Vaigash (Part 2) - Genesis 44:18-47:27

There are a couple of math problems in this weeks parasha, as well as some interesting ideas about leadership.

First the math.

As I stated before, Joseph was captured, enslaved, put into prison, freed, ruled, and was reunited with his family in the course of 22 years. One of the people involved in this was Judah, who went to Canaan, married, had kids, they marry, die, his wife dies, and he fathers two more children (twins), and as we learn in this parasha, they get married and have children, and they are all living with Jacob.

No other part of Genesis ever mentions that Judah left, or was living elsewhere. And in this parasha, only Simon is said to have had a Canaanite wife! It is almost as if two different storytellers didn't know what the other one was writing. There are those who try to have Judah leave home as a younger age, say while Jacob is still trying to figure out if he needs to leave Laban's employ or not.

It's an attempt to reconcile this problem with numbers.

There is also another problem, in that the text tells us that 70 people went down to Egypt to visit the pharaoh, but it only lists 68. This same problem will occur at the beginning of the book of Exodus where it will, again, tell us that 70 people went down to Egypt, but it will list 69.

There are a lot of apologetics on this as well. Some say that one person was pregnant with Jochebed, but that does not sit well since a fetus is not counted as a person anywhere in the Tanach. Others say that Scripture is just rounding upward, as it does in most of the counts that have a zero suffix (such as 600,000 people is likely not an exact number), and the narrative actually does list the people, so it must have known that there was a problem.

So let's jump to Joseph becoming a king. The Hebrew word is a ruler, one one which is often assigned to a king with absolute power. The narrator only refers to Joseph by his name (even though he is given an Egyptian name), and the people only refer to Joseph as "lord" (adon). So while he has all of the power of a king, and the ruling authority, here's a question rarely asked:

Why did Joseph get this position?

I mean, sure, he was a decent dream interpreter, but was that any reason for the pharaoh to make Joseph anything other than an adviser? Why a king? And what was the deal with the cup-bearer and the baker, where they both get out of prison, but one is killed?

There is a wonderful hypothesis by the later Rabbi Abraham Korman, whose books were well received by most yeshivas until he wrote against the Chareidi opinion about what constitutes a Jew (an observant offspring of two Jewish parents) when the state of Israel was wrestling with this idea. His book, "Who and what is a Jew" earned his writings to be banned.

In any case, his idea was this:

In the Book of Exodus, you will read about Pharaoh and the King of Egypt. Traditionally, we are told to read this as being the same person. But often, they are at odds with one another. And at one point in the narrative, the Ling of Egypt is no longer mention, but simply the name "Pharaoh".

What if, as Rav Korman suggested, the post of "king of Egypt" was a post, as being second in command only to the Pharaoh? And what if the king was always plotting to take over the #1 position? So the idea is that Pharaoh caught wind of a plot to kill him, and threw the cup bearer and the baker into the prison until he could figure out what the actual plot was. When he did, he had the king executed, and restored the cup bearer to his position, and had the baker executed with his master.

And after that, there was a job opening for a new king, and Joseph was in the right place at the right time.

Granted, none of this is in the narrative, but it is an interesting view to have while reading the texts, giving it more intrigue.

One idea that Rab Korman would never have considered, but I have, is what if the Exodus narratives spoke of a king and of a Pharaoh because they were different authors during different periods? Think back to the story of Abraham, where in one version, he has his wife tell the king, there she is really his sister, while in the other, he has her tell the pharaoh that she is his sister.

Two view of the same event, from two different writers.

This only is needed if one holds that view that the pharaoh needed a reason to put Joseph into power rather than it just being a plot device.

And that is the most likely answer.

It's not a perfect story. It has holes and problems. So you can either ignore the problems, or fill in the holes yourself.