In verse 33:6-7, there is a lot of bowing going on. First the handmaids and their children bow before Esau. Then Leah and her children do the same. Finally, Joseph and his mother, Rachel, bow before Jacob's wayward brother.
Rashi points out that the handmaids and Leah come forward before their respective offspring. But Rachel only approaches her brother-in-law and bows to him after Joseph does. Why did Joseph go out before his mother did when the other children waited until after their parents bowed?
Rashi answers with a midrash: Joseph said to himself, "I am worried that Esau will be attracted to my mother. So I will stand in front of her and prevent him from looking at her."
Rashi then says that by protecting his mother from his uncle's salacious gaze, he won for himself the blessing Jacob gave him in Genesis 49:22 - "Joseph is a fruited bough by a well." (The word for "well" and "eye" in Hebrew are the same - עין. Because Joseph protected Rachel from Esau's eye, his blessing described him as a bough by a well.)
In the Torah itself, Joseph stands up for morality again when he refuses to sleep with Potiphar's wife and serves time in prison as a result. In our society, sex crimes are so common that they rarely make the headlines unless a celebrity is involved. It is responsibility of every Jew to stand up for the victims.
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