Sunday Sermonette: It ' s a man ' s world

As we enjoy this touching drama of family reconciliation, it ' s time to remind ourselves of something so glaringly obvious that we haven ' t even noticed it. Presumably the sons of Israel all have wives and daughters, but they might as well not exist. Only men are worth noticing and naming, only men act in this world. It is a patriarchal society.Keep in mind this is fiction. It was written in the fifth century BC, long after it supposedly happened. It has an essential function in the plot of the Torah, the founding myth of the Jewish people. We ' ll get to that in due course. The story becomes rather tedious at this point and we aren ' t getting anywhere fast, so I ' m going to present this entire long chapter with only a bit of commentary. Now the famine was still severe in the land.2 So when they had eaten all the grain they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go back and buy us a little more food.”3 But Judah said to him, “The man warned us solemnly, ‘You will not see my face again unless your brother is with you.’4 If you will send our brother along with us, we will go down and buy food for you.5 But if you will not send him, we will not go down, because the man said to us, ‘You will not see my face again unless your brother is with you.’”6 Israel asked, “Why did you bring this trouble on me by telling the man you had another brother?”7 They replied, “The man questioned us closely about ourselves an...
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs