To wait without despair. Something extraordinary happens between last week's parisar and this week's.

It's almost as if the pause of a week between them were itself part of the story. Recall last week's

pariscia about the childhood of Joseph, focusing not on what happened but on who made it happen. Throughout the entire rollercoaster

ride of Joseph's early life, he's described as passive, not active, the done to, not the doer,

the object, not the subject of verbs. It was his father who loved him and gave him the richly

embroidered cloak. It was his brothers who envied and hated him.

He had dreams, but we don't dream because we want to, but because in some mysterious way they come

unbidden into our sleeping mind. His brothers tend in their flocks far from home plotted to kill him.

They threw him into a pit. He was sold as a slave. In Pottaver's

house, he rose to a position of seniority, but the text goes out of its way to say that this

wasn't because of Joseph himself, but because of God. God was with Joseph, and he became a successful

man. He was in the house of his Egyptian master. His master

saw that God was with him and that God caused all that he did to prosper in his hands.

Potifers' wife tried to seduce him and failed. But here too, Joseph was passive, not active.

He didn't seek her. She sought him.

Eventually we read, she caught hold of his garment saying, lie with me, but he left his garment in her hand and fled and ran outside.

Using the garment as evidence, she had him imprisoned on a totally false charge.

There was nothing Joseph could do to establish his innocence.

In prison, again, he became a leader, a manager, but again, the terror goes out of its way to

attribute this not to Joseph, but to divine intervention. God was with Joseph and showed him

kindness. He gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer.

Whatever was done there, he was the one who did it. The chief jailer paid no heat to anything

...