Rabbi Charles P. Sherman
December 24, 2004
Why Judah Instead of Jesus?
Friends, we would have to be completely insulated and isolated from our surroundings to not realize that this is Christmas Eve. For our neighbors, Christmas is the birthday of the Savior of the world. Christians take their name from Jesus, the Christ. And Jesus, according to Christian scripture, was without sin. Jesus was perfect. To the best of my knowledge, throughout Christian scripture, there is no account of Jesus having erred, sinned, missed the mark, fallen short. His record is unblemished. To be a Christian means to believe in and wish to follow this perfect being.
We Jews get our name from the Tribe of Judah. Judah was Jacob's fourth-born son. Let's see what we know about Judah. Genesis 29 says: "Leah conceived again and bore a son and declared ‘this time I will praise the Eternal'. Therefore she named him Judah. Then she stopped bearing." The root of the Hebrew name Yehudah means "to give thanks."
The first incident reported about the life of Judah is when Joseph's brothers decide to do in their father's favored son – Joseph, the spoiled, tattle-tale brother whom they could not stand. The brothers conspire to kill him: "here comes that dreamer. Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits; and we can say ‘a savage beast devoured him.' We shall see what becomes of his dreams!" (Genesis 37:19-20)
Now if there is anybody who deserves credit in this nasty incident it is Reuben, who is the first-born. Reuben knows that he is going to be held responsible by his father if anything happens to Joseph. So when Reuben heard his brothers say "come now, let us kill him," he tried to save Joseph from them. He said, "let's not take his life." And Reuben went on, "shed no blood, cast him into that pit out in the wilderness, but do not touch him yourselves" – intending to save him from them and restore him to his father." (Genesis 37:21-22) Reuben's plan is to come back later and rescue his brother.
In the meantime, they see a caravan of traders on their way to Egypt, and we read, "then Judah said to his brothers, ‘what do we gain by killing our brother and covering up his blood? Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, but let us not do away with him ourselves. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh'." (Genesis 37:26-27) And the brothers do exactly that.
Now Judah, of course, did not know that Reuben planned to come back and rescue Joseph from the pit. So this could have been Judah's way of saving his brother's life; rather than leaving Joseph to die in the pit, wouldn't it be better to sell him as a slave? That is one possible interpretation. Another possibility is to read the same brief passage as characterizing Judah as a person who only cares about money. What profit will we have if we kill Joseph? Better we should get some money for him by selling him to the traders. This is not a noble interpretation, but it is also plausible.
This much we know for certain. The brothers return to their father Jacob, bringing Joseph's coat of many colors dipped in an animal's blood, and they tell their father: we found this. Please examine it. Is it your son's tunic or not? Jacob recognized it and said: "my son's tunic! A savage beast devoured him! Joseph was torn by a beast!" Jacob rent his clothes and refused to be comforted. Judah participated in this heart-breaking scheme and dastardly lie, which could have easily resulted in his father Jacob's death.
Now the very next chapter, Genesis 38, is all about Judah. Let's read this interesting story. ( handout ) This is an R-rated biblical scene, and we have to understand the concept of levirate marriage; levir is Latin for "brother-in-law." This practice enables the laws of inheritance. If a man dies childless, his brother has to marry his widow, and the first child born of that union counts as the deceased's in matters of inheritance.
Judah is married to Shuah and they have three sons; first born is Er, second is Onan, and the third is Shelah. Er marries Tamar. For whatever reason, Er dies childless, so Judah reminds his second born son, Onan, to do the duty of the levir – the brother-in-law – to provide offspring. But Onan decides that since the child of this union won't count as his, he practices coitus interruptus and is killed by God.
So now Judah says to his daughter-in-law Tamar, "stay as a widow in your father's house till my son Shelah grows up," but he fears he too might die like his brothers. After all, two sons married to Tamar have ended up dead, so Judah is determined not to allow Shelah to be married to Tamar, and this is a serious violation of Jewish law.
We continue. Tamar is a wise young woman. She knows that Shelah is being kept from her by his father, Judah, so she disguises herself as a harlot, allows herself to be impregnated by her father-in-law and then we have the culmination of the story, "Your daughter-in-law Tamar has played the harlot; in fact, she is with child by harlotry." Judah says, "bring her out and let her be burned. As she was being brought out she sent this message to her father-in-law: I am with child by the man to whom these belong." And she added: "examine these." Judah understands. "She is more in the right then I,
in-as-much as I did not give her to my son Shelah."
This story of Judah's mistreatment of his daughter-in-law Tamar begins "vayered Yehuda – Judah went down." The commentators understand that phrase not only geographically, but morally. He went down morally by keeping Tamar from marrying the son whom she was promised to. And Judah went down morally in becoming involved with a harlot, not realizing of course that the woman was really Tamar in disguise.
