“This is Jacob’s history:

At the age of seventeen,

Joseph would shepherd his father’s flock

With his brothers,

And he would act childishly

With the children of Bilha

And the children of Zilpa,

The wives of his father,

And Joseph

Would slander his brothers

When he would speak with his father”

 

Slander

 

After we received the Torah at Sinai,

The punishment for such behavior

Was leprosy

 

But, in Joseph’s day,

There was no priest

And there was no purifying sacrifice

 

There was only slavery

And there was only exile

From your family

 

So, Joseph follows

The path of his grandfather Abraham:

“Go forth from your land,

From your native land,

And from your family”

 

And he also follows in the footsteps

Of his father Jacob,

Who left his land,

His native land,

And his family

 

To exile

In Haran

 

Joseph—

A leper without a priest

And without the possibility

Of a purifying sacrifice

 

Only he was the sacrifice