In desperation she goes along with it, and she does in fact conceive by this act.
Dressed in a veil, Yehuda mistakes Tamar for a prostitute. One night she was waiting on the side of the road for him as he was coming back from partying. Her girlfriends had told her that he was coming into town, so she sought him out to again make her case. However, we read here in this chapter that one day Yehuda came across this woman, Tamer his daughter-in-law. Because one of Yehuda’s sons did wrong by her and subsequently died on account of it, he refuses to let another of his immature boys get involved and thus she is left in a state of hopelessness. According to the custom it was her right to have a male brother of the husband’s clan help her conceive, in order to enable her to keep her status and land holdings through an heir. In quick summary, Yehuda had a childless widow of a daughter-in-law who desperately wanted a child. What Yehuda needed in a friend was someone who would not just understand him as much as his wife did, but someone who was trustworthy enough to help him defuse a secret that one would normally keep from their wife! Finding someone in whom you can trust and even expose your most intimate things to is not at all easy. We pray that a couple should find in each other, “ ahavah v’achavah, v’shalom v’rayut / love and fraternity, peace and friendship.”įinding a good friend can often be just as hard as finding a good spouse. One of the few places that we hear of this type of relationship is during the Sheva Brachot of the marriage ceremony. Of this type of re’ah ( רֵעַ ), of this type of friend. In fact we don’t often hear of this type of interdependency in our tradition. In each other they had a friend that wouldn’t turn away out of judgement or disgust. A friendship that in a time of need one can depend on the other for help in getting out of their mess.
They were close friends that depended on each other and that held each other’s secrets. But real friends help you move bodies.” This here friendship of course was not that bad, but it was pretty close to being partners in crime. Now what type of friend is this that Yehuda has in him? I once heard the crass phrase: “Friends help you move. Not just once does it use this word, but twice in this chapter we hear of Chirah as Yehuda’s, “ ray’ayhu / his friend.” (see Genesis 38:12, 20) The text also seems to suggest they might be business partners, as the first mention of friendship also states that they went up to sheer their sheep together as if this is their shared trade. I use the word “friend” because this is the type of word that is used in the scriptures to describe the relationship that there was between Yehuda and Chirah. Why don’t we talk enough about the need of men to have male-friendships? His yeridah (descent) was not just metaphorical, it was also physical as he ran away from his blessed home and went to stay out in the wilderness with a friend he made from Adullam, in the Valley of Elah. The word use is vayered, they made him decrease or go down.
For his role as antagonist in this case, rightfully his brothers demote him. Previously we learned that Yehuda was chiefly responsible for his brother’s kidnapping and the consequential selling of him into slavery. Let us take a look at the top of our fourth aliya: However, we have a lot to learn here in Genesis chapter 38. Secondly, his story is sandwiched in the middle of our parsha, so it feels like just a minor stop-off. We don’t often give enough look at him, first because he is a villain of sorts up until now.
Though most of this parsha seem to concern itself with the uppity Yosef haTzadik, I actually found myself drawn in to the story of our anti-hero Yehuda. Finding Friendship in the Company of Outcastsĭo you have a friend that always accepts you no matter what? Is that your idea of a good friend? What type of friends do you have in your life? Are they cronies or are they partners for greater things? Today we are going to explore some friendships born under pressure, and explore what makes them most intimate.
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