For a variety of reasons, Parshas Vayeshev is a difficult parsha to understand. One of the more difficult parts of the parsha is the story of Yehuda and Tamar. Tamar married two of Yehudah’s sons, and they both died. There was a form of yibum (levirate marriage) in those days, and Yehudah was saving his third son for subsequent marriage to Tamar, but was hesitant to allow that marriage to go forth. At any rate, Tamar appears at the crossroads as a zonah (prostitute), and Yehudah, without realizing that it was his daughter-in-law, hires her services.
Yehudah has relations with this woman whom he thought was a zonah, and she becomes pregnant by him. When Yehudah learns that his daughter-in-law is pregnant, he assumes she had been unfaithful to his third son and orders her to be put to death. Tamar proves to Yehudah that she was pregnant by him, and he responds, “She is more righteous than I.” (Bereshis 38:26)
The Medrash asks, how is it that Yehudah, patriarch of one of the Twelve Tribes of G-d, could do such a thing? What prompted him to have relations with a zonah that he happens to see at the crossroads? The Medrash answers that the Ribono shel Olam sent Yehudah “Malach ha’me’muneh al ha’tayvah” (an Angel appointed over the attribute of human sexual desire). In effect, Yehudah was almost forced into this unseemly act. He didn’t want to do it, but somehow a spiritual entity “forced him” to do it.
The reason this malach was given such a mission was that it was part of the Divine Plan that the Davidic monarchy, and ultimately the Moshiach himself, would descend from this union.
So this Medrash explains Yehudah’s action. It was not part of Yehudah’s normal behavior to consort with zonahs. Fine. But what about Tamar? What was Tamar thinking? Did she not realize that her father-in-law Yehudah was a tzadik? How in the world did she expect that she could dress up as a zonah and entice him to have relations with her so that he might father a child through her?
I saw an interesting observation in the sefer Avir Yaakov: The observation is that a person needs to do what he needs to do! Somehow, she knew that she needed to bear a child from Yehudah’s family. She saw that Yehudah was not letting her marry Shelah. If the only way for her to conceive from a member of this family was to dress up as a zonah and try to seduce Yehudah into a relationship, that is what she had to try, regardless of how far-fetched an idea this plan was.
This is a basic principle in Avodas Hashem (Divine Service). We cannot always pause to ask ourselves, “What are the chances of this happening? What are the statistics? Is this going to succeed or is it not going to succeed?” It does not work like that. “Ours is not to reason why, ours is just to do and die” (Alfred Lord Tennyson, “Charge of the Light Brigade”)
If every Rosh Yeshiva who came to America in the 1930’s and 1940’s had thought, “How is this going to happen?” then no yeshiva would have ever been built. Ner Yisroel started with four talmidim (students). You do what you need to do, despite the fact that the odds of success may be slim, and you need to hope for the best. That is what Tamar was thinking.
