[Avodah] Tamar Not Embarrassing Yehuda

[Zvi Lampel]

Tamar Not Embarrassing Yehuda

The following describes a problem I had that became solved by a rereading
of the pesukim. (Readers may have never had the problem because they always
understood the pesukim as I reread them.)

We are told that Tamar risked execution rather than publicly embarrassing
Yehuda. I was picturing Tamar, after being brought out to be executed,
declaring before all, that the owner of the items she produced, is the man
she became pregnant from. Yehudah, recognizing these items as his, and
realizing his part in the matter, felt compelled to admit it and to declare
that Tamar was innocent of the charge. Tamar risked execution in order to
save Yehuda from embarrassment by not openly declaring before all that
Yehuda was the impregnater, and instead left it up to Yehudah himself to
reveal his part in the matter.

But if she wanted to spare him embarrassment, she should not have said
ANYTHING!

In the end, doing what she did still led to Yehuda's humiliation. She put
him on the spot to decide between admitting to his embarrassing behavior
himself or denying the truth. Tamar's restraint from explicitly stating the
matter herself might be a lesson in speaking euphemistically about
sensitive topics, but how does it show resistance to causing someone's
embarrassment?

Rereading the pesukim, I see that the way I pictured it is plausibly
incorrect.

The pesukim do not say that any of the remarks of Tamar or Yehudah were
made publicly! They say that Tamar ''SENT THE MESSAGE'' to Yehudah. Both
her message, and Yehudah's reaction to it, could all have occurred in
privacy, unknown to the public.  (Yehudah dismissed the charges and called
off the punishment he originally called for, although the pesukim don't
divulge how.)

So, Yehudah's humiliating behavior never became public. And Tamar, by not
declaring anything in public, kept from PUBLICLY embarrassing Yehudah. Her
risk of undergoing the execution was if Yehudah would have stood on
ceremony and gone on with the punishment.

Zvi Lampel
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