Joseph the Tzaddik?!
The Hebrew word "tzaddik" is often translated as "righteous one", and by some "saintly" (although the latter carries with it some interesting baggage).
But if you read the stories, what really caused Joseph to have this label applied?
Was it because Biblical Hebrew doesn't have air-quotes, and so Joseph "the Tzaddik" isn't seen for what it was, as sarcasm?
Or maybe it was like the commentary on Noah who was fully righteous in his generation, "Compared to the others of that generation, he was a Tzaddik!, in other generations, not so much!"
Keep in mind that the three cardinal sins that Judaism teaches are to be avoided at all costs, even if it means letting yourself get killed for not doing them, is adultery, murder, and idolatry.
And we read that Joseph refused to have relations with Mrs. Potiphar (many of the important women in the Bible don't have names, like Mrs. Lot, Mrs. Noah, etc.). And that later on, he decided no to have his brothers killed, even after their father dies. And there is no mention of idolatry, just the occasional reference to YHVH.
OK, so Joseph refrained from the 3 cardinal sins.
So do most Jews on the planet, even the assimilated ones, or the secular ones.
Of course, when compared to his brothers, Reuben (adultery), Simon and Levi (murder), and many of the others (wanted to kill him, then sold him off into slavery and lied to their father), Joseph was certainly a tzaddik.
Although, there is a better example.
According to the Talmud (Tractate Shabbat), Benjamin is listed of one of the 5 people in the world who never sinned. It gets this from the point that nothing is written about him negatively. Although, this is also akin to the Abarbanel who hated royalty (for good reason, since he worked for Queen Isabella), and wrote that "all of the kings of Israel were sinful people, except for Yotam ben Uzziayhu". Only because Yotam is only mentioned in one verse, and it simply lists his name, but nothing he did. While this may be a tongue-in-cheek comment, it does bring up a good point.
Joseph worked in a house of idolatry. He worked for the High Priest of idol worship of all of Egypt. He would also end up marrying the daughter of that same high priest, and most of the raising and educating of the two sons of Joseph would be in that environment.
The Sages had a big problem with that. They try to get around the problem by saying that the girl that Joseph married was really his niece, the daughter of Dinah who was raped in Shechem. Although that makes more problems than solutions. For one, Jacob getting rid of his granddaughter, offering her to the High Priest of idols, is quite problematic. The other thing is that idolatry is not a genetic trait, but a learned one. So the baby, raised in that environment would have no "spiritual connection" to Jacob and his family.
But there is one bigger problem that several commentators have with Joseph being given this title:
For nine years, during the seven years of plenty followed by the two years of famine, Joseph was the #2 man in Egypt. What he declared was law, and all of the people obeyed him. And not once, during that time, did he send a messenger to tell his father that he was alive. Not once did he send forth a cart of food, during the the beginning of the famine to his family, to feed them and to say, "I live!"
Joseph did not think of his family, but of himself.
Which brings me to a "Moshiach ben Yosef" - why a "ben Yosef"?
This expression is one of a deceiver, one who will present himself to the Jewish people as though he is the anointed king, whom they will follow into captivity and despair, and when he dies, the people will cry out, not because he is dead, but because they will realize what he was and where they have gone. And only an anointed one (which will be Moses) can get them out of this predicament, and bring them to the promised land.
And while the Messiah-pairing is only briefly mentioned in the Talmud (just a couple of lines), it has become such a part of Jewish theological philosophical thought that we often ignore that "Joseph" is called a "tzaddik", but his story also has a lot of non-tzaddik baggage as well.
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