parsha of the week

The timeline of Yehuda and Tamar

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When we look at Chapter 38 of Bereishit, there are many questions.

Timeline questions: Did Yehuda marry before or after the sale of Yosef? How old was Tamar? How old were Yehuda’s sons? How much younger than Er and Onan was Shelah, the surviving son who was not given Tamar as his bride? Considering that Peretz’s sons are included among those who descended to Egypt, when Yehuda was no more than 44 years old, everyone in the story is really young!

“What really happened” questions: Why did Er die? Why did Onan die? Why was Shelah not given Tamar? Considering their ages, were any of them ever really married?

Sin questions: What made Er sinful? What made Onan sinful? Did Yehuda sin in approaching the disguised Tamar? Was Tamar the sinful one? Both Yehuda and Tamar may seem vindicated in the end, but so what? That doesn’t mean bad behavior never took place!

Motivation questions: Why did Yehuda not allow Shelah to marry Tamar? What motivated Tamar to disguise herself and stand at a crossroad when Yehuda was coming? Considering that she does not approach him, what was her plan had he not been entranced by her?

Perhaps if we can understand Tamar’s motivation, we’ll be better equipped to answer these questions.

Rashi notes that Tamar wanted to be part of Yehuda’s line. The Netziv says she saw something in Yehuda. She did not realize at first that Er and Onan, and perhaps also Shelah, were sons of a Canaanite woman and could not be the continuation of the Israelite line. Haktav V’hakabbalah and others note that neither Er nor Onan ever consummated marriage with Tamar (whatever they did was a capital offense in God’s eyes — see Sanhedrin 57), which meant she wasn’t really Yehuda’s daughter-in-law, and was fully permissible to him.

Having been married to two husbands, having seen them both die, one wonders why Tamar would want to remain part of this family. Did she owe them anything? Yehuda was surely behind her remaining in the family, first through his insistence that Onan marry his dead brother’s wife, then in telling Tamar to wait as a widow until Shelah was old enough to marry her.

How long would that be? The Talmud in Sotah notes the problem in the passage of time. If Yehuda’s marriage took place after the sale of Yosef, only 22 years passed before the family descended to Egypt. In that time, three sons were born, grew to be of marriageable age, and died, and Yehuda had new twin sons, one of whom was already a father when he went down to Egypt.

The Talmud’s conclusion is that all of them except Yehuda were married when they were under ten years old. Riva asks how Er and Onan could be punished with death at that age, and concludes that “G-d sees the heart.”

While it is true that a person is not punished for deeds done under the age of 20, it is also true that some can be taken al shem sofam — based on how they will turn out. This may be why Yehuda pushed off Shelah’s marriage — he needed to reach an older age, older than Er and Onan had been, in order to be mature enough to wed properly. After Yehuda became widowed, however, Tamar took matters into her own hands.

Rabbi Chaim Paltiel agrees that Er and Onan never consummated their respective marriages, and that the “marriages” were a sham anyway because they were so young. However, the verse tells us that after Yehuda married and had three children, he “took a woman for Er, his first born, and her name was Tamar.”

A woman? Was Tamar considerably older than Er, Onan, and Shelah? If it’s true that Er and Onan were so young, what was Yehuda thinking? Could it be that he wanted her near him? Since he was already married, could it be that he thought, “Let her be a part of my family through my son”?

Perhaps Tamar had similar hopes, which is why she agreed. Neither of them knew how things would turn out in the end.

Haktav V’hakabbalah further notes that when Yehuda declared tzadkah — she is righteous — he was noting that her intent was “for the sake of heaven” in seeking him out rather than any other younger man. This does not account for what Tamar might have done had Yehuda not approached her, but perhaps, knowing of his widowhood and loneliness, she felt it was a sure thing.

It is clear that the Davidic line comes from a significant number of eyebrow-raising relationships, including Lot and his daughters, Yehuda and Tamar, Ruth and Boaz, David and Batsheva. Ramban notes that this was by design. The Davidic line of kings would never become haughty and think of themselves as better than their subjects, given their background.

That is probably the most important message of all.  Even great kings have skeletons in the closet, and a flawed pedigree to remind them to be humble and not to think of themselves as better than anyone.

At the same time, Tamar’s story is proof of the power of truth, dedication, and pursuit of justice. If, for example, Tamar was meant to be join Yehuda’s family through the equivalent of a levirate marriage, her effort bore fruit when she took matters into her own hands.

History and legend have the benefit of hindsight, and we know where this story stands in the history of the Jewish people.