[Avodah] Yosef Kappara and Tamar

[Micha Berger]

On Mon, Dec 22, 2008 at 12:22:21AM -0500, R Zev Sero wrote:
: Rn Ilana Sober Elzufon wrote:
:> There were no pregnancy tests at that time - she could have strongly 
:> suspected a pregnancy but wouldn't have known for sure until she was 
:> showing.

: Yes, but why wait for pregnancy at all?  Surely if her goal was to get
: Yehudah to marry her, her best shot would have been to go straight to
: him and confront him with the signs that he had given her, and force
: him to consider his options.  That way she would have the advantage,
: and if he agreed to marry her nobody would ever have to know what had
: happened.

What state was Yehudah in at the time? He married a bas Kenaani, despite
family norms since Avraham and (presumably) knowing how much agmas nefesh
Esav's Kenaani bride caused Yitzchaq and Rivqa. He led the group when
it came to killing Yoseif. Not the high point of Yehudah's spiritual
life. Was Tamar necessarily certain she would be heard if Yehudah wasn't
presented a fate accompli? And how many Bronze Era Middle-Easterners would
have given 2 perutos for the word of a woman -- one accused of harlotry,
no less -- against that of her prestigious father-in-law?

I think this cultural background is an important part of understanding
the extent to which Tamar was willing to risk herself to save Yehudah's
esteem.


A thought hit me during Qabbalas Shabbos this week, a bit of "Chassidishe
Torah" with a mussar message.

A number of RYS stories are about his unwillingness to be machmir at the
expense of others. (And a number are about his punctilious and strict
observance when not at their expense.) Be it the most important chumrah
in baking matzos (don't overwork the almanos who labor in the bakery)
or washing his hands for hamotzi with a minimum of water or his rushing
through Friday night dinner (both cases he saw the effort of the serving
woman), or...

Perhaps a good mnemonic for this is "Tzadiq kaTAMAR yifrach". A tzadiq
flowers like Tamar -- taking care not to act at the expense of someone
else.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to
micha at aishdas.org        suffering, but only to one's own suffering.
http://www.aishdas.org                 -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949)
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