This chapter reads like a TV drama. I’m sure great thinkers, theologians, monks and kabbalists have deciphered the symbolism of the machinations of Jacob, Leah, Rachel, and Laban, but this is so fanciful, it could just be entertainment. One wonders how this episode made it into “the Holy Bible” if not just to add color and fun to the narative.

The wife-swapping and turning fertility on and off like a roulette wheel, tricking the goats to mate, and each character outwitting each other to get over is more in line with a Greek comedy.

By the end, we do have all the brothers of Joseph, Joseph himself, and one sister. And Jacob is a rich man.

Joseph is the next thread in our path to salvation and redemption.