A Coat Of Many Colors: Yosef and Karpas | Passover haggadah by Noraa Kaplan

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cw: sexual assault

The origins of the word karpas are elusive. While etymologists think it most likely derives from the Persian word karafs, meaning ‘celery,’ there’s another interesting connection to be made. The word karpas makes a single mysterious appearance in the Tanach, in an unexpected place. The book of Esther states that there were “hangings of white karpas” (Esther 1:6) in a king’s palace, referring to fine wool. The great medieval Torah commentator Rashi connected this meaning of karpas to the Yosef narrative in the book of Genesis.

When we first meet Yosef, they are seventeen years old, helping their brothers tend to their father Ya’akov’s flocks. Despite being one of Ya’akov’s youngest children, Yosef is his clear favorite. He gives Yosef a special garment called a ketonet pasim , the meaning of which is notoriously difficult to pin down. The familiar ‘coat of many colors’ translation is just one of many guesses: everything from a ‘striped robe’ to a ‘long-sleeved tunic’ has been suggested. One thing we do know about the ketonet pasim from the only other time the phrase is used in the Tanach is that “princesses were customarily dressed in such garments.” (II Samuel 13:18)

The Torah describes Yosef in explicitly feminine terms. We are told that Yosef’s mother, Ya’akov’s beloved wife Rachel, was yefat to’ar vi-yefat mareh “shapely and beautiful.” (Genesis 29:17) The Torah uses the exact same language for Yosef— yefah to’ar vi-yefah mareh —though this usually gets translated into English as “well-built and handsome.” Not only was Yosef shapely and beautiful, but according to midrash, they put on eye makeup, wore heels, and curled their hair. If Yosef lived today, it’s very likely that they would describe themself as trans or nonbinary. Yosef’s ketonet pasim (which Rashi tells us was made from karpas, fine wool) was their princess dress. It affirmed their gender and made them feel special.

Because of Ya’akov’s blatant favoritism, Yosef’s brothers grew bitterly jealous of them. They saw Yosef as an effeminate dreamer, a goody- two-shoes who thought themself better than them. One day, Yosef went to meet them in the fields and they saw their opportunity to get revenge. In a transphobic attack with strange sexual overtones, Yosef’s brothers stripped them naked and cast them into a pit. Initially, they planned on killing them outright, but when some merchants happened to pass by, they decided to sell Yosef into slavery instead. So Yosef was carried off to Mitzrayim, becoming the first Israelite enslaved there. Meanwhile, their brothers took their princess dress, tore it, slaughtered a kid, and dipped it in the kid’s blood. They brought the torn and bloodied garment to Ya’akov to inspect it. He wailed and rent his clothes in grief, believing that his beloved child Yosef had been torn apart by a wild animal.

Yosef was brought down to Mitzrayim. The Talmud specifically tells us that the slave traders intended to sell them into sexual slavery. A royal official named Potiphar bought Yosef for this purpose, but according to midrash, the angel Gabriel stopped this from happening. Potiphar liked Yosef very much, and soon they rose through the ranks in his household. Potiphar eventually put Yosef in charge of everything he owned. But the surprising success Yosef found in slavery was short-lived. Potiphar’s wife was attracted to Yosef. She repeatedly sexually harrassed them, trying to get them to sleep with her. Yosef refused every time, until one day she asked Yosef to lie with her and tore their robe off. Trying to escape, Yosef ran outside without it while she screamed that Yosef had tried to sexually assault her. Furious, Potiphar had Yosef thrown in prison.

Even in prison, Hashem was with Yosef and they found success in everything they did. The warden took a liking to Yosef and gave them special privileges and responsibilities in prison. But when a prisoner they had helped was due to be released, Yosef begged him, “Please do me the kindness of mentioning me to Pharaoh, and bringing me out from this place, for I was stolen from the land of the Hebrews, and I have not done anything here that they should have put me in this pit.” (Genesis 40:14-15)

Though the Torah tells us Yosef was incarcerated in beyt ha-sohar, the prison-house, the term Yosef uses to describe their experience is ha-bor, the pit. Despite Yosef’s relatively comfortable position, they saw prison as being identical to the pit their brothers threw them into. Incarceration was a continuation of the violence that brought them to Mitzrayim in the first place. No matter how ‘good’ the conditions of prison might be, no matter how many opportunities for advancement a prisoner might have, prison is intrinsically violent and degrading to the human spirit.

