Commento su Genesi 37:2

אלה תלדות יעקב THESE ARE THE PROGENY OF JACOB — And these are an account of the generations of Jacob: these are their settlements and the events that happened to them until they formed a permanent settlement. The first cause is found in the narrative, “Joseph being seventeen years old, etc. etc.” — it was through this incident that it came about that they went down to Egypt. This is the real explanation of the text and in it each statement finds its proper setting. The Midrash, however, explains that by the words, “These are the progeny of Jacob — Joseph”, Scripture regards all Jacob’s sons as secondary to Joseph for several reasons: first, the whole purpose of Jacob in working for Laban was only for Rachel, Joseph’s mother, (and all his children were born only in consequence of this); then, again, Joseph’s facial features bore a striking resemblance to those of Jacob. Further, whatever happened to Jacob happened to Joseph: the one was hated, the other was hated; in the case of the one his brother wished to kill him so, too, in the case of the other, his brethren wished to kill him. Many such similarities are pointed out in (Genesis Rabbah 84:5-6; Genesis Rabbah 84:8). Another comment on this verse is: וישב AND HE ABODE — Jacob wished to live at ease, but this trouble in connection with Joseph suddenly came upon him. When the righteous wish to live at ease, the Holy one, blessed be He), says to them: “Are not the righteous satisfied with what is stored up for them in the world to come that they wish to live at ease in this world too! (Genesis Rabbah 84:3)

אלה תולדות יעקב, intelligent people must remember that our sages taught us that in spite of all different methods of exegesis of the text of the written Torah, no verse may legitimately be explained in a manner which contradicts the plain meaning of the text. While it is true that the Torah, by means of allusions, grammatical anomalies, tone-signs, etc., teaches us far more than meets the eye when we look at the bald text, there are strict limitations even to these methods of exegesis such as the thirteen principles of Rabbi Yishmael and the 32 principles of Rabbi Yossi Haglili. Exegetes of former times, thanks to their piety, relied exclusively on the drashot i.e. allegorical and ethical interpretations of anomalies in the text of the Torah, thereby neglecting a thorough study of the text as it presents itself to the average, though not scholarly, reader. Seeing that our sages stated אל תרבו בניכם בהגיון, “do not burden your children overly with interpretation based on logic, on common sense,” and they also saidהעוסק במקרא מדה ואינו מדה, העוסק בתלמוד אין לך מדה גדולה מזו, “he who studies the written text of the Torah has accomplished something positive but has also failed to accomplish something positive, but on the other hand, he who has studied Talmud has chosen by far the best path in Torah study,” (freely translated), the result of such statements has been that students have not become used to studying the plain meaning of the text without immediately looking at exegesis. (Baba Metzia 33 and a source supposedly in Berachot 28, the correct text being מנעו בניכם מן ההגיון, prevent your children from indulging in speculative reason,” but this does not seem to have any connection with Torah exegesis in the context where the statement is made. Ed.] This principle has been illustrated in Shabbat 63; we read there in the name of Rav Kahane “I was already eighteen years old and had studied the entire Talmud, but had not ever been taught of the principle that אין מקרא יוצא מידי פשוטו, “that the text in the written Torah must not be interpreted in a manner which completely nullifies its plain meaning.” Also Rabbi Shlomoh, my mother’s father of blessed memory (Rashi) the brilliant exegete, who wrote commentaries on the entire Bible, was careful not to ignore the plain meaning of the text. I, Shmuel, son of Rabbi Meir, Rashi’s son-in-law, have argued with him, and he admitted to me that if he had the opportunity, he would compose an additional commentary in which he would concentrate on the plain meaning as it became clearer to him with each passing day. [I believe that the wording here means that Rashi meant that just as his published commentaries consisted mostly of anthologies, i.e. his quoting existing interpretations, so he would search out more commentaries based on the plain meaning to present to the reader when publishing another commentary. Ed.] I am now presenting to the reader what earlier exegetes had to say on our verse.

THESE ARE THE ‘TOLDOTH’ (GENERATIONS) OF JACOB. And this is an account of the generations of Jacob. These are their settlements and the events which occurred to them until they attained settlement status. The first cause was Joseph, being seventeen years old, etc. It was through this incident that it happened that they descended to Egypt. This is the literal explanation of the text, which permits each detail to fall into its place. These are the words of Rashi. But the word toldoth cannot apply to a settlement.⁶Ramban thus understood the above text of Rashi as interpreting the word toldoth as having reference to Jacob’s settlement. Mizrachi, however, points out that Rashi’s intent is that the word Eileh (these are) refers to the settlements, while the word toldoth is to be understood in its usual sense as meaning “children.” The sense of the verse thus becomes: “These are the settlements of the children of Jacob.”
And Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra said [that the verse should be interpreted thus]: “These are the events which happened to him, and the occurrences which befell him. This is similar in meaning to the usage in the verse, For thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.⁷Proverbs 27:1. The Hebrew is yolad yom (a day may bring forth). Similarly, according to Ibn Ezra, the word toldoth, which has the same roots as yolad, here means the events which evolved. But a person is not said to bring forth his events; it is only to days that events can be ascribed.⁸Ramban makes the point that toldoth can mean events when it modifies a period of time. However, when referring to a person, as in the present verse, it cannot have this meaning. Ramban thus takes issue with Ibn Ezra’s interpretation. Now perhaps the verse, according to Ibn Ezra, is saying, “These are the events which the days of Jacob brought forth.”
The correct interpretation in my opinion is as follows: “These are the generations of Jacob: Joseph and his brothers, whom Scripture will mention further on.” Scripture here adopts a concise approach to their names since it already mentioned them above.⁹Above, 35:23-26. But the intent of the verse is to say that these are the generations of Joseph and his brothers to whom the following happened. It is also possible that the word Eileh (these are) alludes to all those mentioned in this book: Thy fathers went down into Egypt with threescore and ten persons.¹⁰Deuteronomy 10:22. The listing of the names of sixty-nine of these seventy people is found further on “in this book,” 46:8-27. Jochebed, who was born as they entered Egypt, is the seventieth. Just as in the chapter, These are the generations of Esau,¹¹Above, Chapter 36. Scripture mentioned sons and sons’ sons, kings and chiefs, including all that there had been among them up to the time the Torah was given,¹²See Ramban above, 36:40. so will Scripture count the generations of Jacob, his sons and grandsons, and all his seed, mentioning only the outstanding details in their generations.