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GETTING IT RIGHT*

    Judah came flying into his tent screaming to his poor son Shelah, “What a jerk your Uncle Reuven is!” Judah ’s face was red with anger; there was bitter resentment in his voice.  Shelah set down a jug of water, and asked, “What now?” rolling his large brown eyes—he had the lovely eyes of his mother who’d died almost ten years earlier.

“That phony bastard, Reuven, announced, (and here Judah imitated Reuven’s high squeaky voice), ‘I’ll pledge my own flesh and blood for Benjamin. You can kill both of my sons if I don’t bring him back.’ ” Shelah knitted his eyebrows together and looked at his father as if he’d lost his mind. Judah continued ranting, “That pain in the ass knows that we have to take Benjamin with us when we go to Egypt , he knows that Grandpa is afraid to let Benjamin go, and he knows that Grandpa wouldn’t let him be in charge of Benjamin no matter what.”

Shelah stood there tall and lanky, eyebrows now raised in an expression of total bafflement, not only about the whole business with Reuven but on top of that he wasn’t used to his father paying so much attention to him.

Seeing Shelah’s expression, Judah quietly added, “I may have to guarantee his safety.”

While his father wasn’t exactly attentive, he was all Shelah had, “Wait-wait-wait-a-minute!” Shelah insisted, “Why does anyone have to promise to protect Uncle Benjamin?”

Judah hesitated, as if he realized he had revealed more than he intended, “Your Uncle Joseph is gone and he can’t lose Uncle Benjamin too.”

Shelah squinted quizzically and shook his head from side to side, “But I still don’t understand, why does someone have to guarantee him?”

Judah clamed up, “Let’s just drop it,” and started to walk away.

Shelah was used to his father’s dismissals but now he was frightened so he called after him, “There’s something you’re not saying!”

Judah continued to walk away but Shelah came after him grabbed his shoulder and demanded, “What are you hiding; if you are putting yourself on the line I have a right to know why.”

“Okay, okay, sit down.” Judah sighed, “I have something to tell you.”

Shelah sat on a blanket and looked warily at his father who said in a low voice,  “Shelah,” he extended his hand to rest it on Shelah’s arm, but Shelah was in the process of folding his arms across his chest and Judah pulled back,  “I think its time for you to know about your Uncle Joseph. This is something you can never even think of mentioning to anyone else.” He looked at him intensely to make the seriousness of the matter clear. “Do I have your word?”

          “Yeh, of course,” Shelah looked around, shifted his weight uncomfortably, and picked at his fingernails— another of his poses which Judah took as resentment.

“You know how Grandpa is always talking about Joseph and how wonderful he was?”

Shelah shook his head.

“Well,” there was an edge on his voice, “he wasn’t so wonderful and” Judah hesitated, then very quietly, “he wasn’t killed by a mountain lion like everyone says.”

Shalah sat up and his face looked serious, somehow older at that moment.

“Your Uncle Joseph had a lot of crazy dreams that he would rule the family,” Judah said angrily, “and then he began to bring all sorts of tales about the rest of us to Grandpa who believed everything he said.”

“Were the stories true?” asked Shelah.

“Mostly they were a mixture of truth and his grandiose dreams and fantasies.” Judah turned to Shelah, and held onto his arm, “We hated him and were afraid that when Grandpa died, Joseph would try to carry out his dreams and make us bow down to him, enslave us, or even kill us.”

Shelah winced but then half closed one eye, turned and looked at his father skeptically.

Judah took his other arm and looked straight at Shelah, “It was a lot more serious than you might think—don’t forget Grandpa doted on him.” He let go and sat back, “One day when we were watching the flocks Joseph appeared in the distance. We were so threatened by him that right then and there it was decided to kill him.”

Shelah stared at him in horror and pulled away; despite Judah ’s efforts to keep up a matter of fact tone,  his voice wavered and cracked as all the old anguish over what he’d done came back to him.

Judah struggled to continue, “Reuven had convinced us to put him in a pit to let him die rather then us killing him, and then I,” he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, “not knowing that Reuven intended to come back later and save him, decided to save Joseph’s life by selling him to a caravan.” By this time Judah was in tears.

Shelah sat there wide eyed and stone still, fingering the blanket nervously.

Finally, he had just about managed to tell Shelah about the bloody coat they brought to their father claiming that an animal must have killed him, when seeing the pain and incredulity on Shelah’s face, he had to turn away from him. After a few minutes during which Judah couldn’t speak at all,  he finally cried out, “Now you know why Grandfather wants us to guarantee Benjamin—I remember how he looked at us suspiciously when we brought the coat to him. He knew we hated Joseph. Now he just wants to make sure nothing happens to Benjamin.” Judah started to cry again and then looking at Shelah and seeing his mouth open in horror, confessed, “There isn’t a day since then that I haven’t been tormented by the thought of what I’d done, and at the same time enraged at Reuven who never told me of his plan, and then too,” he shook his head from side to side, “enraged at myself for not just bringing him out of the pit.”

