VAYECHI

TThis is the final parsha of Genesis (47:28-50:26) and recounts Jacob’s and Joseph’s deaths. Jacob offers some incredibly crochety predictions for what will happen to his sons.  Then Jacob dies, and Joseph arranges the funeral.  All the brothers travel to Canaan and the ancestral tomb at Machpelah where they bury Jacob, and then return to Egypt.  The brothers are all afraid that Joseph will exact his revenge on them for how poorly they treated him, now that Jacob is gone.  But Joseph reassures them that this will not happen, and he reiterates his view that it was divine providence that led him to Egypt (50:18-21).  He continues to take care of them. Joseph dies, but not before extracting a commitment from his kin that they will carry his bones to Canaan when they eventually return there to the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

I want to discuss four themes. 

• How read the “predictions” of Jacob for his sons.

• The contrast between Jacob and Joseph as they age and die

• The legacy of the different patriarchs

• The persistence of exile from the promised land.

The “predictions” that Jacob offers on his deathbed are certainly a mixed lot (49:2-27). He still resents Reuben for having sex with Bilhah (35:22). He excludes Simeon and Levi from the council of Israel and basically disinherits them “Let not my being be counted in their assembly.” (49:6).  He offers effusive praise to Judah and Joseph, and maybe Benjamin, if you think being compared to a ravenous wolf consuming your foe is a compliment.  Then there are the incomprehensible comments such as “Naphtali is a hind let loose which yields lovely fawns.” (49:21) What does that mean?    

These predictions come after a weird kind of replay of the scene in which Jacob stole the birthright from Esau. Jacob’s eyes are dim with age, as were Isaac’s, and Jacob deliberately insists on blessing Joseph’s younger son above his older son, repeating the pattern of the favored younger son, even when Joseph corrects him (48:8-20).  However, in this case there doesn’t seem to be any repercussions from this deliberate mix up.

Jacob’s predictions fit into one of the very common functions of myth in a society. Myths, among other things, serve to explain and justify the reality in which people find themselves.  Myth provides divine sanction for the status quo of social organization and thus reinforces it.  This is Anthropology 101 and Genesis 49:3-27.

The authors of the Hebrew Bible had, as one of their main purposes, the elevation of the tribe of Judah and the line of King David over all other tribes.  Our text reinforces the idea that this has divine sanction, rather than just being a political position with political opposition. 

Why is this important to us today?  After all, not many of us spend time worrying about kingship in Israel or the relative position of different tribes.  But we all live out patterns, we all have sometimes incoherent beliefs about how things absolutely are.  These beliefs are so powerful that it is akin to having divine force behind them.

Let me give you a personal example.  For a long time in my chronologically adult life, I felt like a flawed failure. That feeling was as obvious to me as Judah’s predominance or Simeon’s lawlessness was to the ancient readers of Genesis; it was just the way things were.  I didn’t want it to be that way, I was full of anger and resentment about it, just as members of the tribe of Reuben were about the usurpation of their rightful place by the tribe of Judah. This feeling of being a flawed failure was as massive as a boulder, and as easy to move. I didn’t know why God was punishing me, (while also blessing me in some unexpected ways), but I was completely convinced I was being punished.  God and I have had a lot of discussions about this in the woods, and I certainly carry this around with me.  Myths are incredibly powerful things that serve to reinforce models, models that can move us forward like Judah, hurt us like Reuben, or be just kind of neutral like Zebulon by the sea.  Imagine if you are a child of the tribe of Zebulon but don’t feel at home near the sea but radically prefer the desert and raising sheep. What do you do?  It wasn’t as simple in those days to leave behind societal organization which was strengthened by myth which gave the way society was organized divine sanction.

What archetypes or patterns run your life? What in our lives feels like it has the force of the divine behind it, that it is the way it is because it has to be, when in fact, maybe it isn’t divine at all but a mess to be rectified? 

Developmentally, one rather large part of growing old is coming to terms with one’s impending death.  We all make choices throughout life. Some work and some fail.  Some make a huge difference and some have far lesser impact.   One big difference between being younger and getting older is that when we are in our 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, it is common enough to think that if something didn’t work, you could take another crack at it.  That is certainly how I thought.  But when there are more yesterdays than tomorrows, as Bill Clinton once said, it is time to turn towards acceptance and making peace with what worked and didn’t work in one’s life.  Jacob hasn’t done that at all judging from the curses he heaps upon his children on his deathbed.

