Vayyechi
Genesis 47:28 - 50:26
Précis: As the Book of Genesis comes to a close, Jacob lived (vayyechi) in the land of Egypt for 17 years and dies after giving a final, poetic, individualized ethical testament to each of his sons. In a great funeral procession, Joseph, his brothers, Pharaoh and his court bring Jacob’s body to Machpela to be buried. At the end of the parasha, which is also the end of the Book of Genesis, Joseph also dies after exacting a promise from his family to (eventually) bring his remains to the family plot as well.
Genesis 48:11. “I never expected to see you again, and here God has let me see your children as well”
Abraham Joshua Heschel has said, “Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin.” How does this statement relate to Jacob?
Last week, we read that Jacob informed Pharaoh, “The years of my sojourn are one hundred and thirty. Few and bad have been the years of my life, nor do they come up to the life spans of my fathers” (Genesis 47:9). At a time when Jacob should have been happy with his family’s reunion, he can only think about the hard life he had lived, and of its disappointments. A tragic flaw in Jacob’s character as portrayed up to this point is that he lacked the ability to recognize the blessings of life, a flaw which many of us share.
But in this parasha, we see another side of Jacob. As he is about to die, Jacob says to Joseph, “I never expected to see you again, and here God has let me see your children as well” (Genesis 48:11). Jacob is expressing his awareness that he has indeed experienced much good in his life. Jacob goes on to offer his blessing to his grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh: “The God who has been my shepherd from my birth to this day, the Angel who has redeemed me from all harm — bless these lads” (48:15).
Jacob’s death-bed utterance reveals that he at last recognizes the blessings in his life. He asks that the same Angel who has protected him through his travels will do the same for his grandsons.
As Heschel says, we cannot be indifferent to the wonders all around us. Let’s use these verses as a reminder of the need to appreciate what we have. When we focus on life’s tribulations, we can forget all that is good in life. This is the basic rationale for the recitation of so many brachot into our daily lives: we are acknowledging God’s gifts in all that we experience.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
Shalom Bayit - It's Your Choice
Vayigash
Genesis 44:18 - 48:27
Précis: We approach the end of the Joseph saga. Benjamin is being held by Joseph as the alleged thief of a gold cup. Judah comes near (vayigash) Joseph, and begs for his brother’s life, offering himself as a substitute. Joseph is overcome and reveals himself to his brothers, forgiving them for selling him into slavery, stating that it was all part of God’s plan. Joseph sends them back home to bring Jacob and their families down to Egypt in order to survive the famine. They comply, and Joseph arranges for them to reside in the land of Goshen, living off “the fat of the land” at Pharaoh’s insistence. During the remainder of the famine, Joseph purchases land and cattle for Pharaoh in exchange for the grain stored during the seven years of plenty. The Israelites prosper and multiply.
Genesis 45:5-7 "And now, don’t be troubled, don’t be chagrined because you sold me here, for it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. There have already been two years of famine in the land, and there remain five more years without plowing or harvesting. So God has sent me ahead of you to assure your survival in the land, and to keep you alive for a great deliverance."
Here Joseph has revealed his identity to his brothers, who fear retribution. Joseph, instead, is magnanimous, giving, and forgiving. It is a wonderful example of the importance of “shalom bayit” (literally, peace in the house, but meaning much more: the maintenance of peaceful relationships within families and communities).
There is no textual support for Joseph’s statement: nowhere does the Torah tell us that his sale into slavery was part of a Divine Plan to save the Israelites. Perhaps Joseph had a revelation – not recorded in the text – in which God’s plan was explained.
I prefer another way of considering the statement. Joseph was choosing to remember positives. He was not remembering his brothers’ plans to kill him, or of their placing him in a pit (while they casually had a meal!), or of their selling him into slavery. Perhaps he was recalling his own behavior towards them: boasting about his dreams or parading around in his cloak (a sign of their father’s favoritism). In either case, he was choosing to look forward, to be a problem solver, to avoid holding a grudge or acting upon it.
In our own lives, we have the choice of concentrating on the hurtful or hateful things others have done to us, or we can remember what we did to earn the enmity of others. We can break the pattern of charge and counter charge, complaint and rejoinder, hateful action and cold rejection. We can reach out to those who we have held at a distance, perhaps because of long-ago ill-remembered slights. Like Joseph, we can choose to be magnanimous and forgiving, and to ignore even well-deserved animosity. Life is short; let’s not wait.
Genesis 44:18 - 48:27
Précis: We approach the end of the Joseph saga. Benjamin is being held by Joseph as the alleged thief of a gold cup. Judah comes near (vayigash) Joseph, and begs for his brother’s life, offering himself as a substitute. Joseph is overcome and reveals himself to his brothers, forgiving them for selling him into slavery, stating that it was all part of God’s plan. Joseph sends them back home to bring Jacob and their families down to Egypt in order to survive the famine. They comply, and Joseph arranges for them to reside in the land of Goshen, living off “the fat of the land” at Pharaoh’s insistence. During the remainder of the famine, Joseph purchases land and cattle for Pharaoh in exchange for the grain stored during the seven years of plenty. The Israelites prosper and multiply.
Genesis 45:5-7 "And now, don’t be troubled, don’t be chagrined because you sold me here, for it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. There have already been two years of famine in the land, and there remain five more years without plowing or harvesting. So God has sent me ahead of you to assure your survival in the land, and to keep you alive for a great deliverance."
Here Joseph has revealed his identity to his brothers, who fear retribution. Joseph, instead, is magnanimous, giving, and forgiving. It is a wonderful example of the importance of “shalom bayit” (literally, peace in the house, but meaning much more: the maintenance of peaceful relationships within families and communities).
There is no textual support for Joseph’s statement: nowhere does the Torah tell us that his sale into slavery was part of a Divine Plan to save the Israelites. Perhaps Joseph had a revelation – not recorded in the text – in which God’s plan was explained.
I prefer another way of considering the statement. Joseph was choosing to remember positives. He was not remembering his brothers’ plans to kill him, or of their placing him in a pit (while they casually had a meal!), or of their selling him into slavery. Perhaps he was recalling his own behavior towards them: boasting about his dreams or parading around in his cloak (a sign of their father’s favoritism). In either case, he was choosing to look forward, to be a problem solver, to avoid holding a grudge or acting upon it.
In our own lives, we have the choice of concentrating on the hurtful or hateful things others have done to us, or we can remember what we did to earn the enmity of others. We can break the pattern of charge and counter charge, complaint and rejoinder, hateful action and cold rejection. We can reach out to those who we have held at a distance, perhaps because of long-ago ill-remembered slights. Like Joseph, we can choose to be magnanimous and forgiving, and to ignore even well-deserved animosity. Life is short; let’s not wait.
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