Shelah who ordinarily was so angry at his father that he was totally unsympathetic to him, now taken by his father’s tears, toned down the obvious question, and asked softly, “So why didn’t you?”

“Because,” Judah blurted out, “what was I going to tell Grandfather—that all his other sons wanted to kill Joseph? How could I do that?” Judah grabbed his arm, “And one more thing—I was,” he hesitated trying to swallow his tears and shame, “I was also afraid of what the others would do to me; I was afraid that if Grandpa knew what we’d done, he’d make sure that Joseph would actually rule us.”

“But,” Shelah cried out challenging him,  “Uncle Reuven was going to save him!”

Judah raised his voice, impatient that his son wasn’t more sympathetic, “That’s what he said later; I didn’t know that then and besides that’s only what he said—how do we know that he really would have come back for him?” Then his voice faded away, “I don’t know,” he said shaking his head.

Shelah spat out, “But confessing to Grandpa would have been better,” he got up, “than selling him as a slave,” and ran out of the tent. Judah followed after him and when he caught up to him down in the wadi, Shelah was throwing rocks at a boulder. Judah took him by the arm but Shelah pulled away, “Shelah, I carry the burden of that time with me every day. Don’t you think I’ve been over it a thousand times, asking myself, why  Reuven didn’t say something, why didn’t I act on my own, would Grandpa really have put Joseph in charge of us?” Judah held out his hands pleading with him to understand, “I’ve been tortured by this ever since.”

Shelah mumbled, “So why are you telling me all this?” He wouldn’t look at his father, “You never really told me anything before; hell, after Er and Onan died, you were hardly around.” Shelah looked down the wadi and threw another rock, which ricocheted with a loud crack off the big boulders.

“You’re right, I’m sorry,” Judah looked down and said sadly, “after your brothers died, I was too distraught to do much of anything.” He was quiet for a moment and then looked at Shelah, hands open pleading, “I tell you this because you insisted on knowing and you are an adult now; you have a right to know.”

“Thanks a lot,” Shelah said sarcastically, “I’m 17 and my father finally decides to let me in on family stuff.”

“Damn it Shelah! Enough sarcasm. This is serious.” Judah paused, and held out his hands gesturing that they should both calm down.

Perhaps it was Judah ’s gesture with his hands, or perhaps Shelah’s fears that he would lose his father came to the surface—which ever it was, Shelah, with tears streaming down his face demanded, “But why does it have to be you? Why you?” he repeated, and then not wanting his father to see him sobbing, he turned away and walked up the wadi kicking up small stones and dust as he went.

Judah followed him, “Who else could do it?”

“I don’t care who does it, but it can’t be you.” He turned around, looked at his father and yelled, “I can’t lose you too!” Shelah picked up a stone, threw it across the wadi where it clattered and clacked on the rocks across the way, then sat down on a large rock looking away from Judah .

“Shelah, please.” Judah sat on the rock near him and said softly, “I’m the one he trusts, I’m the one he’s always relied on. He won’t let anyone else do it.”

“Well, tell him to pick someone else!” he yelled half turning around. “Oh what the hell, maybe you’re the only one he can rely on but I can’t…” he waved his hand in disgust and mumbled sullenly, “Go! Leave me alone.” Shelah got up, paced up and down kicking stones out of his way.

Judah knew he had not paid enough attention to his son, but now felt it deeply. For the first time in years he just wanted to put his arms around him, but held back knowing he’d never allow it. “Shelah, please understand me,” Judah pleaded, “all you have to do is look at the blessings Grandfather gave each one of us, to know what he was thinking.”

Shelah stood looking down, throwing little pebbles while he listened. Judah remembered him as a little boy, throwing pebbles with his skinny arms. He’d practice for hours throwing pebbles at smaller and smaller targets. It finally occurred to Judah that his youngest son seemed lonely even then.

“Is Grandfather going to ask Reuven who may be the eldest but is unstable and unreliable; Levi who is so violent; or Zebulun who is only interested in business; or Issachar who just wants to curl up in his own little corner; or Dan, that highway robber; or Gad, who raids other camps; or Asher, that spoiled brat; or Naphtali who was busy chasing women? You’ve got some collection of uncles—from murderers to womanizers to gonifs! Would you entrust an important mission to any one of them? They have about as much courage and character as loose bowels.”

Shelah stifled a laugh and then said angrily, “Maybe it’s time for one of them to do something worthwhile for a change.”

