Beginnings, Endings, & Whole-Hearted Walking: Va-y’hi

As I get ready to fully step into my new role as a rabbi this Sunday, I come to the ending of a long journey, and of new beginnings as a Jewish leader.

In Torah this week, with the last chapters of Genesis, we come to the ending of beginnings.

Va-Y’hi is about facing the temporality of our stay, our sojourn (m’gurey), as Jacob puts it, on our dear planet Earth.

It’s about establishing the Israelite people and its leadership going forward.

But it’s also about memory.

The Parsha begins with Jacob’s imminent death, and ends with his son Joseph’s death.

Jacob has been in Egypt for seventeen years (the same age Joseph was when he was thrown into a pit and sold into slavery).

He summons Joseph and makes him swear an oath not to bury him in Egypt; he must take him up to the land of his forefathers and mothers and bury him with them, in the cave of Machpelah.

Next, Jacob informs him that Joseph’s two sons, Menasheh and Ephraim, now belong to Jacob.

And, he does the thing that has happened repeatedly in Genesis; he gives leadership to the one who does not have primogeniture.

Defying Joseph’s correction, he crosses his arms and places his hands on the children’s heads opposite to what is deemed the “correct” order.

Jacob takes these children “back to Israel.”

Then he calls in the rest of his sons in order to bless them.

But instead of blessing who they might become, more accurately, he describes their characters, and decides their destiny.

Reuben, his first born, is stripped of his birthright for having (in a premature and improper manner) “taken” his place by sleeping with his father’s wife (as observed by Leon Kass in The Beginning of Wisdom).

Simeon and Levi are too violent (they were responsible for slaughtering the entire population of Shechem after their sister Dinah’s rape).

That leaves Judah: the strong, level-headed one who made an effort to save Joseph, the one who recognized his responsibility to his daughter-in-law Tamar.

Thus, Jacob publicly de-thrones Joseph as the leader of his people, placing Judah at the top.

Says Leon Kass:

“In this way, Jacob, at the end of his life—like his father, Isaac—confesses his error regarding his sons…

“But unlike Isaac, Jacob does so in public, before all his sons…

“Joseph, it appears, had only half understood his youthful ‘Egyptian’ dream about the sheaves of wheat: his brothers did indeed bow down to him, but only in Egypt…

“In Israel, the brothers—including Joseph’s sons—will be led by Judah.” (p. 648)

Despite all the preparations for dying, only Joseph seems unprepared for his father’s death, throwing himself upon Jacob’s face and weeping loudly over his body.

Here again he is set apart from his brothers.

(And what are his tears about?)

To prove his father’s point about leadership, Joseph strangely does not proceed immediately to carry through on his vow.

Instead, he puts his own spin on things—the Egyptian spin.

Joseph calls the Egyptian physicians to mummify Jacob, who is mourned in Egyptian style.

Tellingly, it is Israel, the name used to define the future people, (not Jacob) whom the physicians mummify. (p. 651)

Only once the Egyptian mourning period is up, Joseph cautiously sends word to Pharaoh of the vow he made to his father.

To Pharaoh, Joseph timidly asks permission (“let me go up”) to bury Jacob’s body.

But he keeps some important details to himself: the cave where his other ancestors are, and not least of all, Jacob’s insistence, “not in Egypt.”

And he makes sure Pharaoh knows he will be back!

Then Joseph and his brothers, with their father’s body, accompanied by all the Egyptian servants in full regalia and incredible fanfare, with chariots and all, go on a round-about journey to reach the cave (what’s that about?).

Only at the end do the brothers finally carry their father’s coffin on their shoulders, Israelite style, and place it in the cave.

The death of their father leads the brothers to become fearful again at the possibility of Joseph continuing to harbor bad feelings towards them and taking revenge.

When they approach him, asking forgiveness, Joseph continues to set himself apart, as noted by Kass;

“Joseph manages at the same time to appear pious and hubristic.” (p. 657)

Kass explains that the brothers had appealed to Joseph on account of their father’s request to forgive them (a made-up story?);

But “Joseph, as is so often the case, functions on two levels, and his response, albeit generous, is also alienating.”

For Joseph had (generously) said, “Fear not; for am I in the place of God? And you, though you meant evil against me, God meant it for good.”

“Speaking as a human being, Joseph is unforgiving…

“Speaking as the self-appointed spokeman for God, Joseph insists that there is nothing to forgive.

“However much Joseph’s speech succeeds in allaying his brothers’ fears, he preserves his distant stance…Joseph, to the last, keeps himself apart.”

As the Parsha and the book of Genesis come to a close, we finally come to Joseph’s death, fifty years after Jacob dies.

“Joseph…acknowledges in the end that not he but God is the true savior of his father’s house. God, remembering His promises, will lead the exodus ‘out of this land’ and will bring them to the land promised to the patriarchs…

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יוֹסֵף֙ אֶל־אֶחָ֔יו אָנֹכִ֖י מֵ֑ת וֵֽאלֹהִ֞ים פָּקֹ֧ד יִפְקֹ֣ד אֶתְכֶ֗ם וְהֶעֱלָ֤ה אֶתְכֶם֙ מִן־הָאָ֣רֶץ הַזֹּ֔את אֶל־הָאָ֕רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר נִשְׁבַּ֛ע לְאַבְרָהָ֥ם לְיִצְחָ֖ק וּֽלְיַעֲקֹֽב׃

Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die. God will surely take notice of you and bring you up from this land to the land promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” (Gen. 50:24)

“…But if God will remember the House of Israel, who will remember Joseph? And what place will he have in the world of the Promised Land?” (p. 658)

In his final speeches, Joseph gets his brothers to swear that they will remember him, when God remembers them, and that they will take his bones out of Egypt:

וַיַּשְׁבַּ֣ע יוֹסֵ֔ף אֶת־בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל לֵאמֹ֑ר פָּקֹ֨ד יִפְקֹ֤ד אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶתְכֶ֔ם וְהַעֲלִתֶ֥ם אֶת־עַצְמֹתַ֖י מִזֶּֽה׃

So Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “When God has taken notice of you, you shall carry up my bones from here.” (Gen. 50:25)

Joseph, observes Kass, dies alone.

There is no public mourning, no funeral described.

He is embalmed and placed in a coffin.

As we know, embalming prevents decay; it is an attempt to beautify and preserve the body.

It is an imagining of immortality.

Burial, on the other hand, accepts that we are dust to dust.

“The way of Israel is the way of memory, keeping alive not the bodies of the dead but their ever-living legacy in relation to the every-living God…who later summoned Father Abraham and his descendants to ‘walk before Me and be wholehearted.’”

Thus ends Leon Kass in The Beginning of Wisdom. (p.659)

If the way of Israel is the way of memory, and Joseph remembers his fathers, how does Joseph want to be remembered?

How is he remembered?

How do we want to be remembered?

In what ways do we inadvertently set ourselves apart?

If “God” wants us to walk before God and be wholehearted, how do we do that?

What is the beginning of our wisdom?

How do we begin to be wise?

One way to become wise is by doing things like writing our own Viduy, our last confession, and our own will, not of material goods to be passed on, but our legacy on a different level—on the level of Israel, the highest self that goes beyond the material.

Or we can write our own eulogy; how do we each want to be remembered?

Because how we want to be remembered is aspirational, like being Israel as opposed to Jacob.

Like Jacob, we most often live from our lower selves, but sometimes we rise above and become Israel.

The more we practice, the better we’ll get.

We’re a work in progress.

So—please post blessings for me for my ordination, but also for the world in answer to these questions.

And I’ll say Amen!