Vayechi 5779
December 22, 2018
Genesis 47:28-50:26
The last time I spoke about Vayechi was in Tucson, Arizona, at Congregation Bet Shalom. I talked about how despite our multitude of tribes, we had more accountability to each other than we ever had before. That the blessings Israel gave to Ephraim and Manasseh affected each tribe of our people. Those blessings did not dilute with time nor distance, rather they multiplied through generations as the numbers of our tribes increased.
This is especially poignant for me today, though I am reading Vayechi through a different lens. Today’s lesson, for me, is colored by the past two years since I last presented this parashah to a congregation.
Ivan and Rabbi Meltzer gave me the honor of today’s drash as a thank you note for my time here.
I’m Eddie, and I’ve been in San Diego since August. My girlfriend, Jalisa, is a travel nurse, and she’s been gracious to have brought me along with her as she travels the country on her assignments. We’ve spent the last year in Southern California, first in Palm Springs, then El Centro, and finally here, in San Diego. When we arrived here I had no idea how deeply I’d fall in love with this city and with this synagogue. I even already had a connection to Ohr Shalom — I photographed your Torah covers for the woman who created them. She’s from my home town of Tucson.
Our time here in San Diego is ending the first week in January, and I am going to miss you all. We’ve had l’chaims, laughs, and tears. We’ve shared triumphs and trauma. I feel closer to this synagogue and so many of you than I have felt with a community in years. For this I cannot thank you enough.
The relationships I’ve made here, the friendships, the ideas, and the love I’ve felt with this impending departure is what is coloring my interpretation of this parashah today. Vayechi is about the death of Yaakov while being titled “and he lived”, and this speaks to me today.
Looking at Torah is never straightforward for me. I’ve always looked at it like studying poetry. We see what we want to see. It’s often influenced by others, by circumstances, be knowledge and science, or any other factor that feeds into our mind and our heart.
I feel what we pull out of Torah reflects on us and what we need more than it reflects on anything else. We say that Torah is truth, and the biggest truth is what we see looking back at us, in the mirror.
Today we read about Jacob preparing his family for his death and his final plan. His desire is to be buried in the graveyard his predecessors made. He doesn’t want to be buried in the place he made home in his later years, but to be with his emotional and spiritual origins.
There’s a lot that plays into this, as his death and the blessings he gives are directly related to many events that lead up to it. He continues the theme of the younger child receiving the larger blessing, as he had done when he supposedly tricked his father in his youth. He condones and condemns the actions of his children. All of these are tied into previous parashot and many events stemming from this event are covered in later portions.
Jacob was a man who was uprooted, who thought he lost his favorite son, who was betrayed by his other children, and who got what he missed most back. He was a man who relocated to help his family and his community. Jacob suffered immensely and ended up springing a nation of people who were that much more prepared for the hardship of the world.
What inspires me and gives me hope every time I read this is that it’s called “and he lived” as he dies. The most notable part of Vayechi, for me, is that Jacob dies. And Torah always makes a deal out of distinguishing Israel from Jacob.
Of course there’s the basic scholarly view: Yaakov or Jacob’s name is what dies. When he works or acts in the interests of the future tribes or for Hashem, he is called Israel. Jacob dies. Israel doesn’t. Oddly, it’s also Jacob who blesses his children, whose descendents will become Israel. Perhaps it’s because blessing ourselves is a faux pas. Perhaps it’s because it’s the father’s duty to bless his children. I think it’s because Jacob, as a man who helped put the material world in the hands of the scholars rather than the plunderers, as a man who brought nuance to what was originally a straightforward dissemination of birthrights, was especially qualified to perceive how his progeny would take up their roles in the world.
Today is the end of many things. It’s the end of the book Bereshit, it’s the end of Jacob, and it’s the end of my time here at Ohr Shalom. While each son of Jacob plays a different role in the nation of Israel, each of you has touched me in a different way. There is not one person here I have not learned from. There is not one person here I have not enjoyed the company of.
My prayer this Shabbat is that while my time here, as this book, and this forefather ends, the impact you’ve had on me will live and flourish. That you and I have been mutually inspired and enriched. I hope and pray that when we part ways, we are all better for our interactions and clearer on our paths in this world.
Ohr Shalom, and every person here, thank you for becoming my tribe and thank you for being wonderful. Shabbat shalom.
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