Комментарий к Берешит 46:12

ובני יהודה ער ואונן. And the sons of Yehudah, Er and Onan, etc. Why were people who had died already listed as part of the family which travelled to Egypt? Besides, why did the Torah repeat here again that these sons of Yehudah had died in the land of Caanan, something that we are all familiar with? Furthermore, why does the Torah write: ויהיו בני פרץ חצרון וחמול, instead of the customary ובני פרץ חצרון וחמול? We find all the other grand-children introduced as: ובני…וגו. Perhaps it is all connected with the concept of the levirate marriage. יבום is aimed at re-establishing a presence on earth for the brother who died without leaving children. In our instance Yehudah performed this commandment instead of his son Shelah. It was Yehudah's duty to bring Er and Onan's offspring to Egypt. The Torah tells us by means of an unusual syntax that Yehudah performed this duty by bringing Chetzron and Chamul (his grandchildren) to Egypt. These two were to be considered the replacements of Er and Onan respectively. [If I understand the author correctly, he argues that because Yehudah belonged to a generation prior to that of Shelah the surviving brother of Er and Onan who should have performed the levirate marriage, only the second generation, i.e. Peretz's children, were the reincarnates of Er and Onan. Had Shelah himself performed the rites of יבום, his first two children would have been considered as the reincarnates of Er and Onan. Ed.] All this is hinted at by the word ויהיו.

ובני יהודה ער ואונן ושלה ופרץ וזרח, “and the sons of Yehudah: “Er, Onan, Shelah, Peretz, and Zerach.” The verse includes the two sons Er and Onan, though already deceased, as amongst the seventy people of Yaakov’s family who migrated to Egypt. This is extremely puzzling. How could the Torah include those two amongst those described earlier as “arriving” in Egypt? The answer is provided by the kabbalists (who have elaborated on the theme of migration of the souls) and it is made clearer in Numbers 26,19 where the Torah wrote: “and the sons of Yehudah, Er and Onan; Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan.” Immediately following that verse the Torah writes: “The sons of Yehudah according to their families were: Shelah, the family of the Shelanites; Peretz, the family of the Partzites; Zerach, the family of the Zarchites.” This is the mystical dimension of Ruth 4,15; “he (the new born Oved)” shall be for you as a life-restorer. This also explains why Naomi’s neighbours exclaimed at Oved’s birth “a son has been born to Naomi” (remember she had lost both her sons before either one had fathered a child). If not for the approach of the kabbalists, the prophet should have described Oved as having been born to Ruth instead of to Naomi.

ער ואונן. Es wird stets bei ihnen hervorgehoben: וימת וגו׳. Der göttliche Familienschutz ist kein unbedingter, an Reinheit und Sittlichkeit ist die Erhaltung geknüpft. Es genügt nicht, von jüdischen Eltern geboren zu sein. Darum fehlen auch Er und Onan hier nicht.

Looking at the plain meaning of the verse, the Torah may have explained here that the only reason that Er and Onan committed the sins that caused G'd to kill them was that they lived in the land of Canaan, a country in which sexual perversity had taken root. They had been corrupted by their environment. Apart from this one sin they were not basically bad. G'd killed them so that one should not copy their example, much as the Torah warns the Jewish people not to copy the sexual perversions practiced both in Egypt and the land of Canaan in Leviticus 18,3.

The expression ויהיו tells us that these two were a phenomenon by itself (הויה), unlike any observed elsewhere. Were this not so they could hardly be the members of the family from which the Messiah will devolve, someone who will serve as a shining example of morality to all of mankind.