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A small silver cup changes the course of Jewish history. Joseph hands it to his steward with a single instruction."Put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the young...
In the middle of Judah's speech, a sentence lands that should have broken Joseph's composure on the spot."We told my lord, We have an aged father, and a son of his old age, a littl...
Three words in Hebrew, and a palace full of lies collapses. Ani Yosef. I am Joseph."Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph! Is my father yet alive? But his brothers could not ans...
Joseph has reconciled with his brothers. Now he needs them to deliver a message — quickly."Make haste, and go up to my father, and say to him, Thus saith thy son Joseph, The Lord h...
Pharaoh is specific about the travel arrangements. He thinks of the women. He thinks of the children. He thinks of the honor due an aged patriarch."Thou, Joseph, shalt appoint for ...
The inventory of Joseph's gift to his father is recorded with precision. "These presents he sent to his father; ten asses laden with wine and the good things of Mizraim, and ten sh...
The brothers arrive in Canaan. They find their father. They deliver the news. And Jacob cannot hear it."They declared to him, saying, Joseph is yet alive, and is ruler over all the...
Words did not persuade Jacob. But the wagons did."They told him all the words of Joseph which he had spoken to them. And when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to bring him, ...
In a moment easy to skip, the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on (Genesis 47:30) flags a subtle refusal. Jacob had asked Joseph to place his hand on the mark of the covenant and swear to bu...
When Jacob finally addressed the question of Joseph's two sons in (Genesis 48:5), he did something startling. He said: "Ephraim and Menasheh, as Reuben and Shimon shall be reckoned...
Every Friday night, in homes from Jerusalem to Buenos Aires, Jewish fathers place their hands on their sons' heads and say the same words: "May God make you like Ephraim and like M...
Joseph survived the slander, and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan explains why. "He returned to abide in his early strength, and would not yield himself unto sin, and subdued his inclination...
Joseph's request to Pharaoh hinges on a vow he cannot break. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders it simply. "My father made me swear, saying, Behold, I die, in the sepulchre which I hav...
The Torah records a small family scene: "And Joseph saw Ephraim's children of the third generation; also the sons of Makir the son of Menasheh were born on Joseph's knees"...
The Torah says Jokheved "hid him three months." The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus (2:2) does the math."And the woman conceived and bare a son at the end of six mo...
Three months. That is how long a mother can pretend her baby does not cry."But she could conceal him no longer, for the Mizraee had become aware of him. And she took an ark of...
The Torah's Hebrew tells the Israelite women to ask their Egyptian neighbors for silver, gold, and clothing before the Exodus. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan adds something unforgettable: ...
On the road to Egypt, one of the strangest scenes in the Torah unfolds. The Hebrew is terse to the point of confusion: the Lord met him and sought to kill him. Targum Pseudo-Jonath...
The plain verse says only that Amram married Jokeved, fathered Aharon and Moses, and lived a hundred and thirty-seven years (Exodus 6:20). Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 6:20 add...
The plagues are not only punishment. They are curriculum. The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 10:2 records the Holy One's own reason: "In the hearing of thy sons and of thy childr...
When Pharaoh asks who will be going to worship, Moses answers without hesitation. "With our children and with our old men will we go; with our sons and with our daughters we will g...
Pharaoh responds with a sarcasm that reveals his actual intention. "He said to them, So may the Word of the Lord be a help to you: (but) how can I release (both) you and your child...
The obligation to tell the Pesach story to the next generation is compressed into a single sentence in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 13:8. The Aramaic reads: "thou shalt instruc...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 13:14 imagines the future. A son, born long after Egypt, looks at his father performing the strange ritual of redeeming a firstborn donkey with...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 13:18 takes a quiet verse and fills it with multiplication. The Hebrew says simply that Israel went up from Egypt. The Targum adds: "every one ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 15:2 turns a line from the Song at the Sea into a vision of impossible witnesses. "This is our God, who nourished us with honey from the rock, ...
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan renders one of the most unsettling lines of the Decalogue with full theological weight. "You shall not bow down to them, or worship before them; for I th...
The fifth commandment carries a promise most commandments do not. "My people, the house of Israel, Let every man be instructed in the honour of his father and in the honour of his ...
A calf is born. A lamb is born. The farmer knows this one is destined for the altar — a firstborn male, dedicated to God from its first breath. What happens in the interval between...
The Torah has a default order. Moses before Aaron. Joshua before Caleb. Father before mother. Heaven before earth. Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Bereshit 14:1 collects the quiet exceptio...
