D’VAR TORAH EINSTEIN ANNUAL MEETING 5784

Note: Albert Einstein is a small Jewish day school in Wilmington Delaware. I just delivered these comments upon my retirement from the board.

Every departure is a kind of death.  After something like 10 years as an officer, I am leaving the board.  Of course, I’ll still be only a phone call or email away and I’m staying on the finance committee.  My son likes to joke that I’m going to be in my casket with my phone, it will ping, and I’ll sit up and say you can’t bury me yet, I have to answer this email. Still, I am leaving and that will be a small d death for both me and the board.  So I want to offer a few thoughts about the lives and deaths of two great ancestors of ours, Jacob and Joseph.

Jacob was granted a great gift when he was blessed with the name “Israel”, “Godwrestler” after he struggled with an angel and was not defeated. (Genesis 32:25-29).  The granting of this name is a great testament to Jacob’s courage and commitment; most of us would be easily defeated by the angel.  And yet, what should be a mid point in Jacob’s spiritual development seems rather an end point.  His life after that a disappointment.  The leadership of the family turns to this 11nth son whom he obviously favored over his half brothers and he dies without ever resolving the dysfunctional family dynamics.  On his deathbed, for instance, he curses his eldest Reuben because he slept with one of Jacob’s concubines (Genesis 49:4), his next two sons Simeon and Levi are cursed to be scattered and deprived of his post death counsel (Genesis 49:5-7) and promotes his fourth son Judah to the leadership of the tribe (Genesis 49:8-12).

Joseph was also granted a great gift when he was given the name by Pharoah of Zaphenath-paneah which means something like “God speaks, he lives” or “Creator of life” or “He who explains what is hidden” (Rashi). (Genesis 41:45).  But unlike his father, he actually lives into this name and finds a way to manifest it in the world by creating the system that saves the Egyptians from famine and taking care of his family by settling them in Goshen.  This is a legacy that lives on for four hundred years until a new Pharoah arises in Egypt who knew not Joseph (Exodus 1:8). 

Lastly, his death seems peaceful.  He has repaired the relationship with all of his brothers whom he has forgiven for selling him into slavery.  He has a solid relationship with his father, even as his father deliberately blesses his younger son instead of his older son (Genesis 48:13-20) 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 a spiritual elder, one whose counsel would be valuable.

 I pray that my departure be experienced much more like Joseph’s death than like Jacob’s. There is always work to do, and I hope that my life with Einstein has provided us with a stable foundation. Einstein is in really good shape with wonderful board and professional leadership—and I’m only a phone call or email away.