An Interview with Johanna W.H. van Wijk-Bos and David Ariel-Joel

1. How did the conversations begin between you two that then led to Set Apart? What was the draw toward Josef and the story of Josef? 

Rabbi David Ariel-Joel:

              Josef is my favorite story in the Torah. I strongly believe that Josef is the paradigm and role model for success. His success comes from his ability to change and become a better person, overcoming his many faults. He is the model of tikkun—self-repair and personal growth—and of becoming the person you are meant to be.

For years I have been asking my friend and colleague, Rev. Johanna Bos to write a book about Josef. We teach a weekly Torah study class together, and she had been attending the class for many years before we began teaching it jointly. Every year, when we reached the Josef stories, I would ask her again to write the book. Finally, when push came to shove, she had no excuses left. She agreed to do it—but only on the condition that we co-write the book together. I have always suspected that this was her way of getting even for all those years of nagging!

My father Aharon Ariel, of blessed memory, was a Bible scholar. He knew the entire Bible by heart and would tell me—not read, but tell— biblical stories every night, until I fell asleep. My favorite story was always the story of Josef. Whenever he asked, “Which story would you like to hear tonight?” my answer was always the same: “The story of Josef.”

 

Rev. Johanna W.H. van Wijk-Bos: 

              By early 2023 I had participated in Shabbat morning Torah study at the Temple in Louisville, KY, for more than ten years and served as Rabbi David’s assistant in teaching since 2019. We were used to working together. The Josef stories had never been my favorite, and I may have occasionally made some negative comments about Josef. As time went on, Rabbi David began to suggest on a regular basis that I should write a book about Josef, suggestions I brushed off in part because I had other writing commitments. Finally, I ran out of excuses, and I was ready to begin a new adventure.

            My writing career included co-editing a few books, but I had never been a co-author. When a mutual friend suggested that Rabbi David and I write the book on Josef together, I passed the suggestion on to David. He considered, accepted, and our work began. By his own testimony, David had always been drawn to the Josef narratives, whereas I cannot remember ever having had this attachment. It was, however, an attractive prospect to work with a Rabbi, from whose teaching I had benefitted greatly, and whose background and training was so different from my own. Also, and precisely because the material in Genesis 37–50 did not appeal to me, it felt like a welcome challenge to explore it more deeply.

 

2. Were there areas where collaboration seemed difficult or easy?

David: 

              We met every week and spent about an hour discussing the questions that challenged us in each chapter. Between meetings, we each prepared our “homework” on the chapter. At times, the work was difficult, and our discussions became heated— especially when we dealt with rabbinic texts and traditional and midrashic interpretation.

For me, rabbinic literature is an integral part of our scared scriptures. I see holiness in the words of the rabbis and in their interpretations, and I have enormous respect for the enterprise of rabbinic literature. For Johanna, however, what is not part of the Bible is not part of sacred scripture. While she values the rabbinic tradition, she does not see it as binding in the same way.

Most of the time, however, our work together was easy, enjoyable, and deeply rewarding. We are both in love with the Torah, in love with the biblical text, and we both seek the holy, the eternal, and the divine within it. More often, we found ourselves seeing eye to eye on matters of worldview.

 

Johanna: 

              We each wrote notes on the same chapter or section of text and then met to work through comments and observations. My method was quite different from David’s, as I studied commentary from contemporary Jewish and Christian scholars—to proceed with a verse-by-verse translation and analysis of the biblical text. His contributions were more of a spiral, coiling around texts and topics, enriched by talmudic, midrashic, and other rabbinic references. We sent our written contributions to each other and met weekly to discuss and ask questions. At some point during this process, I began writing copy that would end up in the book. For my part, I cannot recall any parts of the collaboration that were difficult. Early on we decided to write separate sections under the rubric “Rav says/Rev says,” following a talmudic model, about issues on which we could not come to an agreement. 

Both of us proceeded from a life-long interest in the biblical text and a conviction that it reveals its truths in multiple voices to surprise and hold attention. Paying close attention while being open to hearing something we had not heard or seen before meant I was not disappointed. Josef became a more complicated and interesting character than I had foreseen, and other characters took on vivid coloring and presented themselves more fully in unexpected ways also. Judah, who in the early chapters is pretty much the villain of the story, grows into someone who makes it possible for Josef to reveal himself to his brothers in one of the most dramatic episodes of a narrative that has no lack of drama.

 

3. You read some of the details of Josef’s story differently than most commentators do. Was there a moment in the text or in conversation that made this interpretation fall into place? 

David:

            Jews study the Torah every week, reading, studying, and striving to understand each Torah portion year after year. I have been reading and studying these stories my entire life—literally. Being a Rabbi and teaching these stories every year, a few times a week, compels you to look for new and different meanings and fresh interpretations. Studying them with Johanna, in a way, brought together all those years of repeated learning, allowing me to see them with greater clarity.

