Vayeshev:

Genesis 32:4-36:43.

OVERVIEW

Jacob settles in the land of Canaan. His favorite son, Joseph, brings him critical reports about his brothers. Jacob makes for Yosef a fine tunic of multi-colored woolen strips. Joseph exacerbates his brothers' hatred by recounting prophetic dreams -- of sheaves of wheat bowing to his sheaf, and of the sun, moon and stars bowing to him -- signifying that all his family will appoint him king. The brothers indict Joseph and resolve to execute him. When Joseph comes to Shechem, the brothers relent and decide, at Reuven's instigation, to throw him into a pit instead. Yehuda persuades the brothers to take Joseph out of the pit and sell him to a caravan of passing Yishmaelim. When Reuven returns to find the pit empty, he rends his clothes in anguish. The brothers soak Yosef's tunic in goat's blood and show it to their father Jacob, who assumes that Joseph has been devoured by a wild animal. Jacob is inconsolable. Meanwhile, in Egypt, Joseph has been sold to Potiphar, Pharaoh's Chamberlain of the Butchers. In the Parsha's sub-plot, Yehuda's son Er dies as punishment for preventing his wife Tamar from becoming pregnant because he feared that she would lose her beauty. Onan, Yehuda's second son, then weds Tamar by levirate marriage. He too is punished in circumstances similar to those of his brother. When Yehuda's wife dies, Tamar resolves to have children through Yehuda, as this union will found the Davidic line culminating in the mashiach. Meanwhile, Joseph rises to power in the house of his Egyptian master. His extreme beauty attracts the unwanted advances of his master's wife. Enraged by his rejection of her, she slanders Joseph, accusing him of attempting to seduce her, and he is imprisoned. In jail, Joseph successfully predicts the outcome of the dream of Pharaoh's wine steward, who is re-instated; and the dream of Pharaoh's baker, who is hanged. In spite of his promise, the wine steward forgets to help Joseph after he is released, and Yosef languishes in jail.

Overview courtesy of Rabbis Newman and Sinclair, Ohr Somayach