Parashat Vayechi
December 18, 2021, 14 Tevet 5782
Torah: Genesis 47:28-50:26; Triennial 49:27-50:26
Haftarah: I Kings 2:1-2:12
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In this week's Torah Sparks, you'll find a D'var Torah on the Parashah by Ilana Kurshan called "True Lovingkindness", Vered Hollander-Goldfarb poses questions titled "My Wife or Your Mother?" and Bex Stern Rosenblatt writes about "On Loss" in the Haftarah.
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True Lovingkindness
Ilana Kurshan
Parashat Vayechi chronicles the deaths of Jacob and his son, Joseph, both of whom provide explicit instructions regarding their burials. Just before his death, Jacob summons Joseph and makes him swear to bury him in Canaan. As he later tells the rest of his sons, he wishes to be buried in the cave of Machpelah, alongside his grandparents, parents, and his wife, Leah. Joseph, too, wishes to be buried not in Egypt but in Canaan, and he instructs his brothers to carry his bones there when God brings them to the promised land. A close look at their deathbed wishes, as refracted through the rabbinic imagination, offers insight into the mitzvah of caring for the dead and the nature of true lovingkindness.
Jacob’s instructions to Joseph about his burial are articulated with surprising humility and deference, considering that he is speaking not to a superior but to his own son: “If I have found favor in your eyes, place your hand under my thigh and treat me with lovingkindness and truth: Do not bury me in Egypt” (Genesis 47:29). Perhaps Jacob realizes that he will be powerless to enforce his deathbed wishes, as indeed all of us are; we will not be around to direct our own funerals, and so we can only request of others to comply with our wishes. The midrash on this verse (Genesis Rabbah 96:5) questions the meaning of the phrase “lovingkindness and truth,” chesed v’emet, explaining that in fact it refers to “true lovingkindness,” chesed shel emet. But what other lovingkindness is there, the rabbis ask? Can there be false lovingkindness, chesed shel sheker?
The rabbis answer their question by means of a parable. A person who shows false lovingkindness will carry the coffin of his friend’s son, but not his friend’s coffin. Such a person is clearly acting with the expectation that the favor will be reciprocated: If he carries his friend’s son’s coffin, then it is likely his friend will return the favor and carry his coffin someday. But he does not bother to carry his friend’s coffin because his friend, now dead, will be unable to return the favor. True lovingkindness, explain the rabbis, is performed without any expectation of reciprocity, and thus the ultimate act of true lovingkindess is caring for the dead.
And yet while the dead cannot return the favor, sometimes the reward comes nonetheless. Joseph, in keeping with his father’s request, asked Pharaoh’s permission to depart from Egypt to bury his father in Canaan, and Pharaoh acceded. Joseph then led an august funeral procession comprised of Egyptian dignitaries and his own brothers, who buried Jacob with his ancestors before returning to Egypt. The Talmud, in an extended passage about reward and punishment (Sotah 9b), teaches that Joseph buried his father, but none of his sons were greater than him, and thus it would have been unfit for them to return the favor. The only person who could accord Joseph the honor he deserved was Moses, and thus it was Moses who carried Joseph’s bones to Egypt in a coffin that was carried alongside the holy ark (the same Hebrew word aron is used for both “ark” and “coffin”). The Talmud adds that as a reward for caring for Joseph’s bones, Moses merited to be buried by God. And so on account of Joseph’s kindness in burying Jacob, Moses displayed kindness in burying Joseph; and on account of Moses’ kindness in burying Joseph, God buried Moses. Moreover, God’s act in burying Moses is supposed to be a model for us all, as we learn in a passage on the next page of Talmud about what it means to walk in God’s ways: “Just as the Holy One buried the dead, so should you bury the dead,” the rabbis teach, citing God’s burial of Moses (Sotah 14a).
These are not acts of reciprocity—neither Jacob nor Joseph nor Moses are able to return the favor—but rather cases in which one act of lovingkindness generates others, an idea that Dr. Devora Steinmetz explores in an essay about her experience as a kidney donor (published in The Jewish Week, 22 May 2012). Steinmetz relates that after she donated her kidney to a young Israeli dental student, his grateful and effusive mother kept trying to shower her in gifts. Steinmetz insisted that she would not accept anything, but the woman persisted. So Steinmetz shared with her a lesson about lovingkindness: “When someone does chesed for you, you want to find a way to pay them back, to reciprocate the chesed that they have done, but in most cases you can't ever do that. Yet there is a way that you can pay them back, and that is by doing chesed for someone else.” Lovingkindness, Steinmetz teaches, is about paying it forward.
Some time later, the mother shared with Steinmetz that her son had decided that when he became a dentist, he intended to set aside one day each month—in her name—to treat people who could not afford to pay. The mother was unable to return the favor, but for Steinmetz it was clear that the reward had come nonetheless: “I don’t know whether he will do exactly that,” writes Steinmetz, “but I did feel, in a most powerful way, that this young man and his parents were now recipients of the Torah that I had learned, the Torah of chesed, and that my own acts… will generate more acts of chesed in the world.”
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My Wife or Your Mother?
Vered Hollander-Goldfarb
Background: In this week’s parashah, Jacob is concerned about his upcoming death, asking Joseph to swear to bury him not in Egypt but rather lay him to rest with his ancestors.
