According to tradition, Joseph was the strong, silent type - an older carpenter who willingly submitted to impotent fatherhood - a second-string player in the drama of God's human birth. But according to scripture, none of this is true. All that is actually recorded in the Bible is that Joseph was a dreamer - a righteous man who transformed the meaning of righteousness by taking seriously his dreams.

To be righteous, according to Torah, is to be law-abiding. And so, as a law-abiding Jew, Joseph could have had Mary stoned to death - the punishment commanded in the twenty-first chapter of Deuteronomy for betrothed women who slept with other men. But, to be righteous, according to Torah, also means to be merciful - so Joseph, a man of compassion, decided, instead of stoning, that he would di…