Penitential Man
The sequence from Genesis 37 to 50 is the longest unbroken narrative in the Torah, and there can be no doubt who its hero is: Joseph. The story begins and ends with him. We see him as a child, beloved – even spoiled – by his father; as an adolescent dreamer, resented by his brothers; as a slave, then a prisoner, in Egypt; then finally as the second most powerful figure in the greatest empire of the ancient world. At every stage, the narrative revolves around him and his impact on others. He dominates the last third of Genesis, casting his shadow on everything else. From almost the beginning, he seems destined for greatness.
Yet history did not turn out that way. To the contrary, it is another brother who, in the fullness of time, leaves his mark on the Jewish people. Indeed, we bear his name. The covenantal family has been known by several names. One is Ivri, “Hebrew” (possibly related to the ancient apiru), meaning “outsider, stranger, nomad, one who wanders from place to place.” That is how Abraham and his children were known to others. The second is Yisrael, Israel, derived from Jacob’s new name after he “wrestled with God and with man and prevailed.” After the division of the kingdom and the conquest of the North by the Assyrians, however, they became known as Yehudim or Jews, for it was the tribe of Judah who dominated the kingdom of the South, and they who survived the Babylonian exile.
So it was not Joseph but Judah who conferred his identity on the people, Judah who became the ancestor of Israel’s greatest king, David, Judah from whom the messiah will be born. Why Judah, not Joseph? The answer undoubtedly lies in the beginning of Vayigash, as the two brothers confront one another, and Judah pleads for Benjamin’s release.
Yet this final confrontation can only be fully understood in the context of Judah’s initial behaviour towards Joseph. It is Judah, in his first recorded words, who suggested selling Joseph into slavery:
Judah said to his brothers, “What will we gain if we kill our brother and cover his blood? Let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites and not harm him with our own hands. After all – he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.” His brothers agreed. (37:26–27)
This is a speech of monstrous callousness. There is no mention of the evil of murder, merely a pragmatic calculation (“What will we gain”). At the very moment he calls Joseph “our own flesh and blood,” Judah is proposing to sell him as a slave. Here there is none of the tragic nobility of Reuben who, alone of the brothers, sees that what they are doing is wrong, and makes an attempt to save Joseph. At this point, Judah is the last person from whom we expect great things.
However, Judah – more than anyone else in the Torah – changes. The man we see confronting Joseph all these years later is not the same personality as the one who spoke when Joseph was trapped in the pit. Then he was prepared to see his brother sold into slavery. Now he is prepared to suffer that fate himself rather than see Benjamin held as a slave. As he says to Joseph:
Now therefore, please let your servant remain here as your lordship’s slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers. For how can I return to my father if the boy is not with me? No! Do not let me see the misery that shall come upon my father…(44:33–34)
It is a precise reversal of character. Callousness has been replaced with concern. Indifference to his brother’s fate has been transformed into courage on his behalf. Judah is willing to suffer what he once inflicted on Joseph so that the same fate should not befall Benjamin. At this point Joseph reveals his identity. We know why. Judah has passed the test that Joseph has carefully constructed for him. Joseph wants to know if Judah has changed. He has.
This is a highly significant moment in the history of the human spirit. Judah is the first penitent – the first ba’al teshuva – in the Torah.
This did not happen in a sudden change of character. It was set in motion by another event that happened between these two meetings, namely the story of Tamar. Tamar, we recall, had married Judah’s two elder sons, both of whom had died, leaving her a childless widow. Judah, fearing that his third son would share their fate, withheld him from her – thus leaving her unable to remarry and have children.
Once she understands her situation, Tamar disguises herself as a prostitute. Judah sleeps with her. She becomes pregnant. Judah, unaware of the disguise, concludes that his daughter-in-law must have had a forbidden relationship and orders her to be put to death. At this point, Tamar – who, while disguised, had taken Judah’s seal, cord and staff as a pledge – sends them to Judah with a message: “The father of my child is the man to whom these belong.”
Judah now understands the full significance of what had happened. He had placed Tamar in the impossible situation of living widowhood. He is the father of her child. And more – he also realises that she has behaved with extraordinary discretion in revealing the truth without shaming him. Tamar is the heroine of the story, but it has one significant consequence: Judah admits he was wrong. “She was more righteous than I,” he says.
This is the first time in the Torah someone acknowledges their own guilt. It was also the turning point in Judah’s life. Here was born the ability to recognise one’s own wrongdoing, to feel remorse, and to change – the complex phenomenon known as teshuva. This is the beginning of the process that later leads to the great scene in Vayigash, where Judah is capable of turning his earlier behaviour on its head and doing the opposite of what he had once done before. Judah is ish teshuva, penitential man.
No sooner do we realize this than we understand the deep significance of his name. Its root, the verb lehodot, has two main meanings. It means “to thank,” which is what Leah had in mind when she gave Judah, her fourth son, his name: “this time I will thank the Lord” (27:35). But it also means, “to admit, acknowledge.” The biblical term vidui, “confession,” – then and now part of the process of teshuva, and according to Maimonides, its key element – comes from the same root. Judah means “he who acknowledged his sin.”
Acknowledging his sin, Judah also demonstrates one of the fundamental axioms of teshuva: “Rabbi Abbahu said: In the place where penitents stand, even the perfectly righteous cannot stand.”1.Berakhot 34b.
His proof text is the verse from Isaiah (57:19), “Peace, peace to him that was far and to him that is near,” which puts one who “was far” ahead of one who “is near.” As the Talmud makes clear, however, Rabbi Abbahu’s reading is by no means uncontroversial. Rabbi Yohanan interprets “far” as “far from sin” rather than “far from God.” The real proof is Judah.
Joseph is consistently known to tradition as haTzaddik, “the righteous.” Judah is a penitent, the first in the Torah. Joseph became mishneh leMelekh, “second to the king.” Judah, however, became the father of Israel’s kings. Where the penitent Judah stands, even the perfectly righteous Joseph cannot stand. However great an individual may be in virtue of his or her natural character, greater still is one who is capable of growth and change. That is the power of penitence, and it began with Judah.