The Bride of Golem

(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.

(4) את דבתם רעה THEIR EVIL REPORT — Whatever he saw wrong in his brothers, the sons of Leah, he reported to his father: that they used to eat flesh cut off from a living animal, that they treated the sons of the handmaids with contempt, calling them slaves, and that they were

suspected of living in a sexually immoral manner

I have heard about an explanation found in an ancient manuscript: Abraham wrote the ספר יצירה, and handed it over to his son Isaac. Isaac in turn passed it on to Jacob. Jacob passed the book on to those of his sons who were the most deserving. Torah secrets are not supposed to be handed to undeserving people. As a result, only the sons born of Jacob's fully fledged wives were given copies of the book. We find in the Talmud that Abraham created a calf every Friday, by using instructions in the ספר יצירה on how to arrange the various letters in G–d's name in order to accomplish this. Since the brothers had access to that information, they may have done the same thing. Anything which came into being through this method is not subject to the halachot requiring slaughter, removal of blood, etc., before the animal is fit to be consumed. An animal created in such a way may be eaten while "alive." Joseph was not aware of this, hence he thought that what he reported to his father was a misdemeanor by his brothers.

Sanhedrin 65b reports that the Amora Rava created a human being [using the technique discussed in the ספר יצירה, Ed.]. He sent that creature to Rabbi Zeirah who addressed him. The creature did not respond to what Rabbi Zeirah said to it. Thereupon Rabbi Zeirah ordered the creature to turn back into dust (if he was the creature made by one of the scholars). Rabbi Chanina and Rabbi Oshiyah are reported to have studied the ספר יצירה together every Friday, and to have created a three-year-old calf and to have eaten it. There are letters in certain names of G–d, which, if manipulated in the correct manner, enable one to create female creatures, whereas other letters in other names of G–d, when correctly manipulated, produce male creatures. It is quite possible that the brothers used their knowledge of the ספר יצירה to create female creatures (human look-alikes), and that they consorted with these creatures. Joseph arrived at the erroneous conclusion that there was something immoral about the brothers' conduct with those "females." ...