One of the things I have come to enjoy about Chanukah is that this is the time of year when Torah gives over the story of Joseph. Chanukah lands every year somewhere in this story, which occupies many chapters of the Book of Genesis.
Lots of you know how drawn I am to this story. It is intricate and novel-like. It is a kind of ambiguous Cinderella story, although truth be told, even the Cinderella story is an ambiguous Cinderella story.
But like Cinderella we have a protagonist who is hated by siblings and who is pushed down but who, perhaps with a little supernatural help, ultimately comes out on top. Each of them – Cinderella and Joseph – uses disguise. Each of them has a triumphant moment when the disguise is laid aside and the hero’s true identity is revealed.
Over the past few years I’ve spent time looking more closely at Joseph’s many levels of disguise. He learns as a young person the danger of too much self-revelation. After over-sharing his prophetic dreams with his brothers, they throw him in a pit and sell him into slavery. No wonder he becomes guarded.
But one often-overlooked dimension of Joseph’s hiddenness has to do with his gender. Torah keeps pointing to something unusual about it. Joseph is repeatedly described using terms that only occur one other place in Torah, that other place always in connection with a woman. These include references to his looks, his emotions, his social role, even his body. The Torah text offers veiled references to Joseph’s breasts and womb. One scholar has posited Joseph to be a woman, living in disguise as a man, for all the reasons that certain women in history and literature have done that.
But maybe even more exciting to me than Joseph as our biblical Yentl (which is, admittedly, an exciting and cinematic thought) is a Joseph who defies the gender binary altogether. And why not? Throughout the ancient world we see mythological characters whose gender is not straightforward, and cultic roles that seem designed for real people of atypical gender. It would be odd for some remnant of that not to exist in our Jewish mythic tradition. Even if we’re raised not to notice; even if only some people will see it because for them looking at Joseph is a little like looking in a mirror.
Joseph comes alive for me in a different way now. I have come to include Joseph in my Avot/Imahot prayer of the Amidah, the prayer in which we ask for God’s blessing based on the merit of our ancestors. In the traditional prayer we name the lineage of the patriarchs – Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – and in modern times we have added the lineage of the matriarchs – Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah. I then add Joseph in order to split the container open even more. Our lineages do not have to be gender bound. God is God of all the diversity and variation in human existence and in all Creation for that matter. Adding Joseph to the prayer helps me remember that, and helps me more clearly see myself in it.
So like Cinderella, like Queen Esther, Joseph is disguised. There is a veiling of something. Joseph has a light in him – or better now I’ll say “them”. Joseph has a light in them. Joseph’s brothers try to extinguish that light. But can’t. Eventually it shines forth when Joseph is at last revealed. It shines forth and becomes a great blessing of reconciliation, forgiveness and safety.
And this is why I think Chanukah is such good timing for this story.
Our Jewish mystical tradition does not teach Chanukah as the death and rebirth of the light as some other traditions do. Instead it is our Jewish sense that the light is always present, but it is hidden during this time. The name of this Hebrew month, Kislev, has been read by the Dinover Rebbe, the B’nei Yissaschar, for reasons I can explain offline, as meaning something like “the covering up of the supernal light.” That is, the light of Creation. Not the physical light of the sun but the divine light. The light of wisdom, clarity and consciousness. Over the nights of Chanukah, as we add candle after candle, we miraculously, incrementally re-reveal that original light. It was never gone, but for a time we couldn’t see it, and we forgot it.
It makes me wonder what light there is in each of us that has been veiled. What is the light in each of us that has been rejected and possibly forgotten? The colorful piece of each of us that was too much to hold, or for others to hold, and so we threw it in a pit and left it for dead. Take a look for it now. What is that beautiful, light-filled, creative, funny, rebellious, clever, curious, intuitive, musical, athletic, nerdy part that you set aside long ago as being unhelpful, or pesky, or embarrassing?
Maybe you haven’t thought of it in a long time. But take a moment right now and find it. Is it time for a reunion? A re-meeting and unmasking? Is it time to let that particular light shine through you again? Or shine through you at last?
This is Chanukah. The holiday of dedication. May we each dedicate ourselves to finding that light again; to finding that part of us and raising it up, like Joseph out of the pit. So that we may all be illuminated by the abundance of each other’s light.
I hope to shortly release a study cross-referencing indicators of Joseph’s gender throughout Torah. Stay tuned!