Post by Rabbi Neil on Dec 21, 2018 22:31:10 GMT
Near the end of the book of Genesis, Jacob becomes ill and Joseph is informed. This is the first time in Torah when someone is described as ill – previously they just grew old and died. Clearly there’s something interesting about this death compared with others that have gone before. The Eitz Chayyim Chumash notes something else special – Joseph is told that his father is ill (48:1). Why is Joseph told that his father is ill? Doesn’t he already know? After all, Jacob loved Joseph so, once reconciled, surely they would have been spending day and night together. How could Joseph not have known?
The Eitz Chayyim Chumash suggests a number of answers to this question. The first suggests that Joseph was too busy with his responsibilities as Viceroy of Egypt to pay attention to his father. The second suggests that he was ambivalent about his feelings toward his father. The third suggestion, based on an old midrash, is that Joseph was avoiding his father so that he wouldn’t ask his son how he came to be in Egypt in the first place.
Let’s look at each suggestion in turn. The first suggests that Joseph’s work makes him too busy for his family, a very common trait among men and one that requires real personal strength to combat. Joseph, after all, has the responsibility of an entire country on his shoulders. Pharaoh is a figurehead, but Joseph is the brains behind the country’s continued success even throughout the terrible famine. So it is easy to see why this first suggestion is attractive. There is even potential support for it, given that when he goes to visit his dying father on his deathbed, his father sees his two grandsons and asks, “Mi Eileh – who are these?” (48:8). Jacob has never even met his grandsons, and in a time when people lived well into their hundreds, that’s quite noticeable. One might suspect that Jacob is perhaps confused in his sickness, but the fact that he resists Joseph and blesses the youngest deliberately shows that he is compos mentis. There seems to be a real distance between Jacob and his son Joseph, but can it really be because he’s too busy to see his father whom he so terribly missed? It doesn’t seem likely.
The second suggestion, that Joseph is ambivalent about his feelings toward his father, seems a real stretch to me. After years of being apart from him, Joseph’s first question to his brothers after revealing his identity is whether or not his father is still alive. He’s not ambivalent, he loves his father deeply, so this suggestion doesn’t seem to stand either.
The third suggestion, that he avoided his father in case he asked how Joseph ended up being in Egypt, which would have meant that Joseph would have had to have told the horrible truth about his brothers, is very cute but also entirely unrealistic. It’s unrealistic because Joseph does slander elsewhere in Torah – at the very beginning of the Joseph story he brings bad reports of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah to him (37:2). So it is possible that he didn’t want to speak badly of his brothers – Jacob’s sons - but it seems unlikely.
There is a fourth reason which the Eitz Chayyim Chumash misses but which I think is essential. At the end of chapter 47, Jacob summons Joseph out of all of his sons, which means that there is obviously still a connection. He’s certainly not been avoiding him by this point. Jacob makes Joseph swear to not bury his father in Egypt, which he does. So the way I read the text is similar but different to the reasons suggested earlier. Joseph is avoiding his father, but only after making him swear something regarding Jacob’s death. He is ambivalent about his feelings regarding his father, but not because of the distance and length of time between them seeing each other but because he doesn’t know what to do specifically with his feelings about his father dying. For years, Joseph had wondered whether or not his father was alive but he now has to face the fact that he is going to witness his father passing away. I think it’s a very human touch to the narrative because it shows how the experience of death is different for everyone. When some people become aware that a relative is terminally ill, they spend as much time as possible with that person. Others, however, shut down, unable to cope. I think Joseph is the second kind of person. Nobody loved Joseph the way his father did, and I think he moves into a state of denial whereby if he doesn’t see his father, then he won’t have to acknowledge that he is terminally ill.
In the end, Joseph’s state of denial is irrelevant, though, because his father summons him. Perhaps Jacob is aware that Joseph is struggling with his forthcoming demise. And this is where I like to read in an extra thought thanks to the nuances of Hebrew grammar. As Joseph brings his two sons before Jacob, we read that “Joseph brought them close to him and he kissed them and embraced them” (48:10). Then he says to Jacob “I never expected to see you again, and here God has let me see your children as well” (48:11).” When the Torah says, “he kissed them and embraced them” we almost always assume that it is the two boys – Ephraim and Manasseh. But I like to think that Jacob sees how difficult it is for his boy, Joseph, and he is also included in the embrace. He embraced them – Ephraim, Manasseh and Joseph – and kissed them – Ephraim, Manasseh and Joseph. I like to think that there is a little show of affection from the father to the son to say, “Son, it’s okay - as the four of us embrace, three generations are held together. Even when I am not with you physically, I will continue to live on through you and through your sons.” The following verse has just Joseph acting – he bows low with his face to the ground, perhaps in part an acceptance of what his father has told him. Perhaps it is at this point when Joseph finds himself at peace with his father’s illness.
Of course, this may not be the original intention of the text, but it is a possible reading. The essence of the way that Jews read Torah is, after all, to encourage a multiplicity of readings, so long as each reading is internally consistent. This reading perhaps shows the human side of Joseph, which hopefully makes the text more accessible to all of us. It reminds us that no matter how prominent we may or may not be, no matter where or how we live, we all have to face up to difficult challenges in our lives and we all face those challenges differently. Part of the reason Torah continues to appeal is because its characters are so real. What that means, of course, is not just that they are like us, but that we can be like them – we can be worthy of having great stories told about us for generations to come, we can draw close to God, we are capable of great things. And this realisation shows the true power of Torah, that it is not some distant narrative too far for us to reach but it is near to us, it is in our hearts and our mouths and our minds (cf. Deut. 30:14), it speaks to us in every generation, it challenges us, it befriends us and it teaches us that no word, like no person, is insignificant and that every word, as with every person, has something to teach us.
