In this week''s reading we witness the famous death-bed scene of Jacob calling forth his sons to relay to them what will happen “b''aharit hayamim” in the final days. This is the first time in the Torah that we see any reference to the type of messianic visions that will eventually become such a major theme in the prophets and later Jewish thought. Jacob, though – unlike the prophets, never does give over the details of a messianic vision. His sons gather expectantly to hear the prophecy. And yet, it doesn''t come. After his teasing preamble, he turns instead to the topic of blessings for each son. We are left on the edge of our eschatalogical seats. Just as in our present reality, the future remains a dark continent of invisible inevitability.
And yet what is visible in the text that might be revelatory to us? One thing which stands out in Jacob''s words is the stress he puts on his sons coming together. “He''asfu,” he says, “Gather together and I will tell you what will be”. And again in the next verse, he bids them, “Hee''kavtzu v''yishmau”. Make of yourselves a group – a kevutzah - and hear your father! For Jacob, it seems that there is something intimately linked about the gathering and the telling, the grouping and the hearing. Indeed, messianic visions by their very nature gather us together, binding our hither-to splintered individual selves into one common narrative, one massive shared drama. Messianism at its best is about unifications, in-gatherings, national and eventually international oneness.What''s more, I would add that it is in our people''s very gathering together that the prophecies of the end of time are themselves brought closer to their fulfillment. It is as if we have an inbuilt propensity for gathering, for grouping...some genetically predisposed sense of nationhood, tribe and shared destiny. The messianic promise I hear in Jacob''s words is that when we as individuals make the move from separateness to togetherness, when each of us is able to access the depth and beauty of that sense of being gathered together, bonded in family and fraternity, then the prophetic vision is one person closer to being fulfilled.I am daily moved by the members of my community who have gathered here in Jerusalem; individuals who are called with an imperative to the fulfillment of our national destiny. Individuals who have chosen to leave behind the comforts and allure of the West, compelled to disentangle from the familiarities of exile, to forge a shared destiny in this complex land. We who chose to dwell here, to gather here, are – in essence - living on a prophecy. None of us know the details of the end of days, and yet we are drawn together with a sense of its immanence.The poem below is about that promising immanence of redemption. It is about the cultivation of a sense of shared destiny. Let us gather together, let us celebrate our familial bond, our commonalities. May we gaze in amazement at the ongoing ingathering of the exiles that is occurring before our very eyes and within our very limbs.
"Destiny we have danced"Destiny we have dancedand with the wind of our will we have wiped away the tears that our destiny did spill and with our hands upon the wheelthat holds our wheels upon the roadwe have driven our desireto our destiny''s abodeand though the road stretches farfrom creation''s first flung light to the far dark destinationof the future in the night we will stop – and take a walkbeneath the sea of starscatching constellations in our net of dreams thrown farfor destiny is glimpsed in and guided by our dreamswhile in waking hours our prayers mix with the reality it brings so let me recall a vision to you of a prayer thrown to an open skyhow our people have watched up after itwith long-enduring yearning eyesand suddenly it has come back downand hit the ground before our feet for fate has come to fulfill the wish that our dreams had dared to seekand we are thankful now not only for the grant of G-d''s permissionbut for the gift of witnessing the long path of prayers processionand thus I come to youoffering this view of an in-gathering in an instantof a people living on a prophecyof community & commitmentand we gather here to witnessthe long path of G-d''s own dreamsWe fulfill G-d’s very prayerswith the reality we bringSo let us wander Yerushalayim togetherand raise our thankful eyeslike dreamers our mouths are full of laughterfor the sight which fills the sky above our heads there blows a visionwe had but beheld in dreamsframed by flickering constellationsa singular blue star beamsIt is a prayer shawl upon the windfor the spirit also praysIt is a sign that day beginsafter we’ve dreamt the night awayit is our flag ~ as fixed as fate and raised on highit dances with the willful windwith prayers and dreamsand you and I1Like Isaiah spoke, “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord''s house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all the nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come and let us go up to the mountain of the lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Ziyyon shall go forth Torah, and the word of the Lord from Yerushalayim. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall decide among many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neighter shall they learn war any more.” (Isaiah 2: 2-4)