Parshat Vayechu  16 Tevet 5763, 21 December 2002

Shabbat Shalom: Parshat Vayechi     Genesis 47:28-50:26

By Shlomo Riskin

Efrat, Israel - The Book of Genesis concludes with this week's Torah portion, delineating the specific blessings - and prophetic descriptions - which Grandfather Jacob, Yisrael Sabba, bestows upon each of his twelve sons, destined to become the twelve tribes of Israel, and then describes the death and funeral of the last of the patriarchs as well as the death of his beloved son Joseph, Grand Vizier of Egypt.

Indeed, the very last picture we have of Joseph is of this most successful Jew - a penniless immigrant from the land of Canaan who has risen to fame and fortune in his adopted country as the most powerful individual in Egypt - doubtless seeing his picture in the cover of the most popular Egyptian magazines and his economic and international expertise cited in every learned Egyptian journal. Joseph has even become the patriarch in his own right of a new dynasty developed in Egypt: "...And Joseph lived one-hundred-and-ten years. Joseph saw grandchildren born to (his son) Efraim, and the children of Makhir the son of Menashe were born on the knees of Joseph" (Genesis 50:24).

In the heels of such spectacular professional and familial success in the land of Egypt, the ringing declaration of Zionism and devotion to the homeland of Israel in the very next verse - a verse with which the Book of Genesis virtually concludes - takes the superficial reader with surprise and hardly seems a logical outcome for the situation at hand: "And Joseph said to his brothers, 'I am about to die; G-d will surely remember you and will bring you up from this land to the land which was sworn to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And Joseph abjured the children of Israel, saying: G-d will surely remember you; you must bring up my bones (to Israel) from this (place) "(Genesis 50:25). The very last - and following - verse of Genesis merely records in a dispassionate fashion Joseph's death and embalment - which would make the transport of his remains easier - at age 110.

If any thing, we might have expected Joseph to command his siblings and progeny to remain patriotic to Egypt, the country which had enabled him to rise to unprecedented heights and which had saved the entire family from ignominious death by famine. Remember that it was Joseph who had apparently felt constricted and constrained in the sheep-grazers- land of Israel, who had dreamed of economic success in the form of sheaves of grain in the more sophisticated and agriculturally-oriented center of Egypt, who had even dared dream of international if not cosmic recognition and obeisance as a world leader. To be sure, a final 'plug for Zionism' certainly seems in consonance with the Book of Genesis, wherein the first patriarch Abraham is given the commandment of 'aliyah' as his very first charge from the Divine: 'Get you forth (for your own good) from your land, from your birthplace, from your father's house to the land which I shall show you' (Genesis 12:1). But such a message seems to ring false coming from Joseph at the crescendo of his success - no longer a stranger in a strange land of Egypt but as one who his more than earned the right to call Egypt his home!

It seems to me that a more careful reading of the text will reveal the source of Joseph's disillusionment with his adopted country and explain his death-bed request to be buried in Israel. The last chapter of the Book of Genesis opens immediately following the death of Jacob, upon which "Joseph falls upon the face of his father, weeps over him and kisses him" (Genesis 50:1). He then commands the doctors to embalm the body and decrees a seventy-day mourning period throughout Egypt. What now follows in the text, however, is almost inexplicable in its between - the - lines insinuation: ."..And Joseph spoke to the household of Pharoah (the servants, according to most commentaries) saying, 'If please I have found favor in your eyes, speak please into the ears of Pharoah, saying that my father made me take an oath, saying, behold I am about to die; in my grave which I dug for myself in the land of Canaan, there shall you bury me. And now may I please go up to bury my father, and then I shall return ' ...(Genesis 50:4,5).

This hardly seems like the expected manner of preparation for an imperial trip to bury one's dead. Does the Vice-Roy of Egypt, second only to Pharoah, have to obsequiously beg the servants of Pharoah to whisper into the despot's ear the oath his aged father made him swear to uphold? Should Joseph not have been able to speak to Pharoah directly about his own father's funeral? Indeed, the very round-about nature of the request causes one of the Biblical commentaries, Rav David Pardo, to suggest that Joseph had lost his exalted position at this juncture - that he has been fired as Grand Vizier!

The true explanation may be much simpler: Joseph didn't lose his job, but he did become aware of the sensitive nature of his position. As long as he was involved in issues relating to the welfare of Egypt, he was the Vice-Roy of Egypt, the Grand Vizier. However, the moment he had to deal with a personal matter of burying his father in Israel, he became the Jew who was suspected of dual loyalty. That's why, according to the Ramban, Joseph had to trouble his aged father to take the arduous journey to Egypt in order to feed his family rather than visit his father himself and send grain from Egypt to Israel to sustain his relatives. That is why he must beg the servants to prepare Pharoah for his burial trip to Israel. Now, perhaps for the first time, Joseph realizes that despite his apparent power he still remains the Jew, the eternal outsider, whose true loyalty to Egypt will always be suspect. He has learned that it is in Egypt, not in Israel, that a Jew must feel constrained and constricted. And so he, Joseph, commands his family with his dying breath to bury his bones in Israel, which is our only true homeland.

Moreover, Joseph probably also realized that all of his grandiose cosmic dreams can only be realized from Israel, the source of ethical monotheism for the world. After all, Jacob's dream of uniting heaven and earth can only be realized - according to the vision of the patriarch - when G-d restores him to Israel. You will remember that in Jacob's dream the Almighty is standing above the ladder uniting heaven and earth, and is guaranteeing that Jacob will return to Israel. Indeed, it is the land of Israel which will unite all of humanity as well as heaven and earth when the Torah which comes from Zion and Jerusalem will inspire swords to be turned into plowshares, and the knowledge of G-d to fill the earth. The mission of Israel is indeed to transform and perfect the world in the image of ethical monotheism - but this will only be accomplished by Israelites living in Israel and Jerusalem, true to their tradition, with their national lifestyle expressing the message of peace and harmony which will inspire all of humanity to accept the seven laws of Biblical morality.

Shabbat Shalom.

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