A New Look At Joseph's Tunic (Bava Batra 154b)

What I'm about to say is a stretch. Of course, it's not that different than what the Rabbis do.

We all know of the story of Joseph's technicolored dream coat (or at least we've heard the song ). But what we may not realize is that no one really knows what this coat looked like.

In Genesis 37:3 we read that Jacob gave Joseph a ketonet pasim.

We know it as the "coat of many colors" (this is the JPS translation) but not everyone agrees:

• Rashi says it means a fine woolen garment
• There is a Midrash that it the term passim is an acronym for the troubles started by Potifar, the merchants (Socharim), the Ishmaelites and the Midianites. (see the stories of Joseph for each of these characters)
• Everett Fox sees the word as meaning ornamented
• Buber and Rosenzweig translate it as ankle length

One Friday's Daf (Bava Batra 154b) we get another possible interpretation. In a wider discussion about the validity of documents the Talmud brings up the idea of a passim document. We read:

If someone challenges a document and says "it's a passim document" or "its a document written on trust" [meaning] that I sold you the field but you did not give me the money for it the law is as follows: If there are witnesses who corroborate these claims, follow the testimony of the witnesses, but if not, follow whatever the document says.

Rashbam explains that a passim document derives from the word pi'us (פיוס) meaning persuasion or placation. Artscroll explains that this means the document is a "sham." Think of it like this: Daniel needs to impress a landlord so he pays Julia to write him a document that says that she owes him a lot of money and leaves it on his kitchen table. When the landlord comes by he sees that Daniel has a lot of money coming to him. Assuming he is more wealthy than he is, he treats Daniel with more respect. Later Daniel takes this signed document and tried to sue Julia saying that it is real and that she really owes him money.

With this in mind, we can now understand the above statement. When someone points to a document and says that its a sham or that it is a placeholder for a trust we try hard to discard the document and look for witnesses to corroborate the claim. But when we can't find witnesses we understand that a contract is a contract and the challenger should have been careful not to sign his name to a document. So we follow the document and hope he is lying.

Now that we have explored the legal meaning of passim, I want to return to the Joseph story. As I said, the following is a Midrash and not based in philological research. Nevertheless it's a new take on the story. If a passim document means a sham document, perhaps at ketonet passim is a sham coat.  What then is the purpose of Jacob giving this gift to his son? Maybe its not because he loved Joseph that he gave him the coat, but as a power play.

We read in the previous verse that Joseph liked to tattle on his brothers to his father Jacob, telling tales about the evil that his brothers were doing. In the next verse we read that Jacob loved Joseph and gave the coat to him. Perhaps part of this love came from the fact that Jacob knew that Joseph would always tell him the misdeeds of his brothers. And perhaps the coat was less a reward for this telling than a sign to the brothers "if you tell me the truth, if you are on my side, if you avoid evil and communicate with me, you too will receive a reward."

I like this interpretation because of what happens to the coat at the end of the chapter. The ketonet passim is a sham coat that will later become covered in sham blood as the brothers tell their father that a beast devoured Joseph (37:31). Is there anything more ironic?