At first glance this seems to be also true of the principal character: his was a political awareness, not a poetic one. Shrewd rather than wise, he was a manipulator rather than a witness. Superficially melodramatic rather than genuinely tragic. He charmed people; made them weep but never meditate. His career? A series of disasters and successes, all fortuitous. It is all black or white, with nothing in between. We are told when he won and when he lost, and why. We see him isolated or surrounded, happy or distraught. We see him too much.

And yet he stirs our imagination. After all, he was the first Jew to bridge two nations, two histories; the first to link Israel to the world. He was no ordinary figure. Everything happened to him, and never on a petty scale. In defeat, he touched the bottom of the abyss. In his glory, he was the peer of kings who regarded themselves as peers of the gods. He was anything but mediocre, anything but boring. He conceived project after project and made them all come true. The Bible describes him as a “successful man.” He knew how to impose his will on others. He aroused hate or love, fear or admiration. Never indifference. Some sought him out, while others avoided him, but nobody failed to notice him. Nobody failed to take a stand for or against him. He was to be found everywhere, embroiled more often than not in incredibly complex situations which he usually enjoyed confusing even further. While still a child, he behaved like a king. When he became king he often behaved like a child. His self-confidence was boundless; he loved to shock people and knew he could do so with impunity.

He was also an actor. Whatever he did, he did—or performed— in public. The most intimate of his dreams, he felt compelled to disclose. He saw himself as being constantly on public view, onstage, playing the most unexpected roles. He needed his audience.

In the context of the Biblical narrative, he was a new kind of hero, heralding a new era. Gone were the heroic days when God was present at every phase of the human adventure, influencing in direct or subtle ways the decisions of His chosen. Joseph: the emergence of a new style. Joseph: Israel’s first link with secular history. Joseph: one family’s flight, one nation’s exodus—the tumultuous beginnings of a mission carried through the centuries. Joseph: the spoiled child.

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His father loved him and forgave him everything because he reminded him of his dead wife, the beloved Rachel. The Midrash adds that he also resembled his father, or more precisely, that they followed similar paths, encountered similar obstacles and resorted to similar means to surmount them. Both were hated by their brothers, both ran away to live—and die—in exile.

But unlike Jacob, Joseph was his father’s favorite son. Jacob refused him nothing. He owned the most beautiful clothes, for he liked to be regarded as graceful and elegant. He craved attention. He knew he was the favorite and often boasted of it. Moreover, he was given to whims and frequently was impertinent. Arrogant, vain, insensitive to other people’s feelings, he said freely whatever was on his mind. We know the consequences: he was hated, mistreated and finally sold by his brothers, who in truth were ready to kill him.