Brookwrite

A sip of gossip

by L. Shaun Harrah
Southern Jewish Life columnist

Almost every household has embraced the tablets craze, so it's time to put our ear to the ground in this biblical era and satisfy your cravings for dirt with our latest carvings.

Fashion News: Coat of many blunders

Jacob, who you remember changed his stage name to Israel a while back, recently had a special coat made for one of his twelve sons. Allegedly it's for his favorite son -- let's face it, we all know that's little Joseph -- but if he's really his favorite, he'll spare him the rod AND this coat.

By one account, the colors merely begin with red, and yellow, and green, and brown, and scarlet, and black, and ochre, and peach. Forget about the ruby, and olive, and violet, and fawn -- these colors haven't gone together in any season, and this year will be no exception.

Whether those colors go left to right or right to left, this coat is best left in the closet. If he wears it in public, his own brothers will beat him up.

Rumor is there was a prophecy that his family would be enslaved for four hundred years. Obviously not as slaves to fashion, because after just four hundred seconds this little frock should be thrown to a hungry flock.

Twelve against one -- an unfair fight?

Speaking of Jacob, it's well known that he has twelve sons from four women. This correspondent paid for both his kids to go to Memphis by writing about Jacob marrying two women -- sisters, no less -- and about the ultimately true rumors that he also had kids with each of their handmaidens.

But what about the lost thirteenth child? Jacob had a daughter, Dina. People forget she exists; it's so easy to get lost in the mix with twelve boys around. Word on the dirt path is that she got out of all the work her brothers have to do by besting them in competition. We don't yet know what their throwdown was, but she's quoted as saying to them, "come back with a thirteenth and fourteenth guy, then it'll be a fair fight."

Dissent in the ranks

File this rank one under dissent in the rank and file. For everyone who thought that Jacob is a good guy and therefore his sons must be, too, think again. These boys, who at first seemed decent, have descended into dissent over one of their own.

Nobody dreamed this could happen, but dreams have made it so. Joseph is rumored to be well aware that he's Jacob's favorite son. He knows it. His brothers know it. We know it. Apparently that's not enough for Joseph. He's allegedly making up dreams to use as metaphors to rub his apparent parental priority in the face of his brothers.

Joseph's brothers are the ones who spend their time getting dirty in the fields, but if he's not careful, before dinner one day they'll wash their hands of him.

Maybe that coat Jacob plans to make him wear will humble him.

Potiphar's wife helping herself to the help?

Another month, and another rumor that the wife of Potiphar, Pharaoh's captain of the guard, is on her own kind of patrol. The latest is that she's been trying to get certain household servants alone in the pantry, if you know what she means.

Of course, Potiphar himself is too good to read what he calls, "this slabloid journalism." But if he did, one wonders if he would still be on the market for a new household slave, now that it's almost time for the Ishmaelite traders' annual visit to the capital.

Imagine what could happen to whoever gets stuck between these two. Then again, Jacob had kids with his wives' handmaidens, and Potiphar's wife likes to get some overtime with her husband's slaves... Maybe one of Jacob's sons should go work for Potiphar!

No. Even in a gossip column, nobody would ever believe it.

Any resemblance between L. Shaun Harrah and Doug Brook -- a writer in Silicon Valley -- is purely coincidental. Even if it isn't. For past columns, other writings, and more, visit http://brookwrite.com/. For exclusive online content, like facebook.com/the.beholders.eye.