Shabbat Parashas Vayeishev - 5782

Shabbat Parashas Vayeishev - 5782

Rabbi Hal Miller

Yehudah saw her and he thought her to be a harlot because she covered her face.

[Bereishit 38:15]

What is the Torah trying to tell us here? Is it about the culture of the times, that harlots

covered their faces and/or sat at crossroads? Why would that be important for us to

know today? What was Tamar's purpose for covering her face, and why did Yehudah

take it to mean that she was available as a harlot at this point?

Rashi is clear that Yehudah took her as a harlot because she was sitting at the crossroad

and that Tamar covered her face only as a recognition issue. The Gemora in Sotah [10b],

Onkelos and Ramban point out that since she covered her face all the time she was living

in Yehudah's home with his sons, Yehudah could not have recognized her anyway. Later,

once Tamar was obviously pregnant, the people accused her as Yehudah's daughter-in-law,

but how did they know if she had been keeping her face covered? One cannot imagine that

she went around bragging about the situation. We must conclude that the face covering at

that point in time was not an issue of preventing Yehudah from recognizing her.

So what was the reason? We could possibly say that the answer comes from the episode in

38:26, where Yehudah admits that the items Tamar held were in fact his, thus he must be

the father. Had she been uncovered at the time of their union, and still uncovered at the time

of the trial, he might have recognized her without need for those items, which would not have

been as conclusive a proof. But this also does not seem sufficient for the Torah to have made

a point of telling us about it.

Perhaps the answer comes from Sotah. "For R'Shmuel bar Nachmani said in the name of

R'Yonasan, any bride who is modest in her father-in-law's house will merit to have kings and

prophets descend from her." The Torah here is using Tamar as the example to teach modesty

and family purity. Because of this behavior, she merited to have the kings of Israel as her

progeny. It is not the face covering, it is the pure behavior that merits good.