Don't parent like a Patriarch!
Dec. 12th, 2006 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wrenbI'm going to be chanting Torah this Friday. The portion is Vayeshev. I'm supposed to be reading Genesis 37:1-9 but I only know 1-4 right now.
What strikes me is that I'm not surprised that Joseph's brothers didn't like him. It says that Joseph told "evil reports" to his father about his brothers, that Jacob loved Joseph more thatn any of his other kids, and that the brothers knew it. We know from last week and the rape of Dinah that Jacob wasn't exactly stellar father material. This just adds to it!
In a discussion last week at our minyan, it came up that none of the Patriarchs were stellar human beings. All of them were flawed. We concluded that it was so that people could relate to them. But still, it amazes me that these are the people who are held up as worthy ancestors & role models.
I am also intrigued by the heavy use in these few verses of the words eihav brothers and ahav love. I don't think they share a root, so have different meanings. But they sound so similar that I wonder if there isn't a little pun or word-play in here. And now that I look at the words, I'm not sure that they don't share a root. Love is spelled aleph-hey-bet. Brothers is spelled aleph-hey-yud-vav and I know the yud-vav is a suffix. What letter was dropped to allow the suffix to be added? I'll have to look this up at home. Perhaps it is perfectly logical that the two words be related. Hmm.
Edited to add: Those two roots are not the same.
What strikes me is that I'm not surprised that Joseph's brothers didn't like him. It says that Joseph told "evil reports" to his father about his brothers, that Jacob loved Joseph more thatn any of his other kids, and that the brothers knew it. We know from last week and the rape of Dinah that Jacob wasn't exactly stellar father material. This just adds to it!
In a discussion last week at our minyan, it came up that none of the Patriarchs were stellar human beings. All of them were flawed. We concluded that it was so that people could relate to them. But still, it amazes me that these are the people who are held up as worthy ancestors & role models.
I am also intrigued by the heavy use in these few verses of the words eihav brothers and ahav love. I don't think they share a root, so have different meanings. But they sound so similar that I wonder if there isn't a little pun or word-play in here. And now that I look at the words, I'm not sure that they don't share a root. Love is spelled aleph-hey-bet. Brothers is spelled aleph-hey-yud-vav and I know the yud-vav is a suffix. What letter was dropped to allow the suffix to be added? I'll have to look this up at home. Perhaps it is perfectly logical that the two words be related. Hmm.
Edited to add: Those two roots are not the same.
