Judah’s Seal, Cord, and Staff

Parashat Vayeishev would be a perfect parashah with which to play Pin the Mussar Tail on the Parashah Donkey – if you were blindfolded, turned around three times, and sent to put your finger on any random verse in this Parashah, you would have no problem easily constructing a Mussar lesson or d’var Torah from it. From the arrogant way Joseph treats his brothers, to their kidnapping him and selling him into slavery and letting their father think he had been killed, to Potiphar’s wife framing Joseph for a crime he didn’t commit, to the chief cupbearer forgetting Joseph’s interpretation of his dream and leaving him to languish in prison, there are many instances of people acting in accordance with their yetzer hara and not their yetzer hatov.

One particularly shameful episode occurs in chapter 38 with Judah and Tamar. Judah has two sons, Er and Onan. Er marries Tamar but is displeasing to God and dies. Onan then marries her in a levirate marriage and refuses to father children in his brother’s name and he too dies. Judah promises Tamar to his son Shelah who is too young to marry. As time passes, Tamar despairs of this marriage happening and so she sets out to dress as a prostitute and seduce Judah.

Judah does indeed sleep with her. By doing so and agreeing to reduce what should be a loving act to a commercial transaction, he engages in self-absorption and treats her as nothing more than a commodity that exists for his pleasure and not as a human being. This is an act of sexism and misogyny, in which he sees a woman as nothing more than a plaything, rather than as a human being made in the image of God whose burden he is called to bear. Verse 16 states that he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law, and while she was in disguise, nonetheless this points to a lack of genuine relationship with a member of his family and speaks to his failure to accept his obligation to her.

After they had completed the act, she asked for payment and he promised to send it to her. She asked for his seal, cord, and staff as surety. The seal was a metal cylinder with unique markings identifying him, that could be pressed into clay as a form of signature. It was worn on the cord around his neck. Similarly, the staff likely had markings that were unique to Judah, identifying him. These were the equivalent of our passports or driver’s licenses – proof of identity. But on a deeper level, his willingness to relinquish them speaks to his willingness to abandon his higher self, his neshamah, for momentary pleasure gained at the expense of another whose neshamah, dignity, and creation in the image of God he refused to recognize.

A few months later, Tamar became pregnant. Furious, Judah wanted to have her executed, but she said, “The father is the one whose seal, cord, and staff these are” – and he recognized with shame what he had done and agreed to take care of her and her children (she gave birth to twins). His recovery of his symbols of identity point to our recovery of our highest self, our neshamah, when we engage in cheshbon hanefesh, accounting of the soul, considering our “Mussar moments” when we have failed in our obligations to others, and do teshuvah, repentance, by changing our behavior to recognize other people as made in the image of God and accepting our responsibility to bear their burden.

May we learn from Judah and take care not to lose our identity in acts of self-absorption but rather build our character and hear and accept the call to serve others by bearing their burden, doing teshuvah when we miss the mark.