History sometimes turns on a dime. By which I mean, you can look back at some earth-shattering, culture-defining, movement-shifting event, and find something arbitrary, minor, or seemingly insignificant that set everything in motion. It's not ALWAYS the
case, but it happens often enough that it's worth pointing out. I want to name one such moment in the Torah, found in this week's Torah portion, but before I tell you about that "dime," I want to say a word about how the text of our Torah is read, or perhaps more importantly for our purposes, how it is chanted. In case you weren't familiar with this, the Hebrew in our Torah scrolls is written without vowels OR musical notes. There is, however, a ubiquitous tradition about how the text should be vocalized, and a relatively pervasive tradition about how to sing the words and verses. I want to share with you a rare phenomenon in these musical notes, and how - in one particular instance - it is meant to highlight a split-second decision that changed the entire world.
The system that we use to chant the Torah text is called "cantillation" or "trope." There are trope-marks on essentially every word in the Bible, and not only do these marks
help us sing the text, but they indicate where commas, periods, and even exclamation points are meant to be inserted. Most of the trope are run-of-the-mill patterns that repeat, and repeat, and repeat. And then, every once in a while, we get a cantillation note that is extremely rare. Each one only appears a handful of times in the text, and they are meant to make us stop, take notice, and ideally ask "why?" The most exciting of the unusual trope-notes is called "shalshelet," which means "the chain." The longest 'ordinary' trope is called "pazer," and the shalshelet is THREE TIMES as long as the pazer! This drawn-out note only appears in FOUR instances across the Five Books of Moses, and there is a good case to be made that ours, in Genesis 39:8, is the most interesting and pivotal of them all.
Some background in a nutshell: This week, we're learning about Jacob's son, Joseph. He is a spoiled brat and a tattletale, who always gets what he wants and flaunts it in front of his brothers. (I mean no disrespect...) Not surprisingly, they turn against him
and ultimately sell him to slave traders (!). It's not a feel-good story, I'll admit, but I also maintain that Joseph grows. He learns from his mistakes and he matures over the course of time, which isn't always something we see happening in the Bible. Joseph is sold to a courtier of Pharaoh's in Egypt, and then quickly becomes a trusted servant. But then, Joseph finds himself at a crossroads: The courtier, Potiphar, has a wife who begins to make advances on Joseph. What should he do? She could be a powerful ally. Joseph could return to his old ways, take what he wants, ignore the feelings of others, and disregard the honorable thing to do. Brilliantly, the text highlights in an instant the fulcrum that appears before Joseph. An excruciatingly long, drawn-out, and rare trope mark is placed right there, on the word "Va-yee-ma-ayn" (v. 8), meaning "But he [Joseph] refused." It is almost as if you can hear him waffling back and forth. "Should I?" "Shouldn't I?" His life flashes before his eyes; he sees his past, he sees the crucial nature of this moment, and he sees the potential futures that may play out depending on what he does... ... ... ... and then, he spurns her.
Now look, this "history turning on a dime" idea is a bit tenuous. We could point to ANY moment in Joseph's life and say, "If x hadn't happened, the whole story would have been different!" If the brothers had sold him to DIFFERENT slave traders or if Pharaoh hadn't punished the cup bearer; any one change might also have shifted all of world history!! And yet, the Torah chooses to highlight this
particular moment. The writers of our text, and then the
Masoretic scholars who established THE authoritative system of vocalizations and trope, wanted us to pause here, at THIS word. It is perhaps Joseph's first moral decision, his first adult determination to do what is right; and our ancestors wanted us all to praise him for it. It is a reminder to every generation of readers that sure, any decision could change the outcome of our lives. Many may even appear arbitrary or devoid of consequence. But every once in a while, a moment arises that we KNOW has greater significance. We can just FEEL that there's more meaning here, and that the implications of our choices, our statements, and our actions right now, in THIS instant, will echo far beyond the here and now. Be mindful of those opportunities. Listen for the shalshelet, the rattling chain reverberating in the background, reminding us all that standing up for what is good and right has lasting and far-reaching ramifications. Do not simply let that moment pass by; it might be more rare and fleeting than you realize.
Images in this blog post:
1. CC image courtesy of
Robert Fairchild on
Flickr
2. Image of Genesis 39:8 (highlights mine) courtesy of
Sefaria.org
3. CC image courtesy of
Max Pixel
4. CC image courtesy of
Max Pixel
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