Why We Still Exist: Vayechi

Why We Still Exist

D’var Torah for Parashat Vayechi

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

As the first book of the Torah, Genesis, reaches its conclusion, it’s as though the original writer of the Holy Book realized that there are so many lessons left to teach, yet so few pages left in the scroll.   In Vayechi (Genesis 47:28—50:26, the last parasha of the book), three story lines come to an end:  Jacob dies; Joseph forgives his brothers; and, finally, Joseph himself dies.

At the same time, however, these three endings turn into new beginnings.  Jacob’s death prompts the blessing of his children; Joseph’s generous act of forgiveness will mean peace between the brothers; and his death contains hope for future redemption.

As Jacob is about to die, he bestows his blessings upon his sons.  It’s a curious reversal of the way Jacob had long ago won for himself the blessing of his father, Isaac.  Now old and worn out, Jacob, like Isaac, is blind.  But unlike Isaac, who was cheated by Jacob and Rebecca, Jacob is in charge of the blessing; he will not be tricked or manipulated.  He gets to determine who gets what blessing. 

Revealing to his sons his vision of the nation they will become, Jacob does not mince words.  He reminds them of their past wrongdoings; but he also foretells a future in which they become one nation, where each of them has a part to play.  It will be Judah’s role, he predicts, to rule over his brothers (a role Judah won when he stepped up and took responsibility for the safety of Benjamin).

Joseph receives a double portion of Jacob’s blessing.  It isn’t only God’s blessing that Joseph will enjoy (“The blessings of the heavens above, the blessings of the deep, lying below,” Gen. 49:25), but also of the blessing of his father and mother.  Joseph is granted Jacob’s deepest wish, the thing he longed for the most but never got:  a peaceful, loving home; a family where love flows abundant between parents and children.

Moreover, Jacob adopts Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Menashe, as his own and blesses them too.  In fact, Jacob ordains that it is so, with the same words, that all Jews will bless their own children, throughout the generations:  Y’simcha Elohim k’Efraim v’chi-Menashe, “May God bless you as Efraim and Menashe.”  These words, have, indeed, become the traditional blessings that parents give to their children every Friday evening, to this day.

The second storyline that ends in this portion is the story of Joseph and his brothers.  With Jacob dead, realignment of the tribes is necessary, and in that context Joseph’s act of forgiveness is a huge step toward reconciliation and peace.  For the moment, while they are all in Egypt, Joseph accepts responsibility for their caretaking.  However, in the larger picture he no longer sees himself as superior.  He has no more dreams of exaggerated power.  Instead, Joseph becomes simply one of the tribes, equal among equals.   From his original position as hated outcast, he has earned for himself an important role among them, though ultimately not that of lawgiver and ruler.

Finally, the Torah turns to Joseph’s death and its aftermath. 

It is at this point in the story of our people that the last member of Abraham’s immediate family dies.  With the passing of God’s blessing to all Israel, the collective households of Jacob’s sons become the People of Israel.  Joseph’s final request, though seemingly directed to his brothers, actually is an oath he makes all Israelites take:  “God will surely remember you, and you shall take up my bones out of here” (Gen. 50:25).   Joseph foresees the years of exile in Egypt, a dark time in which God will seem to have forgotten His people.  Yet after that time, Joseph promises, God will remember.  As God had remembered the promise to Abraham and Sarah that they would have a child, a new beginning, in their old age; as God had promised Abraham in that dread night of dark dreams, that after four hundred years of slavery, God will take note of His people and free them; so the time will most certainly come when God will remember and fulfill the promise and bring them out to freedom.

At that point, Joseph wants the Israelites to remember him, to remember their oath and take his remains with them.  Throughout the years of slavery and misery, Joseph’s remains will serve to remind them that God can bring new life to a forlorn people.  As long as they remember, they will never lose hope, no matter how dark the night might become.  Wherever they go, they must carry this memory with them. 

In due time, the Israelites, as we know, are indeed redeemed from slavery.  As they leave Egypt, they remember to take his embalmed body.  It is the last step in their own process of Redemption:  They had sold Joseph to slavery in Egypt; they now bring him back home. 

Today we no longer have this body.  The reputed place of Joseph’s burial, in the city of Shechem, today known as Nablus, is in a contested area of the Land of Israel.  However, we have never forgotten the oath we took back then, the oath to remember. 

It isn’t only Joseph we remember, however.  It is also of his brothers.  It’s the whole story we remember, a story of betrayal and abandonment, yet also a story of redemption and promises fulfilled.  It is the story of how twelve brothers all learned to live together, to respect one another, to always see themselves as one people, all descendants of one family that, long ago, took a vow to extend a hand to our fellow human being, to feed the hungry, to bring freedom to the oppressed.  As long as we have these oaths enshrined within our hearts, we live on as a people. 

It’s why we still exist.

Chazak chazak v’nit’chazek:  Be strong, be of courage, and we shall all be strengthened.

© 2013 by Boaz D. Heilman