Does Yosef have something in common with Potifar's wife?
Parashat Miketz relates the sequence of events that led to Yosef’s sudden emergence as the Egyptian vizier, after having been imprisoned in an Egyptian dungeon. Upon being appointed to his prestigious position of power, Yosef marries Osnat, whom the Torah identifies as the daughter of “Potifera, priest of On” (41:45).
The Rashbam, in his commentary, claims that this man, Potifera, must not be confused with Potifar, the man whom Yosef had served until his wife falsely accused Yosef of trying to abuse her. The basis for the Rashbam’s view – besides the different names of “Potifar” and “Potifera” – is the different titles given in the Torah for the two men. Potifar is introduced as “sar ha-tabachim” (“chief butcher” or “chief executioner” – 37:36), whereas Potifera is described as “kohen On” – “the priest of On.” This would indeed suggest that we deal with two different individuals with similar names.
Rashi, however, and most other commentators, maintain that Yosef indeed married the daughter of Potifar, his former master.
When considering this view, the question immediately arises as to why Yosef would consent to marry the daughter of the woman who had caused him such grief. After unsuccessfully trying to seduce him daily for an extended period of time, she then accused him of attempting the same to her, and thus had him imprisoned. Would Yosef want to have this woman as his mother-in-law? The simple answer, it would seem, is that, as the Torah clearly writes, it was Pharaoh who arranged this marriage. We might therefore conclude that Yosef had no choice in the matter. But if so, we might wonder why Pharaoh selected specifically Potifar’s daughter for Yosef, in light of Yosef’s unpleasant history with her family.
Chizkuni offers a number of possible reasons to explain this seemingly peculiar match. Firstly, had Yosef married and begotten children from another woman, Potifar might claim the legal right to take the children as his slaves. Since Yosef had been his slave, he would argue, Yosef’s children naturally belong to him. Pharaoh therefore had Yosef marry Potifar’s own daughter, as Potifar would not likely take his own grandchildren as slaves.
Secondly, Chizkuni explains, this marriage may have been specifically arranged to clear Yosef’s name. Potifar and his wife’s acceptance Yosef as their son-in-law would send the message that Yosef was not guilty of the crime of which he had been accused.
Chizkuni then presents a different explanation, based on an account in the Midrash, that Osnat was not Potifar’s biological daughter. She was actually Yosef’s niece – the daughter of Dina – who had come into Egypt and was raised by Potifar and his wife. Yosef discovered that she was his niece and thus desired to marry her.
Rabbi Reuven Bulka, in his work Torah Therapy, develops a novel approach to explain Yosef’s willingness to marry Osnat. The Midrash (Bereishit Rabba 85:2), cited by Rashi (39:1), tells that Potifar’s wife’s attempts to seduce Yosef were driven by more than physical attraction. According to the Midrash, she saw through astrology that she would have a child through Yosef, and sought to cohabit with him in order to fulfill this destiny. She felt justified – or perhaps even required – to lure Yosef to intimacy because the stars demanded that they beget children together. She was unaware that this prediction referred to her daughter’s marriage to Yosef, and not to her adulterous relationship with him.
Rav Bulka insightfully notes the resemblance between Potifar’s wife’s response to this vision, and Yosef’s behavior many years earlier:
Yosef’s dreams of domination over his brothers happened when he was quite young, seventeen years old. He rushed to share those dreams with them, to thrust upon them the yoke of domination which the dreams indicated, and almost to push destiny before its time…
Trying to ram destiny down the throat of others was the very procedure which the wife of Potifar had engaged in. She too saw a vision, one which linked her with Yosef, and instead of letting this unfold in its natural evolution, she decided to be the architect of destiny rather than a participant in a naturally unfolding destiny…
Both Yosef and Potifar’s wife attempted to “ram destiny down the throat of others,” prematurely force their visions of the future into reality, without concern for how this might affect others in the present. Rav Bulka adds that Yosef himself perhaps made this association between himself and Potifar’s wife:
When Yosef languishes in prison following his being placed there by Potifar, he undoubtedly must have made a connection between his own behavior with his brothers and the behavior of Potifar’s wife with him. The parallel must have been striking, i.e., experiencing a vision and imposing the vision rather than letting that vision unfold normally. At one and the same time, Yosef must have seen this as a lesson to him about the danger of taking destiny into one’s own hands and must have come to grips with the behavior of Potifar’s wife and seen in it an important message for himself.
This association is what perhaps led Yosef to accept the marriage to Potifar’s daughter:
Quite possibly all the bitter feeling he had for his fate was neutralized by this thought, so that he came to see his future mother-in-law’s behavior as understandable, since he himself had done the same thing, and no personal grievances were allowed to develop.
Thus, when Pharaoh suggests Osnat to Yosef as a life’s mate, Yosef immediately sees the fulfillment of the vision of his former accuser…
According to this approach, Yosef’s marriage to Potifar’s daughter was not simply a necessity, but rather something which Yosef fully accepted in light of the circumstances surrounding the mistreatment he suffered at the hands of Potifar and his wife. He realized that just as Potifar wife’s vision was ultimately fulfilled, so would his childhood dreams be realized – but in the time and through the means chosen by God.