Genesis: Chapter 46
- Nov 7, 2025
- 2 min read
This week I was struck by Joseph’s instructions to his brothers about how to introduce themselves to Pharaoh.
Joseph tells them to identify themselves as shepherds so that they will be settled in Goshen rather than near the royal court. The Torah explains why: “The Egyptians abominate all who keep sheep” (Genesis 46:34).
In our Torah study class, we’ve often discussed a recurring pattern in Jewish history - the experience of being welcomed wholeheartedly into a society, only to be scorned and persecuted later. This small detail in the Torah, the fact that Egyptians already abhorred shepherds, suggests that the mistrust of the Israelites was present from the very beginning.
But Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, in his new commentary on the Torah published posthumously this year, sees something slightly different. He suggests that this verse positions the Israelites as deliberately countercultural, and it opens the door for the Torah to offer a critique of the dominant values of Egyptian society - especially its obsession with power and hierarchy.
He writes:
“To this day, the temples, colossi, and pyramids of Egypt are awe-inspiring. They were meant to be. But there is a question to be asked about monumental architecture through the ages, much of it religious: At whose cost was it built? Virtually none was produced without exploitation on a massive scale. In Genesis and Exodus we hear little about the idolatry and pagan rituals that were later to earn the scorn of the prophets. We hear much, however, about something else, namely the hierarchical society by which some presume to rule over others. This, to the Torah, is unforgivable.”
Rabbi Sacks invites us to see this moment in the Torah as instructive to us to not be like Egypt. To make sure that we, the Jewish people, are never afraid to go against the grain. That we are to be a voice of justice and equality when voices from the big city might claim otherwise.
-Rabbi Jason Bonder
RE: my Sacks comment i.e., my comment on the beginning to learn to be an "am". At 50:24ff. When God sees that you are beginning to learn to be a people instead of various tribes, He will take you up to the land that he promised you. (Where you will be a people, nation, an "am".)
In Gen 48, Jacob blesses his Ephraim and Manasseh. When Joseph sees that Jacob's hands is blessing the young one as if he were the firstborn of Joseph, he tries to correct his father. (shades of Isaac blessing Jacob and Esau), Jacob says Gen 48:19, "I know my son, I know." Then in verse 20, Jacob blesses them saying, " By you shall Israel invoke blessings, saying 'God make you like Epharim and Manasseh.' This is the traditional blessing for children. As a point of conversation, when Beth Or has the parent bless their children, they recite the Priestly Blessing from Num 6:23 "Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying: This is how you shall bless the children of Isra…
Rabbi Sacks is a great Rabbi, and he founds contemporary homilies in the Torah, but my interest is in what might have been said to the original listeners of the Torah. Joseph tells his brothers, the Israelites, to tell Pharaoh that they are shepherds, which the Egyptians found "abhorrent." Joseph is telling the Israelites that they are different. They are not like the Egyptians. They are beginning to learn that they are a separate nation, a people, an "am". Gen 46:3 God says go to Egypt..." for I will make you there into a great nation." If one must make a homily, then it is this is a lesson we are still learning.