 

Johanna:

            While David and I enter biblical interpretation from distinct training and faith traditions, we share a deep conviction about openness to the different voices in the biblical text. As I wrote in our book proposal: “Our approach is one of questioning the obvious, based on our conviction that what seems ordinary and familiar, fixed and known, may turn out to be strange and unstable, new, and unfamiliar.” It was and is our hope that this approach creates opportunities for readers to make new connections to an ancient story. I cannot think of one particular moment when our interpretation fell into place because we started from the same place of willingness to be surprised.

            These chapters in Genesis present a family story, with all the tensions, likes and dislikes, competition for attention and standing in the family and the world that families of any time exhibit. The world painted here, coming from a place and time so different from our own, is remarkably recognizable. Divine action is mostly at work behind the scenes, and the main question is how human beings cope with their predicaments.

 

 

4. It seems like the tradition of midrash and the interpretation of Josef is a culturally significant one, especially as biblical stories and figures are being used globally to support hate and bigotry. Could you speak to the message Set Apart might have in this current cultural context?

David: 

              The Midrash, along with centuries of commentary and interpretation of the ancient stories of our Torah, serves as a bridge to make the Torah relevant to us here in the 21^st century. Our world is very different from the world described in the Biblical stories. Just as the Midrash can bridge the gap of the thousands of years between the Torah and our own time, so can modern commentary, and hopefully so will our book, Set Apart.

Our tradition teaches, “The Torah has seventy faces” (or more), meaning you can draw different messages and teachings. The Torah brought into the world the obligation to preserve the dignity of every person, as every human being is created in the image of God. It commands us to pursue justice, to seek peace and pursue it, upholds the ideal of ​​freedom and equality for all humanity, and teaches the sanctity of rest on Shabbat, just as God did. And many more wonderful ideals and teachings.

At the same time, it is possible to draw messages of bigotry and hatred from the Torah. Our rabbis teach us, “Turn it over, and (again) turn it over, for all is therein.” It is our responsibility to choose the teachings we draw from the Torah wisely—to embrace those that promote kindness and caring and help to create wholeness and a peaceful society. Each individual has the task to interpret and reinterpret these stories and to make sure they bring kindness and care and peace and wholeness to the world and our society.

 

Johanna: 

              Most surprising to me was the way Josef’s masculinity is destabilized in the story, beginning with his wearing of the “princess dress,” and continued in subsequent descriptions of his emotional reactions and treatment of his brothers. In this context midrashic interpretation was truly eye-opening. I am grateful to ancient and current scholarship that offered a queer reading of Josef and for a colleague who welcomed such interpretations.           

            Martin Luther is quoted as claiming that one can prove from the Bible that bad beer is better than good wine, and without doubt, hatred and bigotry will continue to thrive with or without biblical support. We proceeded from the conviction that the Bible has torah/teaching for today. From my perspective I can only hope that our joint effort may be a testimony of community across faith divisions, and thus an important witness in a world as divided as the one we live in.

 

5. You explore the suppression of women that appear in Genesis 37–50 and the way they negotiate what power they have in their context while drawing a connection to the struggles of women today. Which of the women's stories do you think has the most resonance today?

David: 

            In the first chapter of our book, we explore the story of Rachel, the mother of Josef. We examine the immense pressure on her, from everyone around her, to become pregnant and raise children. We deal with the fact that a woman is measured only by how many sons she has. The Torah presents the rivalry between Rachel and Leah as a competition over who has more children.

            The Torah describes every birth that takes place around Rachel. Leah becomes pregnant, again and again, and gives birth to six sons and at least one daughter for Jacob. The maid servants give birth to four more children. Even the sheep give birth without stopping. Only Rachel remains unable to conceive, because God has “closed her womb.” The story is filled with competition— for Jacob's love, the love for the man, the number of children and endless births. The objectification of the women in this story will ultimately lead to tragedy, as Rachel our mother, dies at the birth of her second son, Benjamin. Even her last request, the name of her son, is not honored by Jacob.

            Although this story is thousands of years old, many of the themes have not changed that much. There remains pressure on some women in our tradition to have many children. In some ultra-Orthodox communities, where women are under tremendous pressure to build large families, this pressure can come at significant physical and emotional cost. The expectations placed upon women exists to this day.