Joseph, on the other hand, seems more content and his death far less eventful. His brothers are obviously fearful after Jacob’s death, so they make up this terrible story that Jacob said on his deathbed that Joseph should forgive them for all the ways they wronged him back in Canaan. Then they offer to be his slaves! (50:15-18) This is all true, even though, as we discussed in the last parsha, Vayigash, he has already forgiven them.  Joseph simply reiterates that it is all for the good and that he will take care of them.  “Have no fear.  Am I a substitute for God? Besides, although you intended me harm, God intended it for good, so as to bring about the present result—the survival of many people.” (50:19-20)

If we also look at Joseph’s relationship with Jacob, it feels mutual and content.  Jacob bows to him (47:31) after Joseph swears to him that he will take him up and bury him at Machpelah with his ancestors.  And Joseph bows to Jacob when he introduces his children (48:12).   Joseph is the one who takes over and handles the burial details when Jacob dies, as if he is the eldest, instead of the 11nth son.  He arranges for the embalmment and then the internment in Machpelah with Jacob’s parents and grandparents. Joseph seems to feel secure in his role both in an Egyptian context and in a Hebrew one.  His last wish is that his bones are returned to Canaan when the Hebrews return to the land promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. A full life.

Joseph, who is not the patriarch in Jewish imagination that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are, sure seems like the one who became an elder.

If you are 60 or older, take a really serious look at starting to get complete.  Start with an inventory of regrets and things that feel unfinished.  Talk about it, write about it, pray about it.  My favorite place for this is my hitobdedut practice where I sit alone in the woods and talk about things that I am incomplete about, letting myself realize that they are in the past.  If there is clean up action, take it.  If not, let it go. Reb Zalman wrote a very good book on this From Aging to Saging.  Ron Pevny also wrote a wonderful book called Conscious Living, Conscious Aging.  He was a guide with Animas Valley, the group founded by Bill Plotkin, so has an orientation towards the more than human world.

If you are younger, you probably have more time, but there’s no time like now to get complete with what chews at you from your life.   Please also understand that death is both something literal and is also a metaphor for parts of your life that are past or that you have outgrown.

What is incomplete in your life that are you still carrying around from the past?  What in your life needs to die? What has died that you regret?

What is the legacy that our four main male Hebrew characters of Genesis have left behind? Abraham leaves Isaac both his connection to YHVH and his grazing land around Beer Sheva. As I have argued before, Isaac seems to be a character who doesn’t fully inhabit his life.  Abraham transmits what he can and Isaac receives it cleanly, even if Ishmael actually winds up having a greater nation from his progeny.  Isaac supposedly leaves his birthright to Jacob, only Esau actually grazes the land while Jacob flees.  When Jacob returns, it is Esau who gives him the birthright of the land from Isaac.  As for the relationship with YHVH, that is passed on successfully, through Jacob’s dream work.  Jacob passes on…I’m not sure what. The grazing land in Canaan is abandoned for the riches of Goshen, won by Joseph’s service to Pharoah.  As for the relationship with YHVH, clearly Joseph’s life is aligned with the divine.  But to me, this seems more about Joseph’s work, and not anything that is passed down from Jacob. Further, the word for the divine in most of the Joseph story is Elohim, rather than YHVH as it is for Jacob. Elohim is a more general word with YHVH more of a proper name.  This perhaps suggests that Joseph’s understanding of the divine is pretty different than Jacob’s.

          What do you want your material legacy to your children to be?  What about your spiritual legacy to them?

Our ancestors were not very committed to the Promised Land.  When Jacob dies, Joseph and his brothers, with Pharoah’s permission, take an embalmed Jacob and fulfill his wish and bring him back to Canaan to be buried. And then they all return to Egypt, even as his brothers offer Joseph to be his slaves. Why not simply stay in Canaan?  The famine is over.  Here is the land in which they are supposed to be a great nation—and they leave it to go back into exile.  Joseph has obviously made a home in Egypt, has an Egyptian wife and kids along with an intimate relationship with Pharoah.  But his brothers—why would they prefer Goshen to Canaan?

I grew up as a Labor Zionist, believing that working the sacred soil of the Holy Land was the highest form of Jewish life and hinei, behold, I not only live in exile in the United States, but I even live in a Continental ecosystem with 4 seasons rather than in a place like Northern California with an ecosystem comparable to Israel.  On purpose! Like our ancestors, I am not so committed to the Promised Land.  I am grateful for where I live because it is the ecosystem that feels right in my bones, so hineini, here I am.

I asked about what felt at home in discussing parshat Noach in the context of the lineages in that parsha and how almost none of us can identify ourselves as son or daughter of x and y, tribe of Z.  Here the lineages are crystal clear and they have the possibility of being grounded in Canaan, but all of them vote with their feet to stay in Egypt because it feels like home.

What place feels like home?  Why?  Are there choices you make in life which are akin to what the sons of Jacob do when they decide to stay in Egypt?

QUESTIONS

What archetypes or patterns run your life? What in our lives feels like it has the force of the divine behind it, that it is the way it is because it has to be, when in fact, maybe it isn’t divine at all but a mess to be rectified? 

What is incomplete in your life that are you still carrying around from the past?  What in your life needs to die? What has died that you regret?

What do you want your material legacy to your children to be?  What about your spiritual legacy to them?

What place feels like home?  Why? Are there choices you make in life which are akin to what the sons of Jacob do when they decide to stay in Egypt?