I find it curious that in the chapter 39 of sefer Breishit (book of Genesis) the
name of Potiphar is mentioned only once in the first verse, only in the context
of the act of slave trade:
39:1 Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, Pharaoh's
chamberlain, chief of the slaughterers, an Egyptian man, purchased him from the
Ishmaelites who had brought him down there.
The next verse refers to ‘his Egyptian
master’, and then, every verse after that, throughout the chapter, we only see
the word ‘master’, but never the name. Even Potiphar’s wife
is only mentioned as אֵשֶׁת אֲדֹנָיו , wife of his
master, rather than wife of Potiphar, his master.
I
noticed that omission at the end of the chapter in verse 39:2: So
Joseph's master took him and put him
into prison, the place where the king's
prisoners were imprisoned, and he was there in the prison. Here not
only the name of Potiphar is missing, but even the Pharaoh is also not mentioned
explicitly, only as a king.
The Egyptian man is used as an
agent to start the story, which subsequently develops on different levels. Who
is the true Master of Joseph, and who is the King? Who the wife of the Master, love sick with
Joseph – is this truly the corrupt, obnoxious Egyptian woman, or the divine
Shechina, trapped in the body of the kidnapped woman, too ignorant to know how
to handle her feelings?
The house of prison, בֵּית הַסֹּהַר, is
described in the Midrash as an underground dungeon with a very narrow crack of
a window, shaped like a crescent. So is
the beauty of Joseph, his mind, his personality – a narrow crescent of a window
that allows a glimpse into an overwhelming beauty of olam haba, the world to come, the world above, the hidden beautiful
world, once expressed in the design of the sanctuary of turquoise, gold, purple, scarlet red and
linen white, the world of peace, filled with the light of Shabbos.
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