Ever wonder if the heroes of the Bible were... secretly just like us? I mean, did they follow all the rules, even before there were rules?
Take Joseph, for instance. You remember Joseph, right? Sold into slavery in Egypt by his jealous brothers, rises through the ranks, interprets Pharaoh's dreams, becomes a powerful leader. Big story.
Well, according to some traditions, Joseph was observant of the Sabbath, the Shabbat (the day of rest), even before the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai! That’s what we read in Legends of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg. Imagine that – keeping the Shabbat before it was even a commandment! It paints a picture of Joseph as someone deeply connected to spiritual practice, even in a foreign land.
Now, picture this: Joseph, now a powerful Egyptian official, invites his unsuspecting brothers to a feast. But they don't trust him. Remember, they don’t recognize him at first and are filled with guilt about what they did to him so many years ago. So when Joseph’s steward invites them, they refuse.
And that refusal leads to...a brawl! Can you imagine? The steward is trying to usher them into the banqueting hall, and they're trying to push him out. Why all the resistance?
They feared it was a trick, a “ruse,” as Ginzberg puts it. They were worried that Joseph – or rather, this powerful Egyptian official they didn't realize was Joseph – was trying to take them captive. They suspected he wanted to seize them and their donkeys on account of the money they'd found mysteriously returned to their sacks after their first trip to Egypt. They figured it was a setup!
What’s fascinating is what they valued. The text tells us that they equated the loss of their animals to the loss of their freedom. "In their modesty," Ginzberg writes, "they put the loss of their beasts upon the same level as the loss of their personal liberty." Think about that for a second. It speaks volumes about their values, their sense of responsibility, and maybe even their understanding of what truly constitutes freedom.
It’s a pretty human moment, isn't it? These figures we often see as larger-than-life are squabbling with a steward, worrying about their donkeys, and suspecting the worst. It reminds us that even the heroes of our stories are, at their core, just people trying to navigate a complicated world.