Shabbat Parashas Vayeishev - 5785

Rabbi Hal Miller

Yehudah recognized and he said, "She is right, it is from me inasmuch as I did not

give her to Shelah my son" and he did not continue to be intimate with her any more.

[Bereishit 38:26]

The last phrase of our verse is difficult to understand, having many possible explanations.

An exact translation is that he "did not add further to know her", where knowing is usually

a euphemism for sexual intimacy.

Rashi notes that "There are those who say he did not continue [Sifrei, Onkelos] and there

are those who say he did not stop" [Sotah 10b]. Why would there be diametrically opposed

explanations? Perhaps it stems from Yehudah's understanding of who Tamar was. He had

thought her to be a harlot, but at the point of our verse he has just discovered that she is

not, rather she is "more righteous than I" and should not be treated as a harlot, which begs

the question of whether one person deserves worse treatment than another.

Ramban thinks Yehudah stopped laying with her since he had already "established offspring"

and no longer needed her. It would have been voluntary to keep her for she was not forbidden

to him, being his wife under the rules of levirate marriage. This rule was the basis for the

opinion that he did not stop, but Ramban says that he stopped for another reason.

The Torah tells us of the one episode between Yehudah and Tamar, resulting in her pregnancy.

It does not tell us of any more, so it might appear that he had already stopped some number

of months prior to our verse and that here we learn only that he did not start again. Radak

appears to follow this approach, saying that "it is demeaning for a highly placed individual to

sleep with a harlot" but this seems counterintuitive since Yehudah did take Tamar earlier, and

now that he knows she is not a harlot, he would no longer be demeaned by keeping her.

The wording of this phrase is v'lo yasaf od l'datah. Rashbam says that this cannot mean "he

did not stop knowing her" as that would have been worded v'lo yasaf od mi'l'da'atah, that he did

not cease 'from' knowing her. The real question is the definition of the word yasaf. Onkelos

and Sifrei understand it to be 'osef', meaning to add on or to continue. But Sotah [10b] cites

Devarim [5:19] where it says, "a great sound that did not cease" (yasaf).

Torah Temimah, based on the Yerushalmi [Sotah 9:6] looks at the grammar of our verse and

explains that multiple speakers are involved here. "Recognize" was stated by Tamar, "she

is right" was from Yehudah, and "he did not continue" was stated by God. This pits the

Yerushalmi against the Bavli, at least for the opinion of those sages involved. For such a

confrontation, we can only accept both definitions, that Yehudah stopped and that Yehudah

did not stop. Perhaps, as above, this indicates that 'knowing' here does not refer to sexual

behavior but to Yehudah's knowledge of who Tamar was.

Hal Miller