{"id":13580,"date":"2014-04-14T05:14:02","date_gmt":"2014-04-14T11:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=13580"},"modified":"2014-04-14T05:14:02","modified_gmt":"2014-04-14T11:14:02","slug":"virtuous-joseph-nationmaker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/virtuous-joseph-nationmaker\/","title":{"rendered":"Virtuous Joseph – Nationmaker"},"content":{"rendered":"

By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF<\/em><\/p>\n

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Have we ever considered that the morality of Joseph, son of Jacob, determined the destiny of the Jewish people? You might even say that the fate of the Judeo-Christian world hinged on the character of Joseph, son of Hebrew shepherds. History held her breath.\u00a0 Judaism and Christianity were at stake.<\/p>\n

I refer to that pivotal incident when Joseph was tempted by Potiphar\u2019s wife. Remember that with the exception of Moses, Joseph is the sun, moon, and stars of the biblical galaxy.\u00a0 Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David and Solomon \u2013 good people, but many of them struck with flaws still to be seen in all of mankind, which is only to say that they were not perfect. Joseph comes close. And with world-shaping results.<\/p>\n

The proof?\u00a0 Potiphar\u2019s wife \u2013 Joseph\u2019s boss\u2019s wife \u2013 sees Joe doing his work one day.\u00a0 WOW! Goes her feminine heart. \u201cNow Joseph was handsome in form and appearance,\u201d says the Chumash. A singular statement made about no other character.\u00a0 Potiphar\u2019s wife is a blunt-speaking lady: \u201cCome lie with me,\u201d she purrs. Instead of ripping off his clothes (Joe hesitates for a nanosecond – he is human, you know) \u2013 he replies with a speech that cites his obligations (and gratitude to Potiphar) \u2013 none of which includes pleasuring his wife. Joseph, in an age of lascivious misbehavior, has a soul pure white as snow.\u00a0 The
\nwife, probably an ex-street walker, screams rape.\u00a0 (She\u2019s so unimportant we don\u2019t get her name unless it\u2019s \u201cHeyuu\u201d.) But she grabs a chunk of his sleeve.<\/p>\n

The libidinous ex-street walker swears that he assaulted her. (Look at his sleeve!)\u00a0 Joe claims his innocence, but who is going to believe a slave?\u00a0 Joe finds himself in jail where he enters the dream interpretation business. Business booms and our ex-prisoner finds\u00a0 himself in Pharaoh\u2019s court. They need a dream reader. You know the rest of the story \u2013 how, eventually, he brings his family to Egypt. They prosper and grow until that pharaoh who knew not Joe enslaves the Israelites.<\/p>\n

What follows? The Exodus, Sinai, Torah \u2013 all of which made Judaism and the world as we know it.<\/p>\n

All because of Jacob\u2019s son\u2019s virtue. It\u2019s incredible that one man who turned his back on lust and disloyalty could shape our world. Yes, generals have politically carved new nations on the globe with their martial skills. And politicians have drawn new maps and great
\ncollectives of similarly-minded people and constructed new nations.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s hard to find a single act of virtue that has created a people and their mission \u2013 a mission so fitting to their charter \u2013 a provenance built in the resistance to treachery and rejection of lustful love. Put it any way you like:\u00a0 Tikuun Olam \u2013 a lamp to a barbaric world. When Joseph said \u201cno\u201d to temptation, G-d smiled and future Napoleans, Caesars, and even Einsteins were diminished.<\/p>\n

And Joe\u2019s weapon was not muskets or theology, but intellect.<\/p>\n

It seems unnecessary to point out that had he yielded to his normal desires, the most explosive event in history \u2013 the Epiphany at Sinai \u2013 would never have happened.\u00a0 Fate would not have pushed him into the ruling circle at Egypt.\u00a0 Pharaoh would have said \u201cno\u201d to a few dozen starving sheepherders from Canaan who wanted grazing land in Egypt.
\nAnd Judaism would be a footnote to history.<\/p>\n

The sheepherders, yes, were enslaved. But their trek to freedom, lit by the lamp of G-d, encountered Torah and brightened the world. A man had made a nation.<\/p>\n

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