The Eitz Chayyim Chumash suggests a number of answers to this question. The first suggests that Joseph was too busy with his responsibilities as Viceroy of Egypt to pay attention to his father. The second suggests that he was ambivalent about his feelings toward his father. The third suggestion, based on an old midrash, is that Joseph was avoiding his father so that he wouldn’t ask his son how he came to be in Egypt in the first place.
Let’s look at each suggestion in turn. The first suggests that Joseph’s work makes him too busy for his family, a very common trait among men and one that requires real personal strength to combat. Joseph, after all, has the responsibility of an entire country on his shoulders. Pharaoh is a figurehead, but Joseph is the brains behind the country’s continued success even throughout the terrible famine. So it is easy to see why this first suggestion is attractive. There is even potential support for it, given that when he goes to visit his dying father on his deathbed, his father sees his two grandsons and asks, “Mi Eileh – who are these?” (48:8). Jacob has never even met his grandsons, and in a time when people lived well into their hundreds, that’s quite noticeable. One might suspect that Jacob is perhaps confused in his sickness, but the fact that he resists Joseph and blesses the youngest deliberately shows that he is compos mentis. There seems to be a real distance between Jacob and his son Joseph, but can it really be because he’s too busy to see his father whom he so terribly missed? It doesn’t seem likely.
The second suggestion, that Joseph is ambivalent about his feelings toward his father, seems a real stretch to me. After years of being apart from him, Joseph’s first question to his brothers after revealing his identity is whether or not his father is still alive. He’s not ambivalent, he loves his father deeply, so this suggestion doesn’t seem to stand either.
The third suggestion, that he avoided his father in case he asked how Joseph ended up being in Egypt, which would have meant that Joseph would have had to have told the horrible truth about his brothers, is very cute but also entirely unrealistic. It’s unrealistic because Joseph does slander elsewhere in Torah – at the very beginning of the Joseph story he brings bad reports of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah to him (37:2). So it is possible that he didn’t want to speak badly of his brothers – Jacob’s sons - but it seems unlikely.
There is a fourth reason which the Eitz Chayyim Chumash misses but which I think is essential. At the end of chapter 47, Jacob summons Joseph out of all of his sons, which means that there is obviously still a connection. He’s certainly not been avoiding him by this point. Jacob makes Joseph swear to not bury his father in Egypt, which he does. So the way I read the text is similar but different to the reasons suggested earlier. Joseph is avoiding his father, but only after making him swear something regarding Jacob’s death. He is ambivalent about his feelings regarding his father, but not because of the distance and length of time between them seeing each other but because he doesn’t know what to do specifically with his feelings about his father dying. For years, Joseph had wondered whether or not his father was alive but he now has to face the fact that he is going to witness his father passing away. I think it’s a very human touch to the narrative because it shows how the experience of death is different for everyone. When some people become aware that a relative is terminally ill, they spend as much time as possible with that person. Others, however, shut down, unable to cope. I think Joseph is the second kind of person. Nobody loved Joseph the way his father did, and I think he moves into a state of denial whereby if he doesn’t see his father, then he won’t have to acknowledge that he is terminally ill.
In the end, Joseph’s state of denial is irrelevant, though, because his father summons him. Perhaps Jacob is aware that Joseph is struggling with his forthcoming demise. And this is where I like to read in an extra thought thanks to the nuances of Hebrew grammar. As Joseph brings his two sons before Jacob, we read that “Joseph brought them close to him and he kissed them and embraced them” (48:10). Then he says to Jacob “I never expected to see you again, and here God has let me see your children as well” (48:11).” When the Torah says, “he kissed them and embraced them” we almost always assume that it is the two boys – Ephraim and Manasseh. But I like to think that Jacob sees how difficult it is for his boy, Joseph, and he is also included in the embrace. He embraced them – Ephraim, Manasseh and Joseph – and kissed them – Ephraim, Manasseh and Joseph. I like to think that there is a little show of affection from the father to the son to say, “Son, it’s okay - as the four of us embrace, three generations are held together. Even when I am not with you physically, I will continue to live on through you and through your sons.” The following verse has just Joseph acting – he bows low with his face to the ground, perhaps in part an acceptance of what his father has told him. Perhaps it is at this point when Joseph finds himself at peace with his father’s illness.
Of course, this may not be the original intention of the text, but it is a possible reading. The essence of the way that Jews read Torah is, after all, to encourage a multiplicity of readings, so long as each reading is internally consistent. This reading perhaps shows the human side of Joseph, which hopefully makes the text more accessible to all of us. It reminds us that no matter how prominent we may or may not be, no matter where or how we live, we all have to face up to difficult challenges in our lives and we all face those challenges differently. Part of the reason Torah continues to appeal is because its characters are so real. What that means, of course, is not just that they are like us, but that we can be like them – we can be worthy of having great stories told about us for generations to come, we can draw close to God, we are capable of great things. And this realisation shows the true power of Torah, that it is not some distant narrative too far for us to reach but it is near to us, it is in our hearts and our mouths and our minds (cf. Deut. 30:14), it speaks to us in every generation, it challenges us, it befriends us and it teaches us that no word, like no person, is insignificant and that every word, as with every person, has something to teach us.
