Parashat Vayeshev

Colorful Coats and Dreams

There is tremendous pressure on me this week of Parashat Vayeshev. This is the parashah that my fourth grader has been learning in school this year with her rebbe. She knows all of perek 37 by heart and has a good chunk of perek 39 committed to memory. (Understandably, the rebbe glossed over perek 38, the Tamar and Yehudah story, with the vaguest of summaries.) The class has been delving into the peshat (literal) and rabbinic interpretations of the text of the Yosef story, so I have a real expert on my hands! She is so excited about this week!

For starters, the image that will dominate the décor of the table will be the special coat that Yaakov gave to his son Yosef. We have a beautiful, bright striped tablecloth that will make a striking setting for the table. Of course, there are discussion among the commentaries as to the nature and appearance of this coat, but we’ll stick with the most literal at this point. (Nonetheless, I do wonder if the striped woolen garment that Rashi describes as the coat is an allusion to tzitzit/a tallit... Hmmmm.) The kids (and grown-ups) will also be wearing the most colorful striped clothing they have. During dinner, we will definitely talk about the coat and consider why Yaakov gave it to Yosef, even though Yosef’s brothers might (and had) become very jealous. For a more popular culture twist, I am working in fitting some of the zemirot we sing to tunes from “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” a score our family knows quite well.

Dreams will play the greatest role in our menu. Each place setting will be set with a goblet of grape juice and an individual roll. The grape juice goblets will have a plastic fly in each and the rolls will have a raisin—I don’t think a rock will do—stuck inside each one. These items, reminiscent of the sar hamashkim (sommelier) and sar haofim’s (baker) dreams, will hopefully set the stage for a discussion of Yosef as one who understands God’s messages sent through dreams. I would like our kids to think about how Yosef inherited his understanding of how to analyze dreams from the experiences of his father. While Yosef’s brothers might have thought initially that his dreams were delusions of grandeur, they and Yaakov Avinu come to realize that the dreams are actually expressions of nevuah (prophecy), as evident in the fact that the motifs of the dreams are repeated/doubled.

To further the dream representation on the table, I am going to repurpose one of my ideas from last week and create sheaves of wheat out of carrots stick bunches tied with scallion. For Yosef’s bundle, I will use string beans tied similarly, but that bundle will be grander and larger, and positioned differently on the serving dish. For Yosef’s second dream that he reports to his siblings, I will once again pull out my star shaped baking pan for eleven star shaped muffins to accompany a squash sunshine and mashed potato moon (see Parashat Bereishit).

We will also highlight the darker parts of the parashah—Yosef’s time in the pit and his brother’s elaborate scheme to make Yaakov think that Yosef had met his demise at the mouth of a wild beast. To remind us of the pit, we will make a dish that is a pun on the Hebrew text describing the pit. (My fourth grader and I thought of this several weeks ago when she had to read the verse and the accompanying Rashi over and over for homework one night.) The Torah says that the pit was empty; it contained no water, “Ve’ha’bor rek, ain bo mayim.”) If you say “bor rek” (the pit was empty) many times in a row, it begins to sound like borek or borekas, so we have to have those at Shabbat dinner (and there will be no mayim in our borekas!) For the main course, I will serve several bowls of dipping sauces and have strips of food (meat, chicken, vegetables, etc.) that can be drenched in the red sauces.

And that will be this year’s rendering of Parashat Vayeshev!

Shabbat Shalom!

© Tammie Rapps 2008