A Word of Torah: Jail And Genesis 40 November 27, 2007

Reuters reported today the release of the findings of Unlocking America, a new US Prison System study from the JFA Institute, a Washington-based criminal justice think tank.

The study (PDF), according to Reuters, is a damning indictment:

The number of people in U.S. prisons has risen eight-fold since 1970, with little impact on crime but at great cost to taxpayers and society, researchers said in a report calling for a major justice-system overhaul…It recommends shorter sentences and parole terms, alternative punishments, more help for released inmates and decriminalizing recreational drugs. It said the steps would cut the prison population in half, save $20 billion a year and ease social inequality without endangering the public.

More than 1.5 million people are now in U.S. state and federal prisons, up from 196,429 in 1970, the report said. Another 750,000 people are in local jails. The U.S. incarceration rate is the world’s highest, followed by Russia, according to 2006 figures compiled by Kings College in London.

One of the key concepts the study comes to confront is a long-held foundation of the American criminal justice system: certain individuals are “career criminals” we can identify and whose imprisonment will reduce crime. On Page 12 of Unlocking America (PDF page 17), the authors quote a 2006 study, however, which showed almost exactly the opposite:

More recent research, nearly twenty years after the first studies on the topic, continues to discredit the claim that career criminals can be identified early by a profiling system. John Laub and Robert Sampson have re-examined data from Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck’s 1930s seminal publication following the life careers of 500 Boston delinquents. Although the vast majority desisted from crime after the age of 25, a small minority persisted in
committing crime into their later years. Using all available criteria, Laub and Samson could not distinguish these “persisters” at the beginning of their delinquent careers from the others who had followed the normal pattern of criminal involvement in adolescence and desistance after their early twenties….

Laub and Sampson were able to find a different set of predictive factors, none of which could be observed when the young people first committed crimes. Instead, they found there were major “turning points” in a person’s life—such as getting and holding a good job, enlisting in the military, marrying, and establishing contacts with conventional institutions and groups—rather than personality characteristics or early childhood experiences that distinguished
the careers of “desisters” from “persisters”.

Laub and Sampson also found that delinquents who had been incarcerated were more likely to commit crimes later in life than those who had been sentenced to probation or local jail time. The implication was that imprisonment itself can encourage criminality.

A similar contention exists in Genesis 40, at the end of this week’s parsha, Parshat Vayeshev.

The righteous Joseph is imprisoned by Pharaoh after the Chief Butcher’s wife unsuccessfully tried to seduce him in 39:12. After Joseph is framed for sexual assault (39:14) with no due process or chance to defend himself (39:19,20), Joseph is thrown into the jail for prisoners of the state. There, he has extraordinary “charisma” and gains favor in the eyes of everyone, meeting the Chief Cupbearer and Chief Baker upon their imprisonment in 40:3.

Project Genesis’ Gal Einai brings a fascinating point to the forefront:

The [verses] at the end of the Parsha describe the dreams of [Joseph’s] co- prisoners. The description of these two men alternates between referring to them as Sar Hamashkim/Sar HaOfim (Minister of Drinks/Minister of Baking or Chief Butler/Chief Baker), an official title, and referring to them simply as the ‘mashkeh’ and the ‘ofeh’, the butler and the baker. Why the differences?

Specifically, the [verses] say that the butler and baker sinned against their master Pharaoh (40:1);

that Pharaoh became enraged against the Chief Butler and Chief Baker (40:2);

that the baker and butler had dreams in prison (40:5);

that Yosef told them that dream interpretations are up to HaShem and that the Chief Butler told Yosef his dream (40:8-9) [and] Chief Baker also told Yosef his dream (40:16);

that on his birthday Pharaoh once again counted the Chief Butler and Chief Baker among his servants (40:20);

that Pharaoh re-instated the Chief Butler but hanged the Chief Baker (40:21-22);

and that the Chief Butler forgot about Yosef (40:23).

Each of these usages — baker vs. Chief Baker and its butler counterpart — must be examined, says the Gal Einai, quoting the 18th-century commentary of the Seforno. The ones who initially angered Pharaoh were just an ordinary “butler and baker” (40:1), but when Pharaoh punished them, he was punishing them based on how he perceived them — they were “Chiefs” who should not be making such errors, they had to be punished. And it would be in prison that they would be “rehabilitated”, says the Seforno:

In prison they became a shadow of their former selves and no longer had any ambitions of achieving high position; therefore when they dream (40:5) they are referred to only as the butler and the baker, not the Chiefs.

From this explanation of the Sforno we can perhaps extrapolate the rest. Although despondent as a result of their seemingly unintelligible dreams, once Yosef reached out to them and told them interpretations are possible because Hashem is in charge of interpretations (see also Sforno on 40:8) they brightened up and regained some of their former confidence - even before the dreams were interpreted.

Therefore when reporting the substance of the dream the dreamer is again referred to as Chief Butler (40:9).

(”Discovering G-d in jail” is already a phenomenon so common with prisoners its almost commonplace. Perhaps the phenomenon started here, in this Biblical cell block of old?)

What is “criminal justice”? What is “crime”? Crime is a society’s way of saying “here, we expect you to act like X, and when you don’t we’ll punish you.” We expect people to pay taxes. We expect people to tell the truth in court and when writing checks. We expect people not to steal.

When people do do such things, however, obviously they are not acting “in their right minds”. Every person able to function in a larger societal context knows, there are certain things “you just don’t do.” But, for a split-second, due to a lapse of reason or binge of alcohol, logic means nothing and said action gets done. Why? It must be a mistake — whether forgivable or unforgivable — or at the very least, a revelation of the humanity of the offender. The offender submitted to an animalistic desire — for sex, money, glory, or power — or a moment of weakness.

“Criminal justice”, however, sets punishments for “chiefs” — each society in its image of “how things should be”. A society which holds fidelity to the government in high regard will sentence people harshly for tax evasion; one whose regimes are largely puppets of popular opinion, less so. The process of arrest and imprisonment is dehumanizing — and it is only “ordinary bakers and butlers” in jail.

Were Joseph not in the jail at the time, ostensibly, these people would have remained the “ordinary baker and butler”. Were Joseph not there to tell them that Hashem had an answer for their dreams too, that G-d had answers for them, where they were, as convicts who work in domestic help, giving them back their status as “Chiefs”, ostensibly, they would not have regained their self-esteem. It was only after meeting with a “Joseph” that they regained their “Chief” status.

Let’s say Joseph wouldn’t have been there. Ostensibly they would have been released at some point. Who would have been released? The “ordinary butler and baker” — without their self-esteem, without their dreams or hopes, without their status as “Chiefs”.

The word “Chief” used here, שר, sar (lit. “prince of”), is also significant. Its numerical value is 500. The number 500 in Kabbalistic literature is often used to denote transcendence or going from one level to the next. The Talmud in Tractate Chagigah describes the distance from “this world to the next world” (i.e., where “outer space stops” and “Heaven begins”) as a “distance of 500 years”. The Tree of Life of Genesis 1 is described in the Targum Yonatan as being “500 years’ distance tall”, connecting this world to the upper world. Perhaps jail robs a person of this connection to the upper world — which would explain why Josephs’ mentioning Hashem’s having an interpretation for their individual dreams making the difference — and without someone to replace it, i.e., a rehabilitator, the person will not gain the status they had before they first were booked.

And, as “ordinary bakers and butlers”, they can mess up again (40:2).

The Torah knew that jail was not a panacea, not for us, and not for the Chief Butler and Chief Baker. And since G-d favors rehabilitation — and re-humanization — of prisoners, we can only hope our “G-d-fearing country” does, too.