Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Joseph's Pit

Joseph is the dreamer.

At once, it is a gift and a curse. It is a gift because the dreams are prescient. Each one accurately predicts the future. As Joseph reveals his dreams it is clear that he prophesies. Who would not covet the ability to be privy to what will happen tomorrow? Imagine what you could do with that information!

It is a curse because Joseph is oblivious to the meaning and import of his dreams. He dreams but does not know what to do with them, how to interpret them or how they affect his family. Innocently, Joseph approaches his family and does not shrink from sharing the minute details of a prophesy that has them groveling before their younger sibling. His brothers realize the gravity of the dream; they recognize the gift and grow increasingly impatient with his naiveté. Jacob, the father, also understands Joseph’s gift. Even as he rails against the implication of Joseph’s night visions, he consciously ‘guards what Joseph has spoken.’ 1

As years pass, Joseph changes. Almost unnoticed, Joseph is transformed from dreamer to interpreter of dreams. Does Joseph even have dreams anymore? We do not know. Now Joseph reads meaning into other people’s dreams. No longer the dreamer, now Joseph is truly the “master of dreams” as he accurately interprets the Pharaoh’s nightmares as well as his fellow prisoners in the dungeons of Egypt. The dreaming theme is a thread that wends its way through the many layers of Joseph’s life.

Yet, there is another more idiosyncratic, recurrent theme in Joseph’s years, the pit.

First off, what was this pit? Where did it come from? Deep shafts in the earth generally do not appear by themselves. How did it come to be there? The pit was one of many wells dug by Jacob in his search for the desert elixir, water. The pit, or well, was dug in order to be used by his shepherds, drunk by his children in the field and used to irrigate the crops this well was an essential lifeline.

Seeing the “dreamer” approach them, the brothers contemplated murder. At the last moment an idea seized Reuben. Instead of fratricide there was a cleaner way to get rid of the nuisance. Reuben turned to his brothers as Joseph came toward them. “My brothers, instead of killing him, why not throw Joseph into the dry pit? [There was one attempt a digging a well that yielded no water.] Our fathers dug many wells. There is one here!” God, knowing what the brothers would plan, kept the water level from rising. Only after Joseph was sold to the passing merchants did the Holy One allow the waters to rise to their natural level. 2 Joseph was thrown into the empty hole.

The books of Psalms often inject the full spectrum of human emotion into biblical events. The reader of Psalms needs to be alert to clues that refer back to events of long before. In Psalm 30, a voice cries “What benefit is there if my blood is spilled? If I descend down into nothingness?” Earlier, in this same psalm the plaintive voice cries, “Lord You have lifted my self up from She’ol. You have preserved my life from its descent into the pit.”

The pitiful moan in Psalm 30 is resonant with Joseph’s terrified cry from the pit that seemed to close in on him. In fact the very language that Reuben uses in Genesis “What benefit is there…” 3 is the same Hebrew word used in Psalm 30. The only real difference is that Psalms identifies the pit with a place called She’ol.

She’ol is a living hell. It lies in the depths of despair. She’ol is a place of utter desolation and loneliness where the sole inhabitant is you. When Joseph was thrown into the pit he was truly cut off from everything. The darkness was complete and blank. It was She’ol, an inescapable and a seeming unending nightmare.

Question: Does the terrain of She’ol seem familiar? Have you ever been cast into this pit, deprived of light and love?

Now, the reading from Psalms brings more sense to us 4. What was this pit that Joseph was cast into? She’ol. The place where the brothers threw Joseph was into empty darkness. It was a pit of infinite dimensions where no light was allowed to penetrate the thick blanket of evil.

Stripping Joseph of his coat of Light and placing him in treacherous surroundings was the greatest challenge to Joseph of his life.

Another question: why does the usually terse Torah state, “The pit was empty. There was no water in it.” Of course there was no water in it. It was “empty!” What reason could there be for the Torah restating the obvious?

Rabbi Acha interpreted this seeming redundancy to mean that “no water” means there was no Torah. 5 In other words, not only was Joseph callously thrown into a dank pit but he was deprived of Light while there. Joseph miserably sat in the pit for two days with no “water” to nourish his soul.

Until now Joseph was content. All his needs were answered. He was immersed in Torah. He found listening to the word of God as easy as carrying on a conversation with his father. Unfiltered prophesies came to his open mind unchallenged and whole. He was educated and sheltered in the shadow of God. Through the prism of his eyes Joseph was bathed in truth.
Then came the fall of the curtain of darkness that stripped him of all hope.

More years pass by in the sweep of a few sentences. Once again, Joseph was tossed into a pit (bor). 6 In English it might be translated s ‘dungeon’ but the word in the original text is identical, bor. It is the pit once more.

According to the holy Zohar, 7 "And they took him, and cast him into a pit," Is an indication to Joseph of his descent into the darkness. As it continues, This refers to casting him into Egypt. There the key of faith does not dwell. Water is the key of faith. When it is written: "The pit was empty," it refers the absence of the key of faith.

That is why Rashi tells us that Joseph’s pit was filled with scorpions and snakes. The greatest danger to Joseph was in taking him from the water of his faith.

That is also the kabbalisitc meaning of “going down to Egypt.” It is a descent into the pit of She’ol.

Every person must undertake the same journey into despair and hopelessness. Every person will enter the pit.

In the Jewish tradition Joseph is a tzaddik, one of the most righteous. Yet, he was not always a tzaddik. He first had to master himself. Joseph’s transformation began at the moment he was thrust into the unyielding darkness of She’ol. After his long nights of weeping dread Joseph emerged from the darkness of the pit as a true tzaddik. The story of Joseph concludes. He refused to give in to the dark. Instead, he fought to keep his faith. Then the tzaddik was born.
Only when he is pulled from the pit do we glimpse the new Joseph, the Joseph who-has-become.

When Father Jacob died, Joseph and his brothers brought his body to be interred at the ancient burial site, Machpelah. On the way the group passed by the pit where Joseph was thrown so long ago. Joseph stopped and stared. He peered down into the emptiness and opened his mouth: Baruch Ata Sh’asah li nes b’makom hazeh. Blessed be the Lord God who performed a miracle for me here. 8

Now, in the final chapters of Genesis the transformation is complete: Joseph the dreamer is now the “master of dreams.” All life is watched by the Eye that does not sleep; it does not even blink. The dreams have been fulfilled and Joseph the tzaddik knows his place in the world. All things come from God. Our task is to listen and follow.


1 Genesis 37:11
2 Legends of the Jews, Louis Ginzberg
3 Genesis 3:26
4 See also Ps. 143:7. 49:9; 55:24; 103:4 and 88:5
5 Yalkut Shimoni
6 Genesis 41:14
7 Zohar, Vayishlach 130
8 Bereshit Rabba

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