Exploring Joseph and Esther’s Narrative Connections

Peculiar Similarities Between Mechiras Yosef and Megillas Esther

Many have written showing the connections between the parshiyos of Vayeishev, Mikeitz, Vayigash, and the story of Chanukah. However, what is most striking is that the story of Yosef does not read

like any other in the Torah, in that this episode is laid out in over ten chapters, like a megillah. No other event or episode in the Torah is given this much Scriptural detail or space.

Moreover, throughout the story of Yosef one can believe he is reading Megillas Esther—consider:

• A king has trouble sleeping (41:4);
• two men are punished for a crime against the king (40:1).1
• A king’s party ensues, helping to lay out the foundation of as- tounding chains of events to come (40:20).
• Someone was killed (by the order of the king) at said party because of their lack of proper respect for the king (sar ha’opheh, 40:22; although, in truth, Vashti’s death is only implied and is not written explicitly).
• The protagonist is honored by becoming the ‘mishneh l’melech’ (see Ramban 41:43).
• Also, he is repaid by being afforded the luxury of riding on the king’s horses while wearing the king’s clothing (41:42–43); Pharaoh removed his ring to place it on Yosef (41:42).
• See Baal HaTurim 41:34, who makes a few grammatical and textual comparisons to Megillas Esther without further comment;
• Yaakov, while “giving in” to an ultimate sacrifice, exclaims, “Ka’asher shacholti, shachalti” (43:14), which is strikingly and eerily familiar to Esther’s statement when she had to make the ultimate sacrifice, “V’cha’asher avadeti avadeti.” [Indeed, see Ramban (to 43:14), who also draws this comparison without further comment]
• The Midrash Tehillim states: “You sold your brother, then sat down to eat…there will come a time when your descendants will be ‘sold’ by a feast as well (Esther 3:5), when Haman and Achashveirosh will partake in a feast and decide there to exterminate the Jews.”3
• See Rav Hirsch on 43:32, that Yosef never revealed that he was a Jew, for that would have compromised his position. This is similar to Esther (as the megilla shares). (However, clearly, Pharaoh was aware that Yosef was Jewish – see Ramban to 41:45 where he explains the name Pharaoh gave Yosef as being from the Hebrew language, as a courtesy to this new leader. See, as well, 40:15, where it is apparent that Yosef revealed his lineage to the sar hamashkim, who in turn revealed it to Pharaoh there. We would be remiss not to mention that Yosef did not offer correction when he was called an “Ish Ivri“, and is indeed praised for this)
• See Moshav Zekenim to 50:4, where he explains the need for Yosef to send a messenger to Pharaoh as being similar to Esther 4:2 (his comparison), that since Yosef, like Mordechai, was in sackcloth, it was not becoming for him to approach the king.
• See Rashi to 37:3, where he correlates the meaning and translation of the kesones pasim (an essential element in Yosef’s story) to key words found in the Megillah; once we develop this connection between Purim and the story of Yosef, we can then investigate deeper into the story, so we even find drinking until the point of intoxication by the story of Yosef (43:34).
• When Pharaoh is first introduced to us in Parashas Lech Lecha, we find Avraham hiding Sarah in order to save her from the king’s men discovering her beauty and reporting it to the king, exactly what happened in the story of Purim: both Mordechai and Avraham failed in this regard.
• Both stories end with a seemingly unrelated recording of a mas (tax) levied on the populace of each story (see Rashi 47:25).
• The Megillah ends with a pasuk (10:3) that says Mordechai was not loved by all. The Midrash explains this to mean that Mordechai was not universally loved because he was too involved in politics. The Gemara in Berachos 55a comments that Yosef died sooner than his brothers because he, too, dedicated too much time to politics.
• See Megillah 16b, where verse 45:22 here—and Yosef’s favoritism to Binyamin as shown by giving him five times the clothing of his brothers—is explained to be an “homage” to the future grand- child of Binyamin, Mordechai, who would also wear five kingly garments (8:15). See also Ramban to 48:9. While I will leave it to the reader to darshen the true depths of these allusions, I share this in a Chanukah book so as to share the following: We have two Rabbinic holidays: Chanukah and Purim. How intriguing that we read the story of Yosef—along with its many shared Esther elements—during Chanukah, and we read the commandment of the Menorah at Purim time.

NOTES

1. This theme of two men and their plans or actions being of great consequence is a repeated theme: Moshe being confronted by Dasan and Aviram, who threatened to inform the king (Shemos 2:11); Mordechai, here; Yosef, here.
   
2. As brought by Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz in his stupendous two-volume ‘Bereishis’ (ArtScroll, 1977), p. 1645, first column.
3. Midrash Tehillim 10.