Each year we eavesdrop on Joseph as he eavesdrops on his clueless brothers. He has placed a “melitz” or interpreter between them in order to extend the ruse that he is a foreign potentate rather than their brother. And so he learns that Reuben tried to rescue him from the pit. This is presumably why Joseph chooses to take Simeon hostage—the next oldest brother will have to be punished. From the perspective of the brothers, this development is rather stunning. How does the Egyptian vizier know so much about them? Clearly, this must be a divine intervention. In verse 28, they fearfully ask, “What is this that God has done to us?” They think that events are governed by the mysteries of heaven, but they miss the clues that they are playing out a very human drama, and that they have become puppets in the hands of their own brother. 

The word “melitz” recurs in the book of Job, in Elihu’s speech of reprimand to Job and the three older companions. In Job 33:22, Elihu speaks of an angel who is a “melitz yosher,” an advocate of the person’s rectitude. Even in the most desperate of circumstances, one angel who is “melitz yosher” can prevail over many opponents, bring grace and redemption.  In b. Shabbat 32a, Rabbi Eliezer teaches that even if the odds are stacked 999:1 against a person, if s/he has one angelic defender, they will be rescued.

Throughout the centuries, the Jewish strategy for survival often depended on finding one patron, whether at the royal court, or among the gentile clergy, or in the business elite, who could be an advocate and rescue the Jews in their time of need. To this day we speak of important donors as “angels” who provide the support necessary for Jewish organizations to do their important work. Beyond financial support, the encouragement of well-connected leaders validates the activities of the Jewish community, which can often feel peripheral to the larger developments of society. Continue reading →

One of the most famous injustices in American history was the trial of nine black teens for an alleged rape of two white girls aboard a freight train on March 25, 1931. The “Scottsboro Boys” were tried in groups, and eight of them were sentenced to death (the ninth, who was only twelve at the time, was also sentenced to death by the all-white jury even though the prosecutors asked for life-imprisonment, and a mistrial was declared). The trials were flawed in numerous ways, but the racially charged atmosphere in Alabama scared off even civil rights organizations such as the NAACP from helping the defendants. A Jewish criminal defense attorney named Charles Leibowitz appealed the convictions and carried the fight all the way to the US Supreme Court. Even though the high court reversed the convictions, four of the defendants were retried in Alabama and given new lengthy prison sentences (one escaped prison and died later in Michigan). Just this week, the State of Alabama posthumously pardoned the three defendants, Haywood Patterson, Charles Weems and James A. Wright, the last of whom died in 1989. [For more on the story, see links below]

Reading this moving story, it is hard not to think of Joseph, who in our parashah is falsely accused of attempted rape and sent to jail with no apparent process to consider his side of the story. While there is no explicit mention of race as a factor, Mrs. Potiphar does “other” him in saying, “look, he [that is, Potiphar] has brought this Hebrew to mock us; he came to lie with me, but I cried out with a great voice.” In her telling, Mrs. Potiphar is both victim and heroine—her valiant defense sent the menacing Hebrew running away. Her account puts pressure on her husband, whom she has explicitly blamed for the failing to defend his own wife. He does not hesitate to toss Joseph in jail; problem solved.  Continue reading →