“And as she spoke with Joseph each day, he did not heed her to lie beside her, to be with her.”
Relationships Based on Love and on Brotherhood
Of all the model relationships inspiring one in the search for a spouse, the archetypal bond between Adam and Eve best expresses the superconscious affinity one should hope to achieve in marital union. The initial letters of “Adam” (םָדָא) and “Eve” (הּוַח) spell “brother” (חָא), alluding to the hidden kinship (הָוֲחַא) between souls that brings them together.
In the Song of Songs, the primary designation of affection used by the poem’s “lovers”—symbolic of God and His beloved people of Israel—is one of “brother” and “sister.” Five times the young maiden is referred to by her beloved as “my sister.” In another verse, the maiden herself expresses the wish that her beloved be to her like her brother, intimating her desire for the kind of kinship that exists between those whose souls derive from a common root. She says, “Were it that you could be as my brother, nursing at my mother’s breasts; I would find you outside and kiss you, nor would anyone scorn me.”
In this prayer, we find an expression of the desire to experience and display affection without the carnal shame primordially associated with such longing. Such affection, which we call “brotherhood” (הָוֲחַא), represents the superconscious foundation of “love” (הָבֲהַא). Brotherhood, unlike marital love, is generally free of the oscillation and impermanence that characterize love’s pursuit. It is constant and unwavering, anchored in a realm beyond the heat of emotion or the sobriety of reason. Brotherhood is based upon the visceral connection shared by those who possess a common organic identity, that unanimity-of-being experienced by the original man and woman before they were severed from each other into individual selfness.
Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife
The nearest the Torah comes to expressing a referent for a brotherhood-like relationship is through the word “kin” (רֵאְׁש), which generally refers to immediate blood kin but in at least one instance alludes to one’s wife in particular.
In that reference, which appears in the laws proscribing the defilement of a priest by contact with a dead body, the priest is specifically permitted to care for the body of his wife, who is described as, “his flesh, close to him” (יוָלֵב אֹרוָּקַ הֹרוֵאְׁש) as well as other immediate kin. The Rabbinic sources on the verse (Torat Cohanim) go as far as to say, “There is no meaning to ‘kin’ other than one’s wife,” alluding to the profound identification between man and wife that can only be expressed in terms of physical kinship (evoking the verse: “bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh”). The brotherhood implied by the relationship of kin perseveres even in face of the normally severe laws prohibiting ritual defilement, whereas the bonds of physical love are suspended in face of the impurity associated with the menstruant woman.
The deep identification between husband and wife reflected in the relationship of kin is evoked by the root itself, which means “a remnant.” Man and wife are remnants of a greater primordial union binding their two souls together. Yet, each of these “remnants” possesses the power of “immortality” (הָרָאְׁשַה)—a word that is cognate with “kin”— as their destinies remain bound together for all eternity.
This idea is reflected in our sages’ interpretation of the verse which speaks of Joseph’s resisting the temptations of his master Potiphar’s wife:
“And as she spoke with Joseph each day, he did not heed her to lie beside her, to be with her.”
According to the sages, the phrase “to lie beside her” implies “even without physical relations,” whereas “to be with her,” suggests that they would remain together “in the world to come.” Lying together, without physical relations, can be understood as alluding to their being buried beside each other (the verb “to lie” often used in Scripture as a referent for burial), the common custom for man and wife. Hence both phrases reflect the eternal bond of brotherhood, an idea supported by the midrash, which states that Potiphar’s wife raised Joseph’s future spouse Osnat, the daughter of his sister Dinah, suggesting a surrogate bond of brotherhood between them.