Prisons don’t rehabilitate people because they are traumatic in and of themselves. Despite being grossly underdiagnosed due to lack of adequate medical and psychological care, over 25% of people in men’s prisons and 40% of people in women’s prisons have confirmed cases of post- traumatic stress disorder. However, in places like prison where trauma is systematic, “there is no post, ” as Palestinian psychiatrist Samah Jabr argues, “because the trauma is repetitive, ongoing, and continuous.” PTSD is something that happens after a single traumatic event, like a car accident, when a fragment of one’s consciousness is stuck in the past because the mind wasn’t able to register the traumatic event as a memory. Jabr says that something different is at play “after bombardment or being labeled as a person against the law and having a relationship with prison like a revolving door. The effect is more profound. It changes the personality, it changes the belief system” through learned helplessness. Prison teaches people to stop viewing themselves as capable of change. It convinces them that no matter what they do, violence is inevitable.

Eventually, Yosef was brought out of the prison to appear before Pharaoh. The Torah tells us that the very first thing Yosef did upon release was shave and change their clothes. Like so many trans prisoners, Yosef had been forced to live as the gender they were assigned at birth throughout their years in ‘the pit.’ Only after they left this violent environment were they able to be their authentic self. Prisons are very dangerous places for everyone in them, but incarcerated queer and trans people are especially at risk for violence. Because they are usually incarcerated in men’s prisons, incarcerated trans women are in extreme danger of getting sexually assaulted, beaten up, and killed. Prison officials routinely harass, misgender, and humiliate them, deny them essential medical care, and torture them by putting them in solitary confinement for months, even years at a time, “for their own protection.” Trans prisoners attempt suicide at epidemic rates and all too often die completely preventable deaths.

Things worked out pretty well for Yosef when they were finally freed from slavery and prison. Yosef became Pharaoh’s chief advisor, correctly predicting that a great famine would follow seven years of abundance. Under their supervision, Mitzrayim stored up massive reserves of grain which saved the world from starvation. During this famine, Yosef’s brothers came to Mitzrayim seeking grain. Yosef was ultimately reunited with their brothers and their father. Their brothers feared that Yosef would want revenge for being sold into slavery, but instead Yosef forgave them, saying, “What you intended for evil, Hashem intended for good.” (Genesis 50:20) Pharaoh invited Ya’akov and his whole family to move to Mitzrayim and ‘live off the fat of the land.’ Yosef and their family lived there peacefully for the rest of their lives. For generations, Ya’akov’s descendents dwelled in Mitzrayim as free people, until a new Pharaoh came to power, one who “did not remember Yosef.” (Exodus 1:8)

Tonight, we remember Yosef because Pharaoh didn’t. We remember Yosef because they were the first one of our ancestors to be enslaved in Mitzrayim, and the first one to be set free. We remember Yosef because their femininity is usually forgotten, because trans people’s stories are all too often erased. We remember Yosef and all incarcerated trans people, whose lives are in danger. We remember Yosef who, having experienced slavery and prison firsthand, decided not to punish their brothers for what they’d done, instead finding the courage to forgive them when they learned from their mistakes. As we dip the karpas in salt water tonight to remember our ancestors’ tears, we remember how Yosef’s brothers dipped their beautiful coat of many colors in blood. We remember the act of transphobic violence that led to our ancestors being enslaved in Mitzrayim, and we refuse to let this kind of violence happen again.

(Some have the tradition of dipping the karpas into red wine vinegar instead of salt water in memory of Yosef ’s brothers dipping their coat of many colors into blood. Others choose to pour red wine into salt water before dipping.)

haggadah Section: Karpas

Source: Min Ha-Meitzar: An Abolitionist Haggadah from the Narrow Place by Noraa Kaplan