Text: Bereshit 48:5-7
5And now your two sons… Ephraim and Manasseh, as Reuben and Simeon they shall be mine... 7And as for me, when I came from Paddan, Rachel died unto me in the land of Canaan on the way, when there was still some way to come to Ephrat; and I buried her there on the way to Ephrat—which is Beth-lehem.’
· Based on Jacob’s description, who was affected by Rachel’s death? How might we have expected him to tell the story of the death of Rachel, considering that he is speaking to Joseph, her eldest son?
· Why do you think that Jacob speaks of Rachel’s death and burial at this point? How might this topic have been handled in the family previously?
· Why might Jacob stress that Rachel died in the land of Canaan?
· While Jacob mentions the suddenness of Rachel’s death and her unique burial, he does not mention the cause of her death (she died giving birth to Benjamin). Why?
Commentary: Seforno Bereshit 48:7
Rachel died unto me - as the rabbis say (Sanhedrin 22): a woman dies first and foremost to her husband.
· What in the wording that Jacob uses led the rabbis to their conclusion?
Commentary: Ibn Ezra First Commentary Bereshit 48:7
And as for me, when I came from Paddan - Rachel died suddenly and I was not able to transport her to the cave of Machpelah and inter her there, as I did with Leah. Jacob told this to Joseph so that “you would not be angry with me for requesting from you [that you do for me] what I did not do for your mother”.
· According to Ibn Ezra’s understanding, what issue is Jacob addressing here? Why is it necessary to discuss it now?
Commentary: HaKtav VeHaKabalah Bereshit 48:7
…He told him that “when Rachel died, I did not bury her elsewhere for she died between the territory of Benjamin and the territory of Ephraim, so I buried her there… in the territory that in the future will be given to her descendants.” And he said “Bethlehem” to tell him that it is called so now, but will be called “Ephrat” in the future because of Ephraim. Simply “Bethlehem” is in the territory of Ephraim, the town in Judah is called Judean Bethlehem.
· How does the reason given by HaKtav VeHaKabalah differ from the idea presented by Ibn Ezra?
· What is the contextual basis for this commentary?
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On Loss
Bex Stern Rosenblatt
King David is very familiar with death. He begins his reign with the heart rendering lament over his predecessors, King Saul and Jonathan, in disbelief over “how the mighty have fallen.” This idea of reversal, of the strong being dispossessed, of even the vivacious returning to dust, becomes well-known to David. He kills his fair share of men, including two-hundred Philistines whose foreskins he collects. But the deaths that strike David the hardest are the deaths of his children.
King David mourns three of his children. When his first child by his beloved wife, Bat Sheva, falls ill, David begins mourning rituals. Later Amnon, David’s firstborn, is killed by his own brother, Absalom, and David “mourned his son for all his days.” Absalom is then killed in rebellion against David and we read the words wrenched from David upon hearing the news: “My son, Absalom, my son, my son, Absalom. Who will give me death, me in place of you? Absalom, my son, my son.”
In this week’s haftarah portion, 1 Kings 2, we encounter David on his deathbed. He knows he is dying. As he says, he is “going the way of all the earth.” We know David is infirm. We have read in the previous chapter of his failing body, his confused mind, and his loss of ability to control his kingdom. Unlike his infant son or Amnon and Absalom in the prime of their lives, David is aware of his coming death. He makes himself ready. And perhaps, his readiness comes as a result of having already lost so many loved ones.
In this week’s parashah, we read the final chapter of Jacob’s life. He too is a father who mourns a child. As I wrote about in Torah Sparks Vayetzei, Jacob is totally consumed by the supposed death of his son, Joseph. His reaction is to release his hold on life. Jacob is determined to descend to Sheol in mourning, to cut himself off from the world of the living emotionally. He refuses to be consoled, refuses to go on living.
David, however, has persevered. After the deaths of three beloved sons, David has continued to rule, continued to function in this world. When the death of Absalom nearly destroyed him, he had a strong enough support network of people to anchor him to this world, to remind him that he was needed here. He provides a welcome contrast to Jacob, a model of what it means to continue to live after the unthinkable.
But there is something beautiful about reading Jacob’s mourning back into David. In this week’s parashah and haftarah, Jacob and David, each about to die, leave instructions for their successors. Jacob, having been reunited with the son he thought he had lost forever, leaves instructions on how his own body should be reunited with the bones and land of his predecessors after his death. Joseph will also follow suit when contemplating his own death, leaving similar instructions for how his remains should be treated. David leaves Solomon a promise to follow in God’s ways and a hit list of people to kill, using his wisdom. Solomon will not ultimately be successful in following in God’s ways, although he does take care of the hit list. As we struggle to make sense of David’s behavior here, we can read his understanding of mourning into it. David leaves this world consciously, joining the sons taken before their times. He wants to tie up loose ends and give Solomon meaning, something to do so that Solomon will not feel upended by the loss of his father the way that David and Jacob felt upended by the loss of the sons.
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Torah Sparks! - Parashat HaShavua Advanced Studies
If you are looking to deepen your knowledge with the weekly Parashah, are trying to find some creative input for your Dvar Torah for your Shabbat sermon, or are simply looking for an engaging discussion about the Parashat HaShavua, FJC’s Thursday Parashat HaShavua Advanced Studies class is for you. On Thursday, December 16, we are offering an Open Day for you to try out our class before you commit to signing up. If you decide to join our weekly Parashat HaShavua Advanced Studies Course, you can sign up for just $36 a month.
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