵Referring to the days when the moonlight decreases, and to the end of the month when its light completely disapppears. and sometimes whole. Now was not Peretz the firstborn, and yet the sun is greater than the moon?²⁰⁶In which case Zerach, whose name is symbolic of the sun, should have been the first born. This presents no difficulty, for it does indeed say, And he [Zerach] put out his hand,²⁰⁷Verse 28 here. Thus Zerach was indeed the firstborn. and it is further written, And afterwards came out his brother.”²⁰⁸Verse 30 here, referring to Zerach. And the verse concludes; that had the shining red thread upon his hand, thus indicating the importance of his having put out his hand first. Now according to their opinion, the moon is associated with the name Peretz on account of the kingdom of the House of David.²⁰⁹Having gone through various periods of ascendancy and decline in its history, the kingdom of the House of David resembles the light of the moon which is constantly changing. Peretz and Zerach were born twins since the moon functions by means of the sun. Thus Peretz is the twin of Zerach who gives forth the hand, while he²¹⁰That is, Peretz. In other words, by putting forth his hand, Zerach indicated that the birthright was to have been his, but Peretz, by coming out first, indicated the consent of the Supreme One to his being appointed the firstborn. is the firstborn by virtue of the power of the Supreme One, as is said, I also appoint him first-born.²¹¹Psalms 89:28. This is the purport of the saying of the Sages with respect to the Sanctification of the Moon: “David King of Israel lives and exists.”²¹²Rosh Hashanah 25a. Ramban’s meaning is that since the kingdom of David evolved from Peretz, and Peretz is symbolized by the moon, the Sages of the Talmud, when wishing to inform the Jews in other countries that the New Moon had appeared and been sanctified by the Great Court, would use this message: “David, king….” This they did in order to circumvent a prohibition by the Romans against transmitting news regarding the times set for the festivals. See Ramban above, 32:26. The man learned [in the mystic teachings of the Cabala] will understand.

ויהי כמשיב ידו, the prefix כ meaning “as if,” describes that he did not really retract his hand. He was forced to, being pushed by his brother.

מה פרצת עליך פרץ, "how did you burst your way out?" Inasmuch as the hand of the first one indicated that he was about to emerge from the womb before his brother why did you push your way out past him thus blocking his becoming the first-born? The word מה, which normally means "what," must be understood here similarly to Psalms 104,24: מה רבו מעשיך, "how great are Your works, etc.?" When the Torah continues עליך פרץ, this explains the nature of this bursting forth. Normally, when twins are born, the one which emerges first is from the sperm that entered the womb last, the earlier sperm being blocked by the sperm injected later. In this instance the baby born first was formed from the sperm that had entered Tamar's womb first. This is why the kingdom rightfully belonged to Peretz, seeing he had been both conceived first and born first.

ויהי כמשיב ידו, at the time when he withdrew his hand his brother pushed ahead and emerged first. We have a similar construction to this in 40,10 והיא כפורחת, which also describes a process which was deceptive. [that which blossoms first does not always ripen first. Ed.]

ויהי כמשיב ידו, “it happened as he retracted his hand, etc.” This refers to the distance a person can withdraw his hand. If the subject of this phrase would be the infant to whom this hand belonged, the Torah should have written: ויהי כאשר השיב ידו.

והנה יצא אחיו, “and here suddenly his brother emerged.” Seeing that future kings would claim Tamar as their original matriarch, it was important to know which was the older. (Compare B’reshit Rabbah 85,13)

ותאמר, these words were addressed by the midwife to the newly born infant who had pushed to displace his brother.
פרצת, why have you burst forth from the confines of the womb displacing your brother who had been in the process of emerging?

מה פרצת עליך פרץ? “how did you burst your way out?” Rashi understands the expression פרץ as denoting doing something violently. Alternately, it may mean that “you have broken out of the boundary that was meant to contain you.” Nachmanides writes that anyone who crosses a boundary is described by Biblical Hebrew as being פורץ as G’d promised Yaakov in Genesis 28,14 ופרצת ימה וקדמה וגו', “and you will burst forth to the West, to the East, etc.” concerning his descendants. This is why the midwife, when seeing the firstborn extending his hand beyond the birth canal, exclaimed that by coming forth hand first, that “he had burst forth.” The meaning of the word עליך in our context refers to the natural boundaries that had been set for each of these infants and the order in which they were meant to be born. Some commentators explain the words: מה פרצת as similar to פרצה גדולה עשית, “you have made a great break-through,” i.e. “may it be G’d’s will that this breakthrough you have made into the world will be a good omen for your continuous further development. According to this inter-pretation, the word פרצת here is not similar in meaning to the word in Genesis

פרץ, this name was given to the twin whose head came out first.

עליך פרץ, you have acted precipitously, inappropriately, in claiming something which was not meant to be yours, the birthright.

ויקרא, Yehudah called his name Peretz in agreement with the comments of the midwife.

אשר על ידו השני THAT HAD THE SHINING RED THREAD UPON HIS HAND — The word יד is written here four times corresponding to the four acts of sacrilege which Achan, who was a descendant of Perez, committed with his hand. Others say these correspond to the four things which he took with his hand of the spoil of Jericho: a Babylon garment, two hundred shekels, and a wedge of gold (Genesis Rabbah 85:14).

זרח. On account of the woolen thread which was red in colour. The word זרח basically means red, such as the colour of the sun at the time it rises and when it sets. If it does not appear red during the day this is because of the excess amount of light during those hours making it impossible for us to notice the red colour behind all that light. We find confirmation of the redness of the sun in Kings II 3,22 when the Moabites were deceived by believing that the rising sun’s redness represented blood remaining from a violent battle and they thought they could then simply move over to the camp of the Israelites and pick up the spoils.

זרח, she named him in commemoration of the red string she had wound around his hand. This colour symbolises a warning.

Corresponding the four bans ... corresponding to the four things that he took... I.e., the four things Achan took, which were: a cloak from Shinar, two chunks of silver worth 200 shekels, making three, and a strand of gold, making four. Re’m objects: Sanhedrin 43b mentions a view that he violated three bans, and a view that it was five — four in Moshe’s time and one in Yehoshua’s. Either way, it was not four. Re’m answers: According to Bereishis Rabbah, [which Rashi is citing, this verse] deals only with the four bans of Moshe’s days. But this is incorrect because Bereishis Rabbah lists the four bans: those of Amalek, Sichon and Og, Yericho, and Midian. This is three in Moshe’s days and one in Yehoshua’s. There is a lengthy answer to this. But the Maharsha emends the text in Sanhedrin 43b to read: “Rabbi Yochanan said it was four bans...” [Accordingly, Rashi was following this view.] (Nachalas Yaakov)

ויקרא שמו זרח, “he named him Zerach”. He was reddish skinned, and the word זרח appears in that sense in Kings II 3,22.

ויקרא שמו זרח AND HIS NAME WAS CALLED ZARAH — (bright, shining), because of the bright colour of the scarlet thread.

Because of the bright color of the scarlet thread. [Rashi knew this because this way Zorach] is like Peretz, who was named after what happened.