Cupbearers and Carers

by Raphael Morris

Printer-frienldy version of the text

Towards the end of Parashat Vayeshev, Joseph languishes in a cell, having been framed for the attempted assault of his master Potiphar’s wife. While in the dungeon, he encounters two servants of Pharaoh who have recently fallen out of favour. At their request, he interprets their dreams. One, the baker, he predicts will be executed. The other, the mashkeh, he predicts will be restored to his station.

Translation has done a great disservice to the mashkeh, whose role is often translated as ‘butler’. The word ‘butler’ conjures up the image of a witty, suit-wearing sommelier - as Andrew Lloyd Webber put it, “the Jeeves of his time”. Growing up, I was always mystified as to why Pharaoh placed so much trust in this servant. After all, it is the mashkeh’s eventual recommendation of Joseph as a dream interpreter that gets him his life-changing audience with the Pharaoh. When all his magicians and advisors fail him, why should Pharaoh give his ear to the man who serves him wine?

In fact, mashkeh is better translated as ‘cupbearer’. His role was not merely to serve Pharaoh wine, but also to taste it for poison. The mashkeh was trusted to not abuse his access to the king’s cup - and he earned that trust by putting his life on the line every day in Pharaoh’s service. In the event of a plot to poison Pharaoh, it was the cupbearer who would die.

In exchange, the position of cupbearer came with high pay and the kind of direct access to the sovereign that most courtiers could only dream of. For thousands of years, cupbearers enjoyed unparalleled proximity to power. The first emperor in human history, Sargon of Akkad, began his career as a cupbearer in the 23rd century BCE. In the 5th century BCE, after the Babylonian Exile, the Jewish diplomat Nehemiah held the prestigious position of cupbearer to the Persian Emperor Artaxerxes I (Nehemiah 1:11). The Book of Nehemiah describes how he used his influence in this role to become governor of Judea and secure permission to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. The hieroglyphic for ‘cupbearer’ appears on the Rosetta stone, and cupbearers remained high officials in several European courts through the Late Middle Ages. In the present day, heads of state from Putin to Obama have employed food tasters to guard against poison, with Obama once reportedly refusing to eat at a lunch with Senate Republicans because his taster wasn’t present.

Through the role of the cupbearer, we see the complex interactions of power and vulnerability.

“Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,” wrote Shakespeare, musing on the fears, anxieties, and vulnerabilities that so often accompany the privileges and responsibilities of the throne. The ancient Greek story of Damocles famously offers a vivid metaphor. In it, the courtier Damocles wishes aloud to trade places with the king. The king grants his wish, but arranges for a sword to be suspended above his head, hanging by a single horsehair. Soon enough, Damocles begs to trade back, overcome by the precarity of his position.

Such an attitude prevails throughout Jewish texts as well, in both Tanakh and Talmud. Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar are troubled by dreams, Ahasuerus cannot sleep, Saul is beset by paranoia and David faces rebellion, violence between his children, and constant threats from enemies. In the Talmud, the Roman Emperor Antoninus seeks the advice of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi when his courtiers plot against him and his daughter flouts sexual norms, while Emperor Titus is driven mad by the buzzing of a gnat in his head, slowly consuming his brain.

If kings and emperors cannot sleep easy, what of those upon whom they rely? Servants and courtiers often experience a vulnerability that mirrors or even exceeds that of their masters. Pharaoh throws his chief cupbearer and his chief baker in prison for unknown reasons, and while the cupbearer is restored to his station, the baker is executed. Nebuchadnezzar demands the execution of those who fail to interpret his dreams or worship his idols. Achashverosh exiles Queen Vashti when she refuses to dance for him. Saul eventually turns on David, once the only one who could soothe his moods, and seeks to kill him.

The position of court favourite - often exemplified by the role of cupbearer - is the ultimate in high-risk, high-reward. In such a hazardous job, the conventional wisdom is to become indispensable.

The conventional wisdom is wrong.

In Parashat Vayeshev, Joseph tries the strategy of becoming indispensable time and again. He is exceptionally good at it. He is his father’s favourite, the one his father cannot bear to lose, so he gets to stay home while his brothers work in the fields. He becomes Potiphar’s favourite, given control over virtually his entire household. He becomes the warden’s deputy when he is in prison, and eventually becomes Pharaoh’s vizier and treasurer, radically centralising royal power.

But we repeatedly see that indispensability fails. Joseph may be indispensable to his father, but not to his brothers. He may be indispensable to Potiphar, but not to Potiphar’s wife. For all the power he has in the prison, it cannot get him released, and even when he becomes indispensable to Pharaoh, a single regime change turns all the Israelites into slaves.

Which brings us to the ‘disability’ part of this dvar Torah.

Indispensability is not the same as care. And reliance is not the same as trust.

