Parashat Vayechi 5784

There is a lot I could say about my mother. She is an amazing artist. She is a very skilled rollerblader. She is a wonderful friend to many. She has a great sense of humor. She also has this thing, where she seems to really like going to funerals and shivas. She goes to so many, that oftentimes she will arrive at a shiva house, look around and whisper to the person next to her…“who died?” I am not sharing this to make fun, but rather to share that we all have our mitzvah–our piece of the Torah that we care about deeply, that we want to live into. Hers seems to be honoring the dead, whether or not she knew who they were.

Our Parsha, Vayechi–and he lived–similar to Parshat Chayei Sarah–the life of Sarah–is actually talking about death more than life. Both Jacob and Joseph die in our Parsha, a sign of how deeply connected they were to one another.

When the time comes for Jacob to leave this world, Joseph brings his children, Ephraim and Menashe, to receive a blessing. Jacob responds to his grandchildren with somewhat shocking bluntness, מִי אֵֽלֶּה? Who are these? 

A midrash paints the picture for us. Jacob’s grandchildren were dressed like Egyptian princes because of their father’s governmental role. Jacob, also known as Israel, didn’t recognize them as part of his Jewish family. His grandson reassured him: "Shema, Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad. Listen, Israel! Adonai is our God, Adonai alone." In a sigh of relief, Jacob responded: "baruch shem k'vod malchuto l'olam va-ed -- praised be God's name for ever and ever!" 

What does it mean to bless those whom we do not recognize, know, or understand? How, even in this fraught and divisive time, can we stretch our hearts to offer blessings to those who make us think–מִי אֵֽלֶּה–who are these people? What are these beliefs? How on earth can we be a part of the same Jewish family? Our midrash imagines that Jacob received some sort of sign that they were, in fact, part of the same family. But, how can we still bless one another when we do not receive that sign? 

Then, Jacob, our forefather, dies. Joseph has him embalmed, as was the custom in Egypt. And we read this striking verse: וַיִּבְכּ֥וּ אֹת֛וֹ מִצְרַ֖יִם שִׁבְעִ֥ים יֽוֹם–and Egypt bewailed him for seventy days. Rashi and others offer unsatisfactory, in my opinion, explanations of this verse. Rashi explains that it was because of the blessings Jacob brought to Egypt–that upon his arrival, according to a Midrash, the famine ceased and the waters of the Nile again increased. Sforno explains that Egypt cried for Jacob out of respect for Joseph. But, I’d like to offer a different interpretation. 

I’d like to offer that perhaps our Parsha, like my mother, is teaching us how to bless and mourn for those whom we do not know or understand. 

I will venture to guess that all of us in this room have experienced some sort of loss. Have grieved a relationship, a pet, a loved one, a place. Judith Butler, in her 2004 book Precarious Life: the Powers of Mourning and Violence, writes:

The question that preoccupies me in the light of recent global violence is, who counts as human? Whose lives count as lives? And, finally, what makes for a grievable life? 

In a world with so much devastating loss, not only in times of war, these questions are ones that we are urged to keep on our hearts. Because, as Judith Butler and others have taught us throughout the ages, grief is what keeps us human. Grief is what keeps our heart working, flexible, malleable. 

“One mourns,” Judith writes, “when one accepts that by the loss one undergoes one will be changed, possibly for ever. Perhaps mourning has to do with agreeing to undergo a transformation (perhaps one should say submitting to a transformation) the full result of which one cannot know in advance.”

What would it mean for us to submit? What would it mean for us to allow ourselves to be transformed by our grief, knowing that whoever we were before this war is not the same person we will leave it, and perhaps that is not only okay but just right.

One week from today, I will be in Israel on a similar delegation to what Rabbi Carie was on mere weeks after October 7th. I’ll be with a group of Rabbis and educators going to see what is happening on the ground. We will visit the site of the Nova music festival and Kibbutz Be’eri, offering our prayers and tears to the land there. We will visit with families who are living in hotel rooms by the dead sea. We will meet with Arab Israelis who lost people on October 7th and who also have people in Gaza fearing for their lives. 

In going to visit Israel, I feel like I’m going to visit a sick friend. A friend I saw just six months ago who seemed healthy, but those who know her closely knew that she has been sick for a long time. 

None of us are her doctors, we don’t know the remedy. In his commentary on this week’s parsha, the Dinover Rebbe, writes that Joseph–the biggest crier in all of Tanach–was actually a healer. That the tikkun, the remedy or medicine, for the brother’s sin was contained in Joseph’s tears. Through his tears, we are taught, the family lineage was healed. 

So, I will be bringing my tears, our tears, to the land with me next week. To offer as a potential tikkun, a potential remedy for the pain that is there. 

Shabbat Shalom.