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Thought for the Day: Lessons for Our Lives from Tamar and Yehuda

We know the basic events. Two of Yehuda's sons sinned gravely (yes, pun intended) in their marriage to Tamar. Tamar is told to wait for the third son, but Yehuda is clearly pushing her off and has no intention of putting his third son at risk. Tamar decided to take matters into her own hands by masquerading as a prostitute so she can have children from Yehuda. Tamar takes Yehuda's ID and goes back home; keeping Yehuda's ID. It is discovered that Tamar is pregnant; she is accused of adultery and sentenced to death. Tamar sends Yehuda his ID, with the message that her fate is in his hands. Yehuda admits publicly that he is the father. Everyone is happy.

This year I accidentally actually looked at the events and started wondering what Tamar's plan was from the beginning. It's hard to believe that she intended to put herself and Yehuda into such a dangerous and public gambit. Moreover, what's the point? Clearly Yehuda does not intend to have his youngest son wed to Tamar (why not? He had no issue with his second son being wed to her.) Clearly, Tamar needs to finesse Yehuda into "marrying" her himself without his explicit knowledge. But once that was accomplished, why didn't she just tell him right away -- before he even left her tent, for example? And why does she need his ID? By the way, why didn't Yehuda have any cash? And how did Tamar know that he wouldn't?

If you may want to think about that before reading further. In any case, I haven't (yet) found anyone who talks about it. That itself is an indication that the question is based on a false premise. In this case, though, I discussed it with enough people to conclude it was an interesting question. Here is what I came up with; your mileage may vary.

Tamar has had two husbands die. There is a discussion in the gemara about whether it takes two or three dead husbands to brand a woman as a קטלנית/lethal wife. Yehuda therefore is quite wary of letting Tamar marry his youngest son. Tamar, on the other hand, knows very well why her husbands died; that is all on them and she certainly is not a  קטלנית. She now has to use subterfuge to have children from Yehuda's line. (She knows via divine inspiration that the mashiach will come from Yehuda and she wants to be the woman who brings him into the world.)

That explains the subterfuge, but why not just tell Yehuda immediately after the ruse who she is? She'd love to, but she won't know if she is pregnant. She'll need to wait until she is certain that she has conceived and has a healthy pregnancy. That's why she needs Yehuda's ID. But that also means she'll need to be certain that he isn't carrying any cash. So she waits till he is traveling to shear the sheep. He has a partner in business, so all of his resources are tied up in the business right now. Tamar sees her chance, and everything goes according to plan. Mostly.

She knows that she will start to show in about three months, so she'll have to wait a bit less than that before sending a private message to Yehuda. And that's where her plan hit a snag. The verse tells us that at about three months it was noticed that she was pregnant. Rashi explains -- most of the first month, the entire second month, and most of the third month. It was a  seven month pregnancy; not rare, but also not as common. Tamar now how to make a decision; she put her life at risk rather than certainly embarrassing Yehuda in public.

The events in the Torah are about real people living through real situations. HaShem's Holy Torah is the blueprint of creation. It is much, much more than a book of instructions -- though we would be eternally (literally) grateful for that as well. But our Holy Torah, by revealing and explaining reality to us through the significant events in the lives of our great and holy ancestors, also teaches us by example how to lead our own lives and play our part in bringing HaShem's plans to fruition.

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