וישב - Word Play

This week in parsha וישב we begin the story of Yosef, which exemplifies Biblical Hebrew’s dynamic prose. The parsha demonstrates paronomasia (commonly known as a pun) and willingness to play with consonance and alliteration. This week is also י״ט כסלו, the New Year of Chassidut when we start the Tanya cycle again.

In the הקדמה (introduction) to the Tanya, the Alter Rebbe writes שהקורא קורא לפי דרכו ודעתו, “[…] that the one who reads, reads according to his way and his understanding.” The Alter Rebbe brings this teaching to acknowledge the sense of weariness that we should have with a written document; each person coming to a text will read it according to his or her own perception; ten people reading a story will read ten different stories. This is in contrast to the oral word of a Rebbe, which in Chassidut is considered to have a far greater and more direct effect.

The story of Yosef, similarly, loses some of its weight in translation. In בראשית לז:ח (Genesis 37:8) we read  ויספו עוד שנא אותו, “They added more [to their] hatred of him.” To me, this looks like a pun on Yosef’s name יוסף, completely lost in my English translation here. Fortunately for Aramaic, the language is close enough that the translator could mostly keep this pun (intentionally or unintentionally), albeit slightly altered ואוסיפו עוד סנו יתיה.

Another stylistic point that I see when I read the story of Yosef is a willingness to play with the sounds of the words. In בראשית לז:כב (Genesis 37:22) when Reuven interjects to save Yosef from his brothers’ plot to murder him we read: אל-תשפכו-דם השליכו אותו and shortly in the same verse אל-תשלחו-בו, three different verbs (תשפכו, השליכו, תשלחו) all have a similar set of sounds. The Aramaic loses this full play of consonance in the words the translator chose. From my perspective, the Word Play shows the intent and power of the Torah as a spoken document, but it also increases the enjoyment of hearing the story. This is similar to a Rebbe giving a shiur (lesson) in person, where the experience always has a more profound impact than simply reading the words.