(1) Now Jacob was settled in the land where his father had sojourned, the land of Canaan. (2) This, then, is the line of Jacob: At seventeen years of age, Joseph tended the flocks with his brothers, as a helper to the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. And Joseph brought bad reports of them to their father. (3) Now Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons, for he was the child of his old age; and he had made him an ornamented tunic. (4) And when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of his brothers, they hated him so that they could not speak a friendly word to him.
פסים is a term for raiment of fine wool (Shabbat 10b). Similar is (Ester 1:6) כרפס “Fine linen and blue”. The same garment כתנת הפסים is mentioned (2 Samuel 13:18) in the story of Amnon and Tamar and we may therefore gather that it was made of very fine material. There is a Midrashic statement that in the word פסים we may find an allusion to all his misfortunes: he was sold to Potiphar (פוטיפר), to the merchants (סוחרים), to the Ishmaelites (ישמעאלים), and to the Midianites (מדינים) (Genesis Rabbah 84:8).
Passim, embroidered tunic. Passim is like pas yada (palm of the hand) in Aramaic.
(31) Then they took Joseph’s tunic, slaughtered a kid, and dipped the tunic in the blood. (32) They had the ornamented tunic taken to their father, and they said, “We found this. Please examine it; is it your son’s tunic or not?” (33) He recognized it, and said, “My son’s tunic! A savage beast devoured him! Joseph was torn by a beast!” (34) Jacob rent his clothes, put sackcloth on his loins, and observed mourning for his son many days.
ועשה לו כתונת פסים, as a visible sign that Joseph was intended by him to become the leader of all the brothers both at home and in the field. The use of such distinctive clothing to symbolise someone’s elevated stature is found also in Isaiah 22,21והלבשתיו כתנתך, “I will dress him (Chilkiyah) in your tunic,” where it signals that authority is transferred to the one wearing the appropriate garments. (uniform). The Talmud Baba Kama 11 also confirms that authority is signalled by the attire worn by people possessing it.
Observe that every misfortune that occurred to Joseph likewise befell Zion. . . . .
Joseph: And they stripped Joseph of his coat (Gen. 37:23), Zion: They shall strip thee of thy clothes (Ezek. 23:26).
When G-d says in Jeremiah 2,2, "I remember your love and kindness in your youth when you followed Me into the desert etc," this corresponds to Joseph being loved by his father more than his brothers. G-d gave Israel the Torah, accorded it special status, just as Jacob chose Joseph, gave him the colored coat and assigned him priestly duties (as Rachel's eldest). When the cousins (gentile nations) perceived this, they hated Israel just as the brothers had hated Joseph. Our sages point out that the reason the mountain on which the Torah was given was called Sinai, was because the word is reminiscent of hatred, i.e. events on that mountain accounted for the hatred of the Jewish people and Judaism by the gentile nations.
To the resentment of the brethren was added their envy of Joseph, because their father loved him more than all of them. Joseph's beauty of person was equal to that of his mother Rachel, and Jacob had but to look at him to be consoled for the death of his beloved wife. Reason enough for distinguishing him among his children. As a token of his great love for him, Jacob gave Joseph a coat of many colors, so light and delicate that it could be crushed and concealed in the closed palm of one hand. . . . But Passim. has yet another meaning, "clefts." His brethren knew that the Red Sea would be cleft in twain in days to come for Joseph's sake, and they were jealous of the glory to be conferred upon him.