But the turning point in the life of Judah comes at the end of this chapter 38, where Judah is ashamed and says, "she is more righteous than I am." He realizes that Tamar is willing to die rather than shame him, even though he has not treated her well at all. He hears those words, "do you recognize these?", and remembers these are the very same words he and his brothers used in the previous chapter, when the coat of many colors, now spattered with blood, was presented to their father Jacob.
I believe that this scene in chapter 38 with Tamar is a turning point in Judah's life. He had maneuvered his way out of his obligations for Joseph and to Tamar. But, after this, he is never the same again. That moment when Tamar shocked him by protecting him from scandal, by being willing to die rather than embarrass him, taught Judah that human beings are capable of being better than they had been until now. And so he says, "she is more righteous than I am."
There is proof of his change. In last week's Torah portion it is Judah who gives what the Cantor pointed out in her interesting D'var Torah last Shabbas morning is the longest speech in all of Genesis. In Genesis 44, Judah appeals to the Egyptian official, whom we know as Joseph but the brothers did not recognize. Joseph is threatening to imprison Benjamin. Judah gives this great speech: "we have an old father, and there is a child of his old age, the youngest; his full brother is dead, so that he alone is left of his mother, and his father dotes on him . . ." We cannot return without him; it will kill our father. Let me stay in his place, as pledge. I'll be a slave to you instead of the boy, but "let the boy go back with his brothers, for how can I go back to my father unless the boy is with me? Let me not be witness to the woe that would overtake my father."
Oh the profound change in Judah. He was perfectly willing to participate in, aid and abet the heartbreak of his father 20 years earlier when he brings that bloodied tunic, knowing full well that Joseph is not dead, but letting his father think that his favorite son has been killed by a wild beast. But now, after the incident with Tamar, he has grown into the person that Jacob blesses. And that is why Jacob says, miteref b'ni alita, from the moral pit, from the sin of breaking your father's heart, you went up; from that moral nadir you grew until you became a good human being. Therefore, you are the one whom I am going to choose to be head of the royal line.
The story of Judah in Genesis 38 begins with the words, "Judah went down"; Jacob's final judgement of Judah is "you have gone up." Jacob appreciates Judah not because he was always good, but because he was once very bad and somehow learned to change.
The point of Jacob's choice of Judah over first-born Reuben, even over Joseph his favorite, was to teach us this lesson – great leaders are not perfect people who never do anything wrong; there are no such people, with all due respect to my Christian friends. And if there were, who could live with them? How could they understand the problems and the temptations that face ordinary people? The point of Jacob's choice was to teach us that true leaders are fallible human beings who sin and fail and fall, but who learn from their failures and repent of their sins and gradually grow until they become better human beings.
There is a great sense of growth in Judah. He goes from the man who went down to the man who went up. He grows from the man who lied to his father to the man who risks everything in order to protect his father from additional pain. He grows from the man who speaks about profit and seems to be concerned only with material things into the man who is ready to give up everything he has and to live for the rest of his life in prison or as a slave in order to save his family. The point of the life of Judah is that people can change, that people can grow, and it is this that draws Jacob to him and makes him choose Judah to be head of the family.
We have just recently gone through a political campaign to determine who is most fit to be the leader of the free world. It happens now in every campaign; candidates on both sides hire investigators who scrutinize every corner of their opponent's past, hoping to find some scandal. So we had all kinds of revelations about Kerry's Viet Nam record and Bush's National Guard experience, accusations of flip-flopping on votes by Kerry to what the President knew and did not know when he sent our forces into Iraq, and so on. If they can find any flaw, they yell "gottcha." They can say to the American people: I'm sure you don't want a man who once did this, or did that, as your leader.
But the truth is that the spin-doctors and the muckrakers and the negative campaign operatives are wrong. Rashi's translation teaches us the fact that because someone did some thing or things wrong many years ago should not disqualify him from leadership. The real question is: did he realize that he did wrong and did he change? If he did, then the fact that he did wrong years ago should not disqualify him. On the contrary, if he learned from his mistakes and changed, it should be something in his favor.
We do not need a perfect person to be a leader; we need a human being who has learned from his mistakes and indicates that he will have the ability to continue to learn from his mistakes in the future. Teref b'ni alita, leaders are allowed to sin and they should be measured by what they learn from their sins and by how much they change after they realize they have sinned.
The second lesson in this phrase from Jacob's blessing of his son is that we, too, sin, more than once, all of us. And the crucial question for us is not do we sin, but what do we learn from our sins? Do we hide them from others and even from ourselves, which is a natural temptation, or do we face up to them, learn from them and grow through them?
Judah should be our model, for hardly anyone in the Bible went as far down morally as he did, and hardly anyone in the Bible climbed back as high morally as he did. Judah participated in the selling of his own brother into slavery, into perpetuating a heartbreaking hoax on his own father, in breaking the law of the levirate marriage by withholding his son and then impregnating his own daughter-in-law. That is pretty low.
