The theme of prophecy occurs throughout the Torah. In addition to the words of the prophets and prophetic dreams or visions, the Torah explicitly predicts some future events and subtly alludes to others. Beginning, with the portion of Lech Lecha, the stories of the patriarchs and matriarchs allude to the future dynamics of Jewish history through a mechanism we have often mentioned above: “the actions of the fathers are a sign to the children” (Sotah 34a). The Torah concludes with a message repeated again and again in the book of Deuteronomy: if the Jewish people is true to its calling, adhering to God’s Torah, observing the commandments and acting justly, God will grant the nation peace and prosperity in the Land of Israel. However, if the Jews fail to observe the commandments and obey God’s word, they will experience the horrors of military conquest and be subjected to a long and cruel exile. The Torah, in fact, describes the horrors of exile in graphic detail. Anyone possessing even a superficial knowledge of Jewish history will recognize how the Torah’s predictions have come to fruition.
The idea that there are hidden messages, mathematical symmetry, and infinite layers of meaning in the Torah, lies at the basis of sod, the secret Kabbalistic tradition. Although the jury is still out regarding what are commonly called the Bible Codes, computer searches of the biblical text have revealed truly amazing mathematical patterns and a systematic order to the biblical text previously hidden from the human eye. Modern technology is ambitiously expanding the horizons of the sod tradition by discovering additional wonders concealed in the text. Such technology may yet reveal an even deeper stratum of prophetic information.
The portion of Vayeishev is rich in prophetic material. It begins with Joseph’s dreams, which Joseph and Jacob clearly understood to be prophetic. Confirming this fact, twenty-two years later, Joseph’s brothers bowed down to him when they went to Egypt to buy food. They did not recognize him, but he certainly recognized them and must have realized that finally his prophetic dreams were coming true. Based on this time span, the Sages suggest that one wait for at least twenty-two years for his or her dreams to be fulfilled (Berachot 55a-b). Indeed, in this portion even the promises of God are seen to come true. When Jacob first sent Joseph to check on the welfare of his brothers who were pasturing sheep, the verse states that he sent him from “the valley of Hebron.” Rashi points out that Hebron is not deep in a valley, but in the mountains. Explaining the words in metaphorical derash style, Rashi explains that Jacob sent Joseph so that God’s deep designs imparted to Abraham, who was buried in Hebron, would come to pass: his descendants would be strangers, oppressed in a foreign land, but would leave with great wealth. (Rashi on Genesis 37:14; Sotah 11a). It is important to note that this derash is based on the Hebrew word for “valley” coming from the same root as the Hebrew word for “deep.”
One of the profoundest questions regarding prophecy is if the person always knows the import of his or her words or actions. For example, when Jacob sent Joseph to check on his brothers, was Jacob fully aware of the wheels he was setting in motion or was he merely a vessel through which God brought about the Jewish people’s destiny? This question applies to all of us, albeit on a somewhat less obvious level: are we always aware of our roles as agents for spiritual energies and dynamics beyond our conscious awareness? The answers to this enigma touch upon the mysterious paradox of how free will, Divine Providence, and Omnipotence operate simultaneously.
The portion of Vayeishev sheds light on this question by describing three sets of relationships: Joseph, “the man,” and Joseph’s brothers; Judah and Tamar; and Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. The Midrash puzzled by the appearance of an unnamed man who ensured that Joseph found his brothers at pasture explains that this man was the angel Gabriel; he had been sent by God to ensure that Joseph found his brothers and was subsequently sold into slavery, thus setting into motion the wheels of Jewish history (Genesis 37:15). Later Joseph seems to justify this interpretation for when he reveals himself to his brothers he tells them not to worry for although they intended to do him evil, God meant it all to happen for the good (Genesis 50:20). Joseph may not have known what was meant to be, but in retrospect he realized his role in fulfilling God’s plans.
As we saw in the previous section, Tamar actually had a prophetic sense of her role in Jewish history. She sensed that she was destined to have children with the family of Judah and foresaw that kings and redeemers would descend from them. She was so convinced of her prophetic intuition that she risked her reputation and her life for the sake of fulfilling what she felt was her destiny.
Later in this portion, we find the remarkable story of Potiphar’s wife trying to seduce Joseph. While Joseph was handsome, her attempts to seduce him are still somewhat surprising. According to the Midrash, she had a very good reason for these attempts: like Tamar, who intuited her need to have children from the family of Judah, Potiphar’s wife also had a prophetic intuition that she was meant to be with Joseph.
According to the Arizal, she was not entirely mistaken. Potiphar’s wife possessed two sides: a pure, holy one and an impure one. Her passion for Joseph was fuelled by a mixture of the two. She was driven by both raw desire and her soul’s profound attraction to Joseph’s holiness. The tradition teaches us that even though Joseph did not sleep with her, several generations later a spark of Joseph’s soul was reincarnated in Joshua who married Rahab. The mystical tradition teaches that Rahab – the woman who helped Israel conquer the city of Jericho – possessed the good side of Potiphar’s wife’s reincarnated soul; thus, at a certain point in history, Potiphar’s wife and Joseph did come together (Rabbi Menachem Azaryah’s Reincarnation of Souls, #90; discussed in Return Again: The Dynamics of Reincarnation, pp. 148). Additionally, the Midrash teaches that Joseph, himself, married Osnat who was Potiphar’s wife’s adopted daughter. Thus, we see that in Tamar’s case she had a “clear” prophetic intuition of what was to pass, while Potiphar’s wife’s intuition was “unclear,” leading her to erroneously attempt to seduce Joseph.
As we have seen, this portion provides several instances of clear and unclear prophecy and demonstrates the very fine line dividing these two states. The portion also exposes us to the fine line between free choice and Divine Providence and forces us to consider how they can operate simultaneously.
