Miketz: Yosef, Establishing the Standards of Kedusha for the Jewish People

Throughout the pesukim delineating Yosef’s descent into Mitzrayim and his tenure in the debased Egyptian palace, one thing is made perfectly clear. Through all the ups and downs of his journey, Hashem was with Yosef and Yosef was highly cognizant of this Divine Assistance. Such clarity and faith Yosef had, that when his terrified brothers reunite with him, Yosef is confident that ‘It was not you who sent me, but Hashem.’ Indeed, Yosef was right. His brothers may have completed the sale, but it was Hashem’s Master plan which dictated that at this juncture in Jewish history, Yosef had to go to Egypt. One day too, it was destined, his descendants would follow. 

Rabbi Frand brings a powerful question from the Sefer Milchamot Yehuda. Even if all this was ‘bashert,’ even if it was all for a greater purpose that Yosef was sent down to Egypt, why did Hashem allow Potiphar’s wife to tempt him? Surely being in Egypt, languishing in jail and preserving his moral purity as he rose through the ranks in palace life was enough to set a precedent for the nation. Why did Yosef have to be pursued by Potiphar’s wife? 

The Milchamot Yehuda answers based on the famous dictum laid down by the Ramban, ‘maaseh avot siman l’banim.’ The deeds of the fathers are a sign, a blueprint for the children. Whatever the Jewish people were to go through, Yosef had to endure first. By overcoming such a challenging test in the area of purity, Yosef ensured that his descendants would not fall prey to forbidden relations when they were brought down to slavery into what was an infamous hotbed of immorality. Klal Yisrael may never have survived with their spiritual purity intact if not for this iron wall of protection against immorality which Yosef constructed for them – through his prevailing over the test with Potiphar’s wife. 

Incredibly, during the 210 years of brutal slavery in this epicenter of giluy arayot, only one case of immoral relations ever occurred¹. Indeed, we are told that one of our zechuyot for leaving Egypt was our spiritual purity, our yichus. We emerged as a pure nation which in itself was a miracle defying all odds. Hashem recorded a beautiful testament to our outstanding purity in the words of the Torah itself. In Parshat Pinchas, when the land is apportioned to each family, they are not simply called ‘Chanoch’ but ‘HaChanochi’ with the additional letters yud and heh, from Hashem’s name.² Our yichus was so pristine that Hashem imprinted His own Holy name on ours. Nowadays, when we strive to keep our homes pure and distance ourselves from any improper behavior or material, Rav Pincus writes it is as if our surname becomes ‘Mrs Hakadosh Baruch Hu.” We have His inscription, His stamp and seal on our purity. 

The entire purpose of Egyptian slavery was to act as a “kur habarzel”, an iron crucible which purges material of any impurities. As the pasuk says in Parshat Shemini ‘I am Hashem Who brought you up from the land of Egypt.’ The pasuk does not say hamotzi, who brought you out, but hama’aleh, who drew you up. Our descent into Mitzrayim was an aliya, an elevation for our personal purity standards, preparing us to receive the Torah and become the mamlechet kohanim v’goy kadosh, the people of Hashem. Kedusha is our trademark, our identifying feature and it is what molded us into the nation we are today.

The Tur writes that the reason Eliyahu HaNavi attends the brit of each baby born is because it is in his zechut that the Jewish people maintained their tahor status. Eliyahu, also known to us as Pinchas, was the one who killed Zimri and Kozbi when they engaged in immoral relations. The chair for Eliyahu is his reward because each baby born is testament to the purity which Pinchas fought for.  Building Jewish families must be founded on complete tahara and any introduction of impurity tarnishes our beautiful family structures. At each brit, we celebrate the continuing kedusha of the father, the mother and of the entire Jewish people.

Yosef, who viewed himself as an olah temima, a perfect, unblemished sacrifice, avoided the temptation to fall into the moral decadence of Egypt and stood up to Eishet Potiphar. It was his descendants, the Bnot Tzelafchad, who introduced a new halacha of the distribution of land amongst the families of klal yisrael. One tzaddik stood firm in his moral purity, and his descendants allowed the families of this pure nation to settle in their land. It was those of perfect lineage, with the name of kah inscribed on their shevet and family, who were apportioned land in Eretz Yisrael. 

In fact, Rabbi Bodenheim³ notes that after the sin of Zimri and Kozbi, the nations began questioning if we had even emerged pure from Egypt or had engaged in licentious behavior even then⁴. It is therefore in this part of the Torah that Hashem added the yud and the heh to the families’ names, to affirm that we are indeed an am kadosh. Rabbi Bodenheim reads the pasuk in the Tehillim this way ‘shivtei kah eidut lyisrael.’ Instead of its literal meaning ‘the tribes of Hashem are a testimony for the people,’ he understands it as ‘the kah (name of Hashem) surrounding the tribes is a testament [to the purity of] the nation.’ Purity is not only a praiseworthy trait, but it is the foundation stone that our entire Jewish life stands on. 

I believe it is no coincidence that Yosef, who viewed himself as an olah temima⁵, a perfect, unblemished sacrifice, avoided the temptation to fall into the moral decadence of Egypt and stood up to Eishet Potiphar. It was his descendants, the Bnot Tzelafchad, who introduced a new halacha of the distribution of land amongst the families of klal yisrael. One tzaddik stood firm in his moral purity, and his descendants allowed the families of this pure nation to settle in their land. It was those of perfect lineage, with the name of kah inscribed on their shevet and family, who were apportioned land in Eretz Yisrael. 

It is us as the Jewish women of the nation who are entrusted to safeguard the purity of the people. It is we who choose the kedusha standards of our homes, we who are given the precious halachot of family purity and it is we who carry the Jewish line through our generations. May we emulate the purity of Yosef and his descendants and continue the generations of holy Jews who will one day all return to populate the holiest land on earth. 

1. The story of Shlomit bat Divri ↩︎
2. In Parshat Pinchas. Rashi says because nations challenged our lineage and implied we had fallen to the moral decadence of Egypt ↩︎
3. https://jewishlink.news/the-importance-of-maintaining-our-kedusha/
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4. As referenced above, Rashi on Pinchas ↩︎
5. According to the Midrash see Tzofia article on Pinchas, Dreams in the Genes for detail ↩︎