Radical Torah

At the beginning of this week’s portion, Vayehi, we encounter Jacob on his deathbed:

Jacob lived seventeen years in the land of Egypt, so that the span of Jacob’s life came to one hundred and forty-seven years. And when the time approached for Israel to die, he summoned his son Joseph and said to him, “Do me this favor, place your hand under my thigh as a pledge of your steadfast loyalty: please do not bury me in Egypt. When I lie down with my fathers, take me up from Egypt and bury me in their burial-place.”

It’s a striking last request, and his son Joseph makes a similar one at the very end of the portion (and the end of Bereshit): “When God has taken notice of you, you shall carry up my bones from here.” On one level, it’s a very physical thing to ask: don’t bury me here in a foreign land. Take my bones out of here. Settle them in the place I consider home.” On another level, it’s a request with a lot of emotional resonance. What our forefathers may have been asking is something like, “Don’t leave me behind. Don’t forget me here. Carry me with you when you go.”

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In Parshat Vayechi, Jacob is on his deathbed, imparting his final words of wisdom and blessing to his sons. He first calls Joseph in alone, and implores his son to bury him in Israel, in the Cave of Machpelah, where his ancestors are buried. After begging Joseph to bury him, Jacob tells Joseph that Joseph’s two sons, Ephraim and Menasheh, will receive an inheritance equal to his other sons. Jacob then says, “‘But as for me – when I came from Paddan, Rachel died in the land of Canaan on the road, while there was still a stretch of land to go to Ephrath; and I buried her on the road to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem.’ Then Israel saw Joseph’s sons and he said, ‘Who are these?’” ((Genesis 48:7-8))

Commentators have struggled with this passage. Why does Jacob feel compelled to recount Rachel’s death to Joseph at this point in their conversation – after he asks to be buried in his homeland, and before blessing his grandchildren? Some say that Jacob feels guilty asking to be buried in the Cave of Machpelah, because Rachel had not been buried there. He is afraid that Joseph will harbor feelings of hostility toward him and he feels the need to explain himself. However, Jacob does not give much of an xplanation. He does not explain why he didn’t carry Rachel’s body to the Cave, or why he didn’t return at a later date to move her remains to the special burial place of all of his ancestors.
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Editor’s note: Welcome to our newest contributor, Rabbi Brant Rosen, who serves as the Rabbi of Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation (JRC) in Evanston IL and writes his own blog, Shalom Rav.

“Simeon and Levi are brothers/Their weapons are tools of lawlessness/Let not my person be included in their council/Let not my being be counted in their assembly.” - Genesis 49:5-6

Centuries before the term “cycle of violence” was coined, there was Simeon and Levi…

The centerpiece of Parshat Vayechi is Jacob’s final words to his sons - the famous Biblical poem that is equal part blessing and curse, history and prediction. Jacob saves his harshest words for Simeon and Levi, presumably for their slaughter of the citizens of Shechem following the rape of their sister Dinah (Genesis 34).

Many contemporary commentators suggest that the Torah’s generally pejorative portrayal of Simeon and Levi might reflect the historically landless status of those particular tribes. In his book “Who Wrote the Bible,” Richard Elliot Friedman suggests that both the Dinah episode and Jacob’s final words to Simeon and Levi reveal the pro-Judah bias of the Biblical “J author.” The geopolitical polemics of these references notwithstanding, Simeon and Levi remain for us as mythic models of unmitigated violence (34:25-29) religious cynicism (34:22-24) and zealous attachment to family honor (34:31).

Especially notable is Jacob’s use of the term “klei hamas” (”tools of lawlessness”). The Hebrew word hamas appears several times in the Bible, and has been also rendered as “violence,” “corruption” or “falsehood.” It is probably best known from the flood narrative in Genesis, where it is used to describe the corrupt generation of Noah.
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