Vayeishev, Genesis 37:1–40:23
From the Coat of Many Colors to a Simple Garment:
The Unmaking of Joseph
Bruce Kadden
It is said that clothes make the man. But in this week’s portion, Vayeishev, they have a great deal to do with the unmaking of Joseph. Two garments, the coat of many colors and the undistinguished garment Potiphar’s wife strips off of him, end up contributing to his trials, each being a catalyst for his descent to Egypt and to prison, respectively.
The first garment that gets Joseph into trouble is the coat of many colors, which his father made for him. The text says, “When his brothers saw that he was the one their father loved, more than any of his brothers, they hated him and could not bear to speak peaceably to him” (Genesis 37:4).
Did Joseph flaunt his special gift in front of them? Or was it simply the fact that their father showed favoritism to him with a beautiful present that so upsets them? It is obviously a very special garment; the term is used only one other time in Scripture, referring to the garment worn by King David’s daughter, Tamar, likely indicating her royal status (II Kings, 13:18). We can assume at the very least that Joseph wore it with pride and perhaps a bit of smugness at being singled out for this special gift.
In any case, when Joseph later approaches his brothers as they tend to their father’s sheep, they plot to kill him. Only Reuben’s intervention saves Joseph’s life. The brothers strip Joseph of his coat and throw him into a pit and then sell him to a caravan of Ishmaelites. Then they take Joseph’s coat, dip it into blood from a goat they had slaughtered, and bring it to their father.
Not wanting to lie to their father, the brothers ask “We found this; do you recognize it? Is it your son’s coat?” (Genesis 37:32). Avivah Gottleib Zornberg, in analyzing this story observes: “In thrusting Joseph’s coat, torn and bloodied, at Jacob, and in saying, ‘Please recognize it; is it your son’s tunic or not?’—they in fact feed him the words with which he interprets its meaning: ‘He recognized it, and said, “My son’s tunic! A savage beast devoured him! Joseph is torn in pieces!” ’ ” (Genesis 37:32–33, cited in Genesis: The Beginning of Desire [Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1995], p. 266). Jacob then immediately tears his clothes as a sign of mourning, which ironically mimics the tearing of the coat off of his son.
Zornberg sees a deeper meaning in Jacob’s words, which “express the brothers’ deep intent. The poignancy of the moment lies not in deception, but in the accurate, if unconscious, decoding of the symbolism of the coat. What the brothers had wanted to do to Joseph—indeed, what they had done to him—is truly articulated by their father.
“In a sense, the coat is Joseph. His brothers strip it from him as they fall on him, and before they cast him into the pit” (Zornberg, p. 266).
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