Vayechi — The Instrument of the Family

Good evening, everyone. I am happy to be with you again after the festival of Chanukah. We have reached the close of the book of Bereshit. The family of Israel has been formed; the history of the people of Israel can begin. We will follow that history starting with the book of Shemot. But as long as the family has not been properly formed, there can be no history. The family unit is indispensable for building a people on sound foundations. Until now, unfortunately, those foundations were not secure. They were disturbed first and foremost by the absence of dialogue. Adam, the first man, holds no dialogue with his wife. I suppose they speak about all the practical necessities of everyday life; but beyond that talk — elementary, let us say, and yet so essential to life — there is no ideal, no life project reaching past those necessities, and consequently no real conversation takes hold between them. They remain in their state of original nakedness.

The same is true of the children of Adam and Chavah, Kayin and Hevel. They exchange no words. Kayin tried to open a dialogue with his brother Hevel, but Hevel judged that it was an impossible dialogue. He did not answer; he kept silent. Whereupon Kayin killed his brother. There was someone who did open a dialogue, but on the basis of violence: Lemekh. He seeks, with his two wives, to justify himself before them. But there again they do not answer, because it is a matter of justifying a death. Finally we come to the time of the Flood. Noach considered that he owed no account to that generation.

He was content with what he had, with what he obtained by himself, with the salvation granted to him, with the grace he had found in the eyes of G-d; and even within his family, as we shall see, things happen that do him no honor. The generation of the dispersion did indeed attempt an ideal of life, a project — but it was one of a single way of thinking, an imposed way of thinking. Everyone must think the same thing. Everyone must share the same direction of thought. Failure. Hopes rested on Avraham for the renewal of dialogue. And indeed he attempts it with Lot, but he is forced to part from him, because their paths do not meet.

With Yitzchak and Yishmael, once again there is no dialogue; they do not speak to each other. Yishmael simply hates Yitzchak. With Esav, there is again the beginning of a dialogue, a self-interested one, and in the end the rejection of one by the other. Here too, speech turns to violence, as though it were taking up again the original dialogue of Kayin and Hevel. And so we come to Yosef and his brothers. Yosef and his brothers, within one and the same family, cannot manage to speak to one another. And there is no warmth to speak of. Yet as long as there is no warmth in the family unit, how do you expect to go on? One no longer even wishes to have children, to bring children into the world. And it turns out that Yosef — who is indeed the brother disowned by his brothers — is the one who will succeed in restoring dialogue among the brothers, in cementing it, in recovering the discourse of the Patriarchs that unifies the whole family unit.

Very well: one might have said that, with this language regained, this right to speak regained, we could already begin the second stage — building a people out of the first family unit. But there is another problem that has to be settled: the birthright. The eldest, as we have already said, is imposed by nature. He is the only son, the cherished son, and when the second child appears he is no longer the ben, no longer the son; he becomes the ach, the brother — a situation that displeases him. So there will always be a built-in tension between the eldest and the younger. And we know very well what the object of discord was between Kayin and Hevel, between Yishmael and Yitzchak, between Esav and Yaakov.

Yaakov, taught by all the experience he has lived through, sets out to bring about toledot — lines of descent — that will hold together and will not break the family apart, as had happened before. For as long as his mitah is not shelemah — as long as his “bed,” his offspring, is not whole — as long as the children are not united under the banner of harmony and concord, much remains to be done. Now, in Yaakov’s household there are four firstborn sons. The first, Leah’s, is called Reuven: re’u ben, “see, a son.” She does not say re’u beni, “see my son,” but “a son” — a model of a son. In what way is he a model son? Because he does not claim the birthright. He yields it; he is ready to yield it. For Leah, what mattered most was to have a child from Yaakov.

So she says, in effect, re’u mah bein beni leven chami — see the difference there will be between my son Reuven and the son of my father-in-law; here there will be no discord. And indeed we see it in Reuven. Not only does he not claim his birthright, but he yields it to Yosef, and it is he who will try to pull Yosef out of the pit after his brothers had thrown him into it, so much did they hate him for his plans for the future, for his dreams of dominion. But there is a second firstborn: the son of Bilhah, the wife — the helper, if you like — of Rachel. Rachel gives her to Yaakov solely so that she herself may have children. That is, she is what we would today call a surrogate, a woman carrying the future child whom Rachel would like to have as her own, and who would be the firstborn. And since this is simply a passageway, a bridge, his birthright will not be taken into account. The same will be true of Zilpah, the other concubine, given to Yaakov by Leah. Leah already has four children, but she wants more. So she says to herself: while I wait until I can bear children again, I will give my handmaid to Yaakov. But here it is something extra; she does not really need it. The four children she has are amply sufficient — and yet no. Since what she seeks is something