 

Johanna: 

              The place of women in the ancient world of the Bible was far from ideal, and we have tried not to idealize it. Yet, their presence comes to us with a strong voice from these chapters. At every turn we have paid close attention to the way they speak and act, trying to take control of matters in their life that lie only partly under human control. Rachel, Tamar, and Potifar’s wife each operate within the family circle where the continuation of the family line is of utmost importance. Although today, women in our culture have expanded their field of operation beyond these confines, the way these three operate and negotiate cannot fail to fascinate the interested reader. All of them take risks and strain the bonds of appropriate behavior in ways that we hope will resonate today.

            Tamar is the one who clearly “stepped out of her place” to achieve her ends, and she took the greatest risk. For me the most surprising was the wife of Potifar, if we consider her to be a participant in a couple’s plot to achieve offspring. Resonance can happen if we listen closely and feel spurred on by their vulnerability and risk-taking. Biblical characters are not so much models to follow, but their actions and words may serve to shed light on current predicaments and vulnerabilities, especially for women as they negotiate their lives in an increasingly oppressive culture. In that regard our world is not as far removed from that of the Bible as we would like to think.

 

6. The Judah-Tamar interlude stands out. Could you speak to its comedy and its suspected female authorship? Why do you think this section survived where other women-authored writing may not have?

Johanna: 

             I had already written about Genesis 38 in different publications as a younger scholar and engaged it again with great pleasure, as it is tied closely to its narrative context. Because of the humor with which father Judah and his friend Chirah are treated, the tale provides relief from the tension created by the end of Genesis 37, with Josef carted off to Egypt and the grief that besets Jacob as he envisions the death of his beloved son. At the same time, it opens into another tale of seduction and ensuing complications in an Egyptian household. 

The episode is crucial in terms of portraying Judah as a person who undergoes profound change. The man who will eventually face Josef in Egypt is not the same as the one who mistreated him in Dotan and lied about it to their father. The instrumental change is brought about by Tamar, who functions as the key person to face him with the error of his ways. A woman, most likely a Canaanite, becomes the key figure to unlock Judah’s potential for growth. She is clever, deceitful and perceptive, and willing to risk her life as she proceeds on her unorthodox path. The story provides a perfect link to set up the course of Josef’s life in Egypt, while it also provides information about Judah, who is after all more important than Josef in terms of his lineage.

            While the story of Tamar and Judah may have survived because of the way it fits its context, I do not think this story is the only one in the Bible to derive from female authorship. Judges 5 is in the Bible assigned to a female author. Judges 4 can easily be ascribed to the same hand. Elsewhere I have suggested that David’s daughter Tamar wrote the so-called court history of David preserved in 2 Samuel 9-20, and I am strongly convinced that the author of Qohelet was female.

 

7. Smyth & Helwys serves a largely mainline Protestant audience. What might they take away from the tradition of midrash?

David: 

              Midrash allows us to bridge the gap between our lives, our values, our beliefs, and the biblical text. It enables us to interpret the Torah in ways that speak to the realities of our own time while remaining connected to our ancient tradition. Midrashim continue to be written to this day, and midrash gives us the freedom to develop new insights and understandings that keep the text relevant to us. In this way, midrash keeps the Torah alive and allows it to continue speaking to us, our values, and our way of life.

 

Johanna:

              We wrote from different faith traditions, and it is my hope that readers from different faiths may find insights in these ancient traditions about the Bible. I would be grateful if we opened a door to access these voices from the ancient past for entertainment and instruction. For my part, it has been a privilege to explore biblical text together with a teacher in Jewish tradition, a joint effort for which I will be forever grateful. 

 

8. You pull in several poems that connect us to the gendered experiences of the ancient biblical setting and of women globally today. What is it about poetry that creates that connection better than other mediums?

David: 

             We both love poetry. A single line of poetry can express what a thousand words cannot say. Poetry has the power to penetrate the heart, the mind, and the soul. Much of modern Israeli poetry is based on the Bible yet reads the biblical text as it is without the lens of the Midrash, almost from a secular perspective. In doing so, poetry adds its own layer of interpretation, sometimes bold and brazen. This work reminds us that the Bible belongs to everyone, including the secular, and not only to those who approach it through traditional religious interpretation. Our hope is that the poems we have chosen bring this additional voice into our book.

 

Johanna: 

              Almost all the poems are contributions brought by David, who sometimes also uses poetry in the Torah study class. Poetry evokes worlds differently than prose, and the poems he offers are especially evocative. It is telling that in modern Hebrew the word for poem and song are the same, shir. Poetry is music, appealing to the ear, the emotions for insight, and to the brain. I understand the entire Hebrew Bible to be poetic in the Buber-Rosenzweig translating tradition, conveying meaning through sound, repetition, and word order. But we work in translation, and the distance between our language worlds is vast: from the huge and precise English vocabulary to the small Hebrew one, where words are indeterminate, carrying multiple meanings. In my translations I try to stay as close as possible to the Hebrew original, but it is difficult to make the language sing.