A few days later, as Shelah stood by the side of the tent watching his father pack for the trip, he panicked and ran around taking things out of the travel bags and putting them back in their usual places. Judah ran over to him and grabbed him by the arm. At first he seemed annoyed and then he hugged him and said, “I’ll be back. I have to do this one last thing for him. Then it’ll be different.” Shelah didn’t pull away.

***

All the time Judah was away, Shelah imagined that Benjamin would do something stupid and his father would follow through on his plan to take responsibility for him –what ever that might entail. He couldn’t sleep and when he did, dreams of his father being executed or enslaved would torment him and he’d wake trembling and covered in sweat. Other nights Shelah dreamed that his father and uncles would be attacked and he envisioned Judah covering Benjamin with his body and being hacked to death with a sword. He woke up screaming.

All the time they were away, Judah didn’t leave Benjamin’s side, not that Benjamin was foolish but he wanted to make sure that he was never in any danger or that he would get into any kind of trouble. He was worried about himself of course, but more than that he knew he had a debt to pay his son. So when Judah did come back, he fell on Shelah crying and dancing, hugging and kissing him, and all the while he could feel the ambivalence in Shelah’s body, hugging him, like he was glad he was back but angry too. “I can’t wait to tell you what happened,” crowed Judah , “make something to eat while I wash and then we’ll talk—take out the special wine I’ve been saving.”

Shelah, caught up in his father’s excitement, quickly prepared some bread, cheese and olives, and the wine, and they sat near the fire in the calm evening, the black sky thick with stars. Judah told him how they went to Egypt , bought food and were on the way home when we were stopped by soldiers who accused them of stealing a silver cup which they found in Benjamin’s sack. They were brought back to face the official who sold them the grain.

“Oh no!” Shelah gasped, the fear of his father’s not returning bore into him, even though he was sitting safely right next to him.

Judah took a sip of wine, “Now here’s the shocker.” Shelah now looked at him intently. “Very shortly we would find out that the Egyptian official was miraculously Joseph, and he was the one who planted the cup. I was so happy that he was alive that at first I didn’t pay any attention to what he had done.”

“Joseph” Shelah blurted out laughing , “was the Egyptian? He planted it? What for?”

“I suppose it was to torment us, to take revenge. Maybe he wanted to see if we would protect Benjamin. I don’t know.” Judah shrugged his shoulders and held up his hands. “It was a cruel thing to do, not only to us—I’d expect him to take it out on us, but what about Benjamin? What about grandfather? Didn’t he consider what this would do to them?” Judah ’s voice rose in anger, “Suppose we had failed his little test? Was he going to kill us all?”

Shelah raised his eyebrows in expectation hoping his father would say something, anything to show he was aware of what that would have meant to him. Judah seeing his expression, realized what he had failed to say and added, “And of course, look at what it would have meant to you, to us.”

Shelah smiled just a little, the fire reflecting in his dark eyes, and said, “But at that moment you didn’t know who the Egyptian official really was did you?”

“No.”

“So what did you do then?”

Judah sighed, “What could I do.” He put down the wine, felt the blood drain out of his face and said, “For all I knew, Benjamin stole it and,” he hesitated, “the only thing I could do was to offer myself,” then whispered, “I begged him to make me his slave.”

“What?” Shelah shrieked,  pulling himself away from his father, “You mean you were prepared to really go through with it? What ever possessed you to do that?” He quieted for a moment and then shaking his head sadly, “Wonderful!” he said sarcastically.

          “But Shelah, I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.” Judah held out his hands.

“You offered yourself? You begged him to make you his slave?” Shelah shouted, “You must have lost your mind.”

 “It was terrible—the worst moment of my life, but I was quite sane,” Judah tried to stay calm. “Look,” he touched his arm, “I couldn’t make Grandfather go through that grief again. I knew he’d grieve for me but I also knew that if I left Benjamin there, he’d grieve doubly—for Benjamin and for me—that I’d have failed to honor my word. I would have had to bear the guilt for the loss of Joseph and now for Benjamin too. Don’t you see…” Judah now held both his arms and looked directly at him, “I couldn’t have lived with the shame, and I couldn’t have lived with you, my own son, seeing me so shamed.” 

As I spoke, Shelah whose mouth had been set hard, just shook his head from side to side as if saying to himself, “I give up,” resigning himself to a father who was just too caught up in other things.

Finally Judah stammered, “I’m sorry, I know that’s not good enough for you…please understand me…its over now…things will be different.”

Shelah looked down, then turned away wiping his eyes. Judah   reached over and hugged him. He didn’t pull away.                   

(2900 Words)

*Note

The story of Judah, his brothers and his son Shelah is found in Genesis chapers: 37-8; 43-45.