It is a common misconception that the relationship between a disabled person and their carer is one of indispensability, of reliance. That the disabled person simply could not cope without their carer, that they are reliant on their carer for assistance or support with a variety of tasks.

Such a perspective is degrading, both to those who give care and to those who receive it. It frequently leads to the assumption that the recipient of care is a burden on the carer, and it denies the agency of the disabled person in finding and choosing a carer (which is often something in which disabled people invest tremendous time, energy, resources, and intentionality). Moreover, it ignores all that the carer themselves gains from the relationship with the person for whom they care - which may include payment (and thus a livelihood!) but often also includes deep friendship and emotional intimacy.

The nature of trust - and the difference between trust and mere reliance - has received a great deal of philosophical attention. One class of theory that I particularly like are trust-responsiveness theories. According to these theories, to be trustworthy is to take the very fact that you are being trusted to act in a particular way as a reason to act in that way.

If I merely rely on you to care for me, then I expect that you will care for me, but not necessarily because of my expectation. Perhaps you are a very altruistic person, or you are driven by financial incentive, or you promised someone else that you would care for me - and thus I know you will care for me whether I expect it or not.

However, if I trust you to care for me, then I expect you to take my trust in you as a reason not to let me down. It’s not just that you’re a generally caring person - it’s that you’re someone who values the trust I place in you, and who wouldn’t betray that trust.

The relationship of carer and care recipient is a relationship of trust, not just a relationship of need or reliance. A true carer values the trust of the person they care for and is responsive to it. They are not simply a support, they are a supporter - actively contributing and honouring the ways in which the one for whom they care chooses to be vulnerable to them and chooses to trust them with that vulnerability.

Because of this, those who receive care often also have a kind of power over their carers. Sometimes this is a financial power, where the care recipient is the carer’s employer (often through various disability insurance schemes), and thus the carer may rely on the care recipient for their livelihood. But even when this is not the case, one who receives care may have options when considering potential carers - and should a would-be carer repeatedly betray their trust, they are likely to withdraw it entirely. Like the attendants and courtiers ultimately serve the king, a carer should - in theory - serve at the pleasure of the one who receives care.

An important caveat: In the society in which we currently live - and especially in places with under-resourced disability support schemes - disabled people who need care often lack effective or trustworthy carers, and may have insufficient choice of carers. Such conditions are dangerous - disabled people often end up in positions where they are forced to accept inadequate or even abusive carers - and sometimes carers end up in positions where they are trying to take care of people they are not realistically equipped to care for.

When the relationship of care is rooted in indispensability rather than trust, it becomes volatile. Joseph the ‘indispensable’ is kidnapped, assaulted, abused, and framed - and those who relied on him, like Jacob and Potiphar, suffer for this too.

In a just society, relationships of care must be based on trust, and not on indispensability.

Which brings us back to the cupbearer.

The cupbearer is anything but indispensable. Quite the opposite. The cupbearer’s role is founded on the fact that he is, ultimately, dispensable. That if someone poisons Pharaoh’s drink, better for the cupbearer to die than Pharaoh. When we first meet him, he has been thrown in the dungeons, and is in very real danger of execution.

Pharaoh could get another cupbearer. After all, he gets another baker.

But he doesn’t. He grants the cupbearer a reprieve and restores him to his former station.

Why?

Because - I must assume - Pharaoh trusts the cupbearer. He has built up a relationship with this man who has served him faithfully for years, who has risked his life for Pharaoh. It’s a relationship not easily replaced. Even if the cupbearer is dispensable as a service provider, as a confidant and advisor and - perhaps - a friend, as a carer, he is invaluable.

(This is not to say that the cupbearer is perfect - after all, he forgets Joseph for several years, despite Joseph’s plea for him to remember him. Perhaps he is not trustworthy for Joseph. But he is trustworthy for Pharaoh.)

As I write this piece, I keep thinking of the relationship between my fiancée and their support worker, Eren. Eren has been an invaluable supporter to them, and their relationship is characterised by mutual vulnerability. Eren helps them with transport and a myriad of daily tasks and chores. Eren is also my fiancée’s employee, and is also disabled herself - and my fiancée understands when Eren’s back pain is such that she has to cancel a shift. When I proposed to my fiancée, it was Eren who helped me organise the logistics. Perhaps most importantly, they are dear friends - confiding in one another and venting to one another, eating and laughing and joking together. There is an intimacy and companionship that sustains them both through bonds of care and trust.

May everyone have a carer like Eren, or like Pharaoh’s cupbearer - loyal and trustworthy, and whose vulnerability honours their vulnerability.

Raphael Morris (he/they) is an AuDHD rabbinical student at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College. He feels privileged to be part of an intellectual tradition where his preferred modes of cognition, learning, and communication are not just tolerated but actively valued. In his spare time, he enjoys wiki walking, Talmud, long rambling conversations and anything else tangential.