Genesis 37:35

And all his sons and all the men of his house arose and went to console him; but he refused to receive consolation, and said, For I will go down to my son mourning to the house of the grave. And Izhak his father also wept for him.

AND ALL HIS DAUGHTERS. This refers to his daughter and his son’s daughter. Now it is possible that his daughters-in-law are also included in this category, for in Scripture they too are called “daughters,” or as the saying of the Sages has it: “A person does not refrain from calling his daughters-in-law ‘daughters.’” So did Naomi say to her daughters-in-law: Go, turn back, my daughters; Nay, my daughters;, Verse 13. Go, my daughter., 2:2. It is nothing but an expression of love, just as, Hearest thou not, my daughter?, Verse 8. This was said by Boaz to Ruth and can certainly not indicate the relationship of daughter or daughter-in-law.

כי ארד, I will not be consoled but will descend to my grave joining my son while still mourning his death.

ויבך אותו אביו, for a long period of time. Seeing that the line is superfluous, our sages, as quoted by Rashi, added that Yitzchok (his father) wept for the anguish of his son Yaakov although he knew that Joseph had not been killed.

וימאן להתנחם, he refused to listen to words of comfort in order not to become guilty of forgetting to mourn.

ויאמר כי ארד אל בני אבל שאולה, he vowed to remain in mourning for the balance of his life. His reason was that he blamed himself for what happened because he had sent his beloved son on such a dangerous errand.

ויבך אותו אביו. Yitzchok wept over Yaakov’s decision to remain in mourning for the rest of his life. As a result of being in mourning he would forfeit Divine inspiration also.

ויקומו...וכל בנותיו, his daughter and daughters-in-law who were like daughters to him. In Bereshit Rabbah 84,21 Rabbi Yehudah is quoted as saying that a female twin had been born with each of Yaakov’s sons and they married their respective half-brothers. Rabbi Nechemyah, in commenting on the words וכל בנותיו, says that actually Yaakov had only one daughter, i.e. Dinah, but that he wished he had already buried her (as the fact that she had been raped was something he found it hard to live with) [Rashi on that Midrash. Ed] At any rate, we need not take the text so literally, as most people describe their sons-in-law as sons, and their daughters-in-law as daughters.

שאלה, until the grave, i.e. “I will mourn him for the rest of my life.” The meaning of the words

על בנו, instead of the pronoun ending ויתאבלו, is to describe Yaakov’s attitude henceforth, i.e. “I will go join him in his grave.” Compare Samuel II 12,23 where David uses such language explaining that in order to be reunited with the baby son he had just lost he would have to join him in his grave, as the baby would not come back to him and be resurrected. Or, compare the standard expression used by the Torah when people die and they join their ancestors in the grave or hereafter, i.e. ויאסף אל עמיו “he was gathered in to his people” (Genesis 25,17 et al).

ויבך אותו אביו, the reason why the Torah adds the unnecessary word אביו, “his father,” is to demonstrate the serious nature of losing a son who had been constantly the one at his father’s side. The remarkable thing about Joseph had been that although the Torah had described him as occupied tending sheep with his brothers, most of the time he had spent in attending to the needs of his widowed father, whose beloved wife Rachel, Joseph’s mother, had died when Joseph had only been about 6 years old. Whenever an occasion would arise which would have required the services normally rendered by his son Joseph, his absence would rekindle Yaakov’s grief over his fate. According to our sages in Bereshit Rabbah 84,21 the superfluous word אביו refers to Yaakov’s father Yitzchok, who was still alive at the time Joseph was sold, seeing that Yaakov had been born when Yitzchok was 60 years old, in other words Yitzchok only died when Yaakov was 120 years of age. At the time of Joseph’s sale Yitzchok was 168 years old seeing that the separation between Yaakov and Joseph lasted for 22 years, the same length of time as Yaakov had been separated from his father Yitzchok.

וכל בנותיו, “and all of his daughters;” according to Rabbi Yehudah, twin sisters had been born for Yaakov with the birth of all of his sons. These had been married by their respective half-brothers, sons of different mothers. According to the opinion of Rabbi Nechemyah, all the sons married wives of Canaanite origin. If he were correct, why does the Torah in our verse not speak of “all his daughter-in-law?“ Rabbi Nechemyah, aware of this, would reply, that in the whole world daughters-in-law are referred to as daughters. (B‘reshit Rabbah 84,21) [Naomi, in the Book of Ruth, certainly is not described as calling her daughters-in-law, “daughters.” Ed.] It is difficult to understand Rabbi Nechemyah, as we all know to what length Avraham had gone to prevent Yitzchok from marrying a wife of Canaanite descent. Yitzchok too had commanded Yaakov not to marry a woman of Canaanite descent and had sent him all the way to Charan to avoid such a union. (Genesis 28,1) Nonetheless, Yehudah married a woman of Canaanite descent. (Genesis 38,2 ברת גבר תגרא, (daughter of a business man, according to Onkelos איש כנעני means business man, traveling salesman) Onkelos therefore accepts the view of Rabbi Yehudah, who said that twin daughters were born with all of Yaakov’s sons.) This is also how we have to understand Genesis 46,10: ושאול בן הכנענית, “and Sha-ul, son of a female merchant.” According to Rabbi Nechemyah’s approach to the subject, there is no need for what sound like far fetched solutions to our problem. The word כנעני or כנענית in either of the verses that bothered us, are simply understood as elsewhere in the Bible, as people of Canaanite descent. We do have a problem if we accept Rabbi Yehudah’s interpretation, an interpretation lacking specific sources in the written text. The Talmud, tractate Yumah folio 28, states that Avaraham had voluntarily observed all the commandments in the written and oral Torah, even including the rabbinic commandment known as eyruv tavshilin, a method of how to prepare food when the day after a festival is a Sabbath, and preparation of food on the festival for the Sabbath is not admissible. He is also supposed to have observed the law of yibbum, marrying the widow of a brother who died without having ever had any children. (Compare Genesis 38,8) where Yehudah, Er’s father, gave Er’s widow Tamar to Onan, his brother, as a wife, in order for him to become posthumously and vicariously a father. If these laws were operative prior to the …