This study examines the Babylonian Talmud’s account (Sotah 36b) of Joseph’s temptation in Potiphar’s house, wherein Joseph “thrust his fingers into the earth” until “his semen issued forth from between his fingernails.” Through close textual analysis of the Talmudic passage, Rashi’s philological commentary, comparative mythology, and Chassidic elaborations, we demonstrate that this narrative preserves an understanding of moral agency fundamentally incompatible with medieval Jewish rationalist theology. The rabbinic account presents free will not as autonomous rational capacity—the model dominant in Maimonidean philosophy and Orthodox theological discourse—but rather as embodied dialectical struggle requiring divine collaboration. Drawing upon frameworks of embodied theology and therapeutic tzimtzum developed in contemporary medical humanities scholarship, we argue that the Joseph narrative challenges both theological rationalism (autonomous will) and biomedical reductionism (chemical determinism), instead articulating an anthropology in which sanctification occurs through rather than despite corporeal crisis. The shocking anatomical impossibility of semen emerging from fingernails functions as theological necessity, marking the moment where maximal human exertion meets divine grace in the violent redirection of desire toward holiness. Comprehensive analysis of Chassidic interpretations from ten major figures demonstrates sustained recovery of this embodied wisdom against centuries of rationalist suppression. This study contributes to ongoing reassessment of agency, embodiment, and divine-human collaboration in Jewish thought, with implications for understanding the therapeutic encounter as site of sacred struggle.
Joseph Accused by Potiphar's Wife, 1655 by Rembrandt