“Ketonet passîm” – Joseph’s “Coat-of-Many-Colors”
In Midrash Gen Rabba 84:8 we find interpretations of the expression ketonet passîm (a long robe with sleeves or colors) in which Jacob clad Joseph (Gen 37:3): The multi-meanings suggested for passîm are:
1. passim – since it reached the edge (pas) of his hand (passim = long sleeves);
2. passim – since his brothers casts lots (payyis, pěyasîm; a Mishnaic expression) regarding who would inform their father of Joseph’s “death”;
3. passim – an acronym for Joseph’s misfortunes: Potiphar, Soḥarîm (merchants), Yišma’elîm, Midyanîm (Potiphar, Ishmaelite merchants, Midyanites)
4. passim – pas yām [i.e., “the sea has disappeared”]. God splits the Reed Sea for Joseph’s coffin, which was carried by the Israelites when they left Egypt.
5. passim – the plain meaning is: “(a robe made of) stripes.”
Based on the fourth interpretation, a legend developed that the Reed Sea split upon seeing Joseph’s coffin borne by the Children of Israel. (Zvi Malachi, “’Creative Philology’ As a System of Biblical and Talmudic Exegesis: Creating Midrashic Interpretations form Multi-Meaning Words in the Midrash and the Zohar,” in Puns and Pundits: Word Play in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Literature, ed. Scott B. Noegel [Bethesda, Md.: CDL Press, 2000], 271)