And yet hardly anyone in the Bible climbed back as far as he did. He changed. He challenged the second in command to Pharaoh: you can't keep our youngest brother Benjamin here; it will break our father's heart if we go back without him. Take me instead. I'll be your slave; imprison me, but I can't be part of breaking my father's heart again.
Judah is proof that we need not be mired in our sins, that we need not repeat them forever. The alibi that we so often use – that's just the way I am; there is noting I can do about it – is a cop-out. Judah is proof that people, all people, have the power to change, that people can grow and learn from their mistakes, that even if they have sunk into the mire of sin, they can climb out and rise to the heights of goodness.
So, which shall be our role model? Jesus, who never sinned and was perfect, according to Christian scripture; or Judah, far, far from perfect, but a man who went up, who grew?
Jacob is right in his death-bed blessing. Tribute shall come to Judah and the homage of peoples will be his. We Jews are imperfect people, but capable always of changing, growing, improving. We can be proud of our namesake. Judah is a role model who reminds each of us that we, too, can go up from wherever we are to become better people, better Jews. Kayn y'hi ratzon, with God's help, may we make it so.
I learned this lesson from the writings of Rabbi Jack Riemer, and I am grateful to him.
HANDOUT
Why Judah Instead of Jesus
December 24, 2004
Genesis 49:8-10
You, O Judah, your brothers shall praise;
Your hand shall be on the nape of your foes;
Your father's sons shall bow low to you.
Judah is a lion's whelp;
On prey, my son, have you grown.
He crouches, lies down like a lion,
Like the king of beasts who dare rouse him?
The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
Nor the ruler's staff from between his feet;
So that tribute shall come to him
And the homage of peoples be his.
Miteref B'ni Alita
on prey, my son, you have grown
from tearing an animal part, you have gotten strong
Rashi
from the sin of ‘teref' you have gone up morally
What was the sin of teref? The lie that Judah and his brothers told their father – a wild animal has torn (taraf) Joseph. Breaking his father's heart by telling him that his beloved son is dead – how can a son do such a thing to his father?
Genesis 38:1-26
About that time Judah left his brothers and camped near a certain Adullamite whose name was Hirah. There Judah saw the daughter of a certain Canaanite whose name was Shua, and he married her and cohabited with her. She conceived and bore a son, and he named him Er. She conceived again and bore a son, and named him Onan. Once again she bore a son, and named him Shelah; he was at Chezib when she bore him.
Judah got a wife for Er his first-born; her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah's first-born, was displeasing to God, and God took his life. Then Judah said to Onan, "Join with your brother's wife and do your duty by her as a brother-in-law, and provide offspring for your brother." But Onan, knowing that the seed would not count as his, let it go to waste whenever he joined with his brother's wife, so as not to provide offspring for his brother. What he did was displeasing to the Eternal, and God took his life also. Then Judah said to his daughter-in-law Tamar, "Stay as a widow in your father's house until my son Shelah grows up" – for he thought, "He too might die like his brothers." So Tamar went to live in her father's house.
A long time afterward, Shua's daughter, the wife of Judah, died. When his period of mourning was over, Judah went up to Timnah to his sheepshearers, together with his friend Hirah the Adullamite. And Tamar was told, "Your father-in-law is coming up to Timnah for the sheepshearing." So she took off her widow's garb, covered her face with a veil and, wrapping herself up, sat down at the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah; for she saw that Shelah was grown up, yet she had not been given to him as wife. When Judah saw her, he took her for a harlot; for she had covered her face. So he turned aside to her by the road and said, "Here, let me sleep with you" – for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. "What," she asked, "will you pay for sleeping with me?" He replied, "I will send a kid from my flock." But she said, "You must leave a pledge until you have sent it." And he said, "what pledge shall I give you?" She replied, "Your seal and cord, and the staff which you carry." So he gave them to her and slept with her, and she conceived by him. Then she went on her way. She took off her veil and again put on her widow's garb.
Judah send the kid by his friend the Adullamite, to redeem the pledge from the woman; but he could not find her. He inquired of the people of that town, "Where is the cult prostitute, the one at Enaim, by the road?" But they said, "There has been no prostitute here." So he returned to Judah and said, "I could not find her; moreover, the townspeople said: There has been no prostitute here." Judah said, "Let her keep them, lest we become a laughingstock. I did send her this kid, but you did not find her."
About three months later, Judah was told, "You daughter-in-law Tamar has played the harlot; in fact, she is with child by harlotry." "Bring her out," said Judah, "and let her be burned." As she was being brought out, she sent this message to her father-in-law, "I am with child by the man to whom these belong." And she added, "Examine these: whose seal and cord and staff are these?" Judah recognized them, and said, "She is more in the right than I, inasmuch as I did not give her to my son Shelah." And he was not intimate with her again.
