Yehudah left his brothers and moved to another town. He had a family there, but two of his sons and his wife died. Later, he married Tamar, and had twin boys. One of them is Peretz, the ancestor of Moshiach!
The Shevatim had listened to Yehudah and sold Yosef, since they looked up to Yehudah as their leader. Now, after seeing how upset it made their father, they decided to stop listening to Yehudah. So Yehudah decided to move to a different city, where he worked together with a man named Chirah.
Yehuda married the daughter of Shua, a famous merchant there. They had three boys, Eir, Onan, and Shailah. After Yehudah’s wife stopped having children, they called the place where they lived then Keziv, because it means “stopping.”
When his son Eir got older, Yehuda found him a wife — Tamar, the daughter of Shem. Eir was afraid that Tamar wouldn’t stay beautiful if she had children, so he didn’t want to have any babies. This was a big aveira, and Hashem made Eir pass away.
There is a mitzvah called yibum, that if a husband passes away without having children, his wife needs to marry his brother. That way it is counted as if the first brother also had a child, since the mitzvah is done because of him. Yehudah kept the mitzvos even before Matan Torah, so he had his second son Onan marry Tamar.
But Onan didn’t want Tamar to have children either, because he knew that they would be considered like Eir’s children according to Torah. So he did the same aveirah as his brother. Hashem was upset at him too, and Onan also passed away.
Yehudah was afraid to let Shailah marry Tamar, because he was afraid that it was Tamar’s fault that Eir and Onan died. He told Tamar to wait until Shailah gets older, but he wasn’t really planning on letting her marry Shailah at all.
Tamar went to live in her parents’ house while she waited.
About a year later, Yehuda’s wife passed away. Yehuda was very sad. Later, after he felt better, he went with Chirah, his partner, to Timna to watch them cutting the hair of the sheep (shearing).
Tamar heard that Yehuda was going to Timna, and she knew which way he was going. She wanted to have children from Yehudah’s family, and she saw that Shailah was older but still Yehudah wasn’t letting her marry him. So she decided to do something to get Yehudah to marry her.
Before Matan Torah, a person didn’t need to have a chuppah or Kiddushin in order to get married. If a man met a woman, they could decide to get married right then and would be husband and wife.
Tamar took off her veil and sat by the side of the road, like a woman who is looking to get married. When Yehudah saw her there, he didn’t recognize her, since Tamar was so tznius’dik and Yehudah hardly ever saw her when she was married to his sons. Yehudah wanted to just keep on going, but a malach made him go and ask if she wanted to get married to him. Tamar agreed, and Yehudah said he would give her a fine goat as a gift.
Tamar made Yehudah give her his ring, his special coat, and his stick until she gets the goat, and they decided to get married. Then Tamar went back home and put on her regular clothes. Yehudah still had no idea that it was Tamar!
Yehudah sent Chirah with the goat to keep the promise he had made, but he couldn’t find Tamar! He asked everyone where the woman was, but nobody knew. So Yehudah said, “I tried to give her the goat I promised! At least now she will keep the things I gave her before.”
Three months later, people could see that Tamar was going to have a baby. Since she wasn’t married, that could mean she had become a zonah, getting married to many men! In those days, someone from a special family (like Tamar, who was the daughter of Shem) who did that kind of aveirah could get a big punishment. So Yehudah said, “Bring her and we will have to punish her, because that is the law.”
Tamar didn’t want to embarrass Yehudah in public, even if she might get put to death. So while they were bringing her to punish her, she had someone show Yehudah his ring and coat and stick, saying “I am having a baby because of the person who owns these things! Please tell the truth so nobody has to die.”
Yehudah knew the things were his, and understood that it was because of him — Tamar had wanted to make sure she has children from Yehudah’s family, and he hadn’t wanted her to marry Shailah. She wasn’t a zonah, marrying many men, she had only gotten married to Yehudah.
Hashem said, “I was the One Who wanted this to happen! Because Tamar was always so tznius’dik, I decided that the kings of Bnei Yisrael should come from her. Really they were supposed to come from Eir and Onan, but because of the aveiros they did, I arranged that Tamar have children with Yehudah instead!”
Yehudah now understood that it wasn’t Tamar’s fault that Eir and Onan passed away, Yehudah knew it wasn’t dangerous to have her as a wife, so he stayed married to her.
When Tamar was having her babies, the midwife saw that it was going to be twins! One of the babies started to be born, and a hand came out. The midwife tied a red string so she would remember which baby was born first and would be the bechor, but the hand went back in and the other baby was born first! Since he pushed ahead, Yehudah called him “Peretz” which means breaking through. (Moshiach comes from Peretz!)
Then his brother was born, and they called him Zarach, because of the shining red string.
Because Tamar only had these children for the right reason, the twins were strong and tzadikim like their father Yehudah.
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