D'var Torah -- Parshat Vayeshev 5775 -- my adult bat mitzvah
Did Judah always know, deep in his heart, that Er was no good? Did he love him anyway, his firstborn son? Did he hope that marriage to Tamar, clever, modest, stately as a palm tree, would somehow fix things?
Did Tamar marry in hope, in laughter, in bridal finery? Did Er's brothers joke with him on his way to the marriage bed? Did Judah look forward to grandchildren and was Tamar eager to become a mother?
And then, instead of a pregnancy, a death. Did it crush Judah's heart in a vise? Did he flash back to Jacob, inconsolable, saying “I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son”? Did Judah and Tamar mourn together?
But there was hope of consolation, in law and custom. Er's brother should raise up seed for him. Another marriage bed, and another hope. But Onan was too proud and stubborn, and he died too.
What next? Shelah must now perpetuate the name of Er - the name of Judah - but he is all Judah has left. If he dies too, Judah will have nothing. So Judah plays for time, sending Tamar back to the home of her girlhood, where she lives as a widow, waiting for Shelah.
What was that like, being back in the home that she left with such expectations, but now unmarried and unmarriageable? She would watch and wait, seeing Shelah grow to manhood, unable to leave. She would understand Judah's reluctance. How could he marry his only living child to the woman who buried his first two sons?
When did Tamar see the way to break the stalemate? When bat Shua died and Judah, too, was widowed? When they told her “Your father-in-law is going up to Timnah, to the sheep shearing”? Fall shearing, harvest time, celebration of growth and fertility, and time of the festival prostitutes.
What was it like that morning, taking off her widow's garments? Putting on something younger, prettier, newer, nicer? Putting on a veil, hiding the face that everyone knew as the face of the daughter come home, twice a widow?
She sat down, in the open place by the road, and waited for Judah. Did she spy first, to make sure he was the next one coming? Were there others walking on the track to Timnah? Did she say no to someone, before Judah came along? Did it feel good, to be able to say no?
And when Judah came by, did she look straight at him over her veil? Was she bold, or coy? Perhaps even playful? When he asked “please let me come to you”, wanting her as a woman, the man who had sent her back to be a daughter, how did that feel?
And how did it feel to bargain with him, to ask “what will you give me?” To get his seal, so that if she gets the child she hopes for, she can prove its parentage and her justification.
Did they lie there by the side of the road? In the grass, in the bushes, did they find somewhere comfortable? Was their joining hasty, tender, joyful, a release? Was there connection despite the masquerade?
And Tamar stood up and went away, took off the veil and put on her widow's garments again, and waited. Waited to see if it had worked, if she would be set free. Waited for for her belly to round out, waited for the whispers and accusations. “Tamar has been wanton, look, she is even pregnant from wantonness!” She waited until she was taken out to be burned.
And then, so gently, so circumspectly, she said “I am pregnant by the man to whom these belong.” What was it like, those heartbeats, while she waited to hear whether he would own up to it? Could she breathe? Could she think? Has there ever been a sigh of relief, a glow of quiet vindication, greater than Tamar's when Judah said “she is more righteous than I?”
“And he did not continue to know her.” Certainly not carnally. But beyond that, could he look her in the eye, after sending her to be burned for a harlot, when it was his seed that she carried, his line that she had saved? I hope he could. I hope somehow they became, if not friends, then family. I hope Judah was a proud father once again, a father of sons named “Outburst” and “Shining”, the children of Tamar's shining outburst.