"Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit." (Zechariah 4:6)
Most Shabbatot, the Haftarah portion, or reading from the prophetic tradition, is deliberately thematically linked to the week's parashah, or Torah reading. Most Shabbatot, the Haftarah selection is paired with the Torah text in an intentional manner. Not this week. So, why is this Shabbat different from all other Shabbatot? (I know, I know - wrong holiday.) This Shabbat, the Haftarah reading is dictated by the calendar (first Shabbat Chanukah) rather than the parashah. However, I think the pairing of Parashat Vayeshev with this special first-Shabbat-Chanukah passage from Zechariah is more fitting than the "thematic" Amos pairing, which draws only a weak parallel between Joseph's brothers selling him into slavery and the Israelites not caring about their fellow.
Parashat Vayeshev, Genesis 37:1-40:23, opens with a description of Joseph's role in Jacob's family. Joseph tends the flocks and spies on his brothers for his father. Joseph, Jacob's favorite son, also wears his "amazing Technicolor dreamcoat," a gift from his father, and speaks of prophetic dreams in which symbols of his siblings bow to a symbol of him. One day, while Joseph is saying, his brothers conspire to kill him. Reuben and Judah act, and Joseph is sold into slavery instead. The brothers let Jacob think his favorite son is dead.
Meanwhile, Judah gets married and has three sons. Er, his first-born, marries a woman named Tamar, but Er "was displeasing to the Lord," so God smites him. Onan, the next son, has a duty to Er and Tamar as a levirate, but he shirks his duty and God kills him too. Afraid to give him third-and-last son to Tamar, Judah sends his daughter-in-law back to her father's house. Scorned, Tamar tricks Judah into relations with her and bears twins. Tamar is an ancestor of King David.
The text returns to Joseph. Potiphar, a courtier of Pharaoh, buys Joseph. Potiphar trusts Joseph and grants him authority in the house. Potiphar's wife makes the moves on Joseph, but Joseph refuses to comply, prompting Potiphar's wife to claim rape, resulting in Joseph's arrest. In prison, Joseph becomes an interpreter of dreams. His foretellings are accurate, but his gift remains as yet unacknowledged.
"Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit."
"The role of power in Parashat Vayeshev is central and at times complex. So, I went searching in my Torah Queeries anthology, a collection of divrei-Torah, with a queer focus, to examine the role of power-dynamics in Parashat Vayeshev. What I found was disappointing. Gregg Drinkwater states he is convinced that Joseph is the easiest-to-queer and most-often-queered character in Torah, and that he agrees that Joseph can be read as queer. But, Drinkwater ambivalently presents only superficial evidence for Joseph's queerness related to Joseph's attire, attitude, and actions. While Joseph's good looks, chaste nature, and mostly midrashic affinity for fashion might point to his difference, his queerness (if it exists) is displayed in his relationship to power. In this parashah, Joseph starts with a power bestowed on him by a supportive parent, only to have that power stripped from him by a dreamer-bashing band of brothers (to paraphrase Drinkwater). Joseph is sold to Potiphar and again granted power by the powerful, only to lose both power and freedom by acting according to his conscience. In prison, Joseph encounters Pharaoh's chief cupbearer and chief baker and interprets their dreams, giving credit to God. Later in Genesis, this becomes Joseph's Get-Out-Of-Jail-Free Card.
"Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit."
Furthermore, any interpretation of Vayeshev which leaves out the story of Judah and Tamar or dismisses it as merely an historical section sandwiched between "the interesting stuff" is incomplete. However you conceive of the authorship of Torah, to assume Torah has parts with no modern relevance is to deny its role as sacred text. While Joseph loses power in Vayeshev, Tamar gains it. By taking matters into her own hands, she is able to bear sons, continuing the tribe of Judah and enabling a future line of kings. Just as Tamar's story enables the Davidic line, Joseph's story sets up the biggest power-play in Torah: the Exodus. Without Joseph's loss of and rise to power, the Israelites may not have taken refuge in Egypt during famine, and without the experience of slavery in Egypt, redemption would be impossible and later revelation unnecessary. But, I digress. In both Tamar's case and that of Joseph, power is important, but until God's role in the situation is acknowledged, power remains meaningless.
"Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit."
God gives significance to power. Without God, power is present or absent. With God, power is shared or hoarded, useful or counterproductive, reasonable or unreasonable, like or disliked, good or evil, holy or profane. Let us recognize what power we have, let us recognize what power we lack, and let us strive to acknowledge the divine Presence in our world. O God, on this first Shabbat of Chanukah, when we are reminded of the great miracle that happened there, help us to see the many miracles, great and small, that Your spirit creates in our lives. Then will we reflect the words recorded by the prophet Zechariah, "Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit."
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