The Book of Genesis has reached its closing chapter, with Jacob, grandfather of
the emerging tribes of Israel, lying on his death bed surrounded by his
family.
Our sages teach that Jacob prayed to God for a warning before
death; an illness that would provide him the opportunity to prepare to take
leave of the world by placing his household and business in order, giving and
seeking forgiveness, righting past wrongs and expressing his legacy for the
future.
Jacob is 147 years old as he reviews his many experiences and
peregrinations, his trials and his triumphs, the relationships he nurtured and
the relationships he neglected. Now, as his entire life passes before him, he
expresses his last will and testament. This is not about giving material gifts
to his children; instead he praises and chastises each one, assessing their
strengths, charging them to use their gifts for the good of self, family and
world.
What clearly emerges is how much Jacob has learned from his
children, how far he has come from the young father who prematurely elevated the
precocious firstborn of his most beloved wife to position of familial
leadership.
Judah is his heir apparent, accepted by all the brothers as
leader. Leadership must be won by the willing acclamation – it cannot be imposed
from without by paternal fist.
Judah’s most noteworthy trait is his
ability to repent and change, his ability to rise above his weaknesses: “From
the torn and bespattered cloak [‘teref’ is reminiscent of ‘tarof toraf Yosef,’
(Gen. 37:33)] you have risen, my son” (Gen. 49:9). From your sale of Joseph to
your willingness to become a slave in Egypt in place of Benjamin, from your
having forsaken one son of Rachel to your having assumed personal responsibility
for her other son.
Judah’s lionesque strength manifests itself in his
ability to overcome and change himself, in his ability to teach by knowledge and
example rather than by physical force and the sword. He is the peaceful unifier
of the family, and from there shall he unify the world with the ingathering of
nations and the peaceful prosperity gleaned from plentiful
vineyards.
Joseph is the most charming and fruitful of the brothers, a
ben-porat (fruitful bough), which comes from the Hebrew pri (fruit) or the
Aramaic apirion, meaning charm or grace (B.T. Bava Metzia 119a and Rashi ad
loc). He receives the material blessings of “the heavens above and the abyss
crouching below.” He is certainly master over his brothers in Egypt by dint of
his grand viziership, but remains separated and divided from them in his
elevated status.
Joseph has changed drastically from the arrogant kid
brother whose dreams expressed his desire for Egyptian agriculture rather than
Israelite sheepherding, who saw himself and not God as the center of the family
and even of the cosmos. When he stands before Pharaoh, a chastened Joseph gives
full credit to God, and with his last breath he asks to be buried in the Land of
Israel.
Nevertheless, he cannot be the ultimate leader of the family and
progenitor of the Messiah because, for most of his life, he expended his
energies toward the furtherance of Egypt rather than Israel and the family
mission.
Moreover, he never repents for his immature braggadocio – and it
is only repentance, like that of Judah, which brings atonement, at-one-ment,
true family unity.
Joseph does forgive his brothers for their cruelty
toward him, however, and he even forgives his father for having mismanaged the
internal family. Joseph teaches that it was God Himself who extracted from their
jealous hatred the building blocks for redemption; did not Joseph save them from
starvation in Canaan, and was he not the catalyst for their subsequent Egyptian
enslavement and redemption? None of these momentous events would have happened
had Joseph not been victimized by his siblings.
It is Jacob, however, who
repents most deeply. The most painful lesson that he learns is that blind Isaac
may have been a more profound seer than was the wise Rebekah, that in a family,
blessings can be divided among many sons, aspects of leadership can be shared,
no son ought be rejected, each sibling is to be held responsible for every other
sibling. Esau should have been co-opted, not rejected. Only the unified family
can be greater than the sum of its parts.
Hence, Jacob does what his
father Isaac had wished to do: he bestows the birthright scepter of religious
and universal leadership upon Judah, the material blessings of a double portion
upon Joseph, and continues to divide the many other blessings among the rest of
his children. Ultimately he realizes that nothing is as important as the
continuity of the entire family and the transmission of its narrative and
mission into the future.
He also recognizes that in singling out young
Joseph above all the other brothers, he – Jacob – had really been responsible
for the subsequent enmity and jealousy that almost tore the family asunder.
Hence he can truly forgive all of his sons for their deceptions, sincerely bless
them and charge them with the continuity of the Abrahamic legacy, leaving this
earthly journey at peace with himself and his beloved family.
The writer
is the founder and chancellor of Ohr Torah Stone Colleges and Graduate Programs
and chief rabbi of Efrat.
|