Parshat Shavua, Torah Portion of the Week

sorry for spelling errors
Vayeshev, Bereishit, Genesis chapters 37-41
First of all, it's rare that the parsha begins and ends at the beginnings of chapters, since the chapter divisions are by Christian theologins, not Jewish, and it's pretty rare for such a coincidence.
There are two story lines that interest me here. One is the selling of Yosef, Joseph, and the other is about Tamar and Yehuda.
First of all, the parsha starts so deceptively, peaceful and ordinary. After all Yaakov's adventures he has finally settled, (Vayeshev,) down and we expect some good news. But we get a report of sibling rivalry that causes one of the worst family crises imaginable. Yosef's brothers can't stand him to such an extent that the throw him in a pit and then Yehuda suggested that they sell him to some Egyptian merchants. The brothers then took his special coat, a gift from their father, and dirtied it with goat's blood, to give their father as evidence that Yosef is dead. It's well-known that they used the same materials their grandmother used when disguising Yaakov to trick Yitzchak. That's not what interests me.
I read in one of the email parsha sheets that the selling of Yosef is considered one of the greatest sins, adn then I immediately thought of what happened here in Israel during the pre-state time of the British mandate. (simplified of course) The Etzel and Lechi fought the British so they would leave, and the Haganah didn't. At one point the haganah gave names and other information to the British so they would arrest the ETzel and Lechi members. And it's known as the "sezon." The political arm of the haganah wanted to be the ruling body, and wanted to paralize the Revisionist leadership by getting as many as they could in jail. They hoped this would demoralize their followers. and they wanted the British to appoint them as the first government.
Well, for whatever it's worth, I see a paralel in the parsha. Yosef's dreams predicted that he would be the leader, so the brothers got rid of him.
Now, after that horrendous act, and their father's continuous unending mourning, Yehuda lost status among the brothers, and he moved away. It must have had been known that he was destined to sire leaders and kings, making his descent (yarad) more serious. He married and had three sons. "He took a wife for his son, Er, his first born, and her name was Tamar." 38, 6 Now let's look at the name, popular to this day. Tamar = dates and is one of the fruits of the Land of Israel. Biblical honey isn't the bee's, it's from the tamar/date. If I remember correctly, if there's a choice of fruit including dates, one must make the blessing on the dates and eat it first. Yehuda's wife wasn't from the "clan;" she was from Canaan, not considered suitable to raise kings. Getting back to our story, Er was wicked, and G-d slew him 38, 7. So Yehuda had his second son marry Tamar, and he wasn't any better, so G-d killed him, too. Now it seems like Tamar had a very powerful ally protecting her, G-d.
Yehuda told Tamar go back to her family to wait until his third son would be old enough to marry her and continue his line. Then in apparently another poor judgement/decision Yehuda decided that Tamar was the problem and didn't marry her off to his son.
She somehow heard that #3 was old enough (maybe she heard that he was married to someone else, men did have many wives in those days) and she was upset. Tamar, like Leah, wanted to be part of the line to kings, and moshiach, messiah. She knew that she needed to marry into Yehuda's line, but the two sons she married were killed off by G-d. She realized that her only way was to have Yehuda, himself, impregnate her. She must have had good connections (no dumb bell) and found out where he'd be passing. She set up a tent on the side of the road, as if she was a whore, and had little trouble convincing him to visit. She was well-covered, no electricity in the tents in those days, and like his father who married Leah instead of Rachel, and didn't notice, Yehuda slept with his daughter-in-law. Once she became pregnant he left, and the verb went up is used for Tamar. Paralel this to Yehuda, who had gone down. For payment Yehuda left a deposit of his ring, cord and staff all valuable things, her suggestions, but strange that he agreed. Maybe he thought of seeing more of her, because it does say later that (end of 38, 26) "...and he knew her again no more." He sent the payment, goats again, but his friend couldn't find her, and the locals all said that there wasn't a whore there at all. It seems like Yehuda was really pretty out of it to give up such valuable things to a "whore."
Then a few months later, he heard that she was pregant, and he said that she should be killed. Now all the other times I read/learned this I thought of him as being a part of a strong authoritive body, but actually he was a pathetic loner, a widower wandering around alone. When she was taken for punishment, she sent him the pledge he had left with her, saying it's owned by the baby's father. He immediately apologized calling her "more righteous than him." 38, 26.
She gave birth to twins. One of the twins, Peretz was an anscestor of Nachshon and later David and Solomon and the Moshiach. From the text it seems that she raised them without his help. But she must have joined the rest of the Hebrews, or Nachshon wouldn't have been there to put his foot in the Red Sea.
Strong mothers, and not afraid to do anything.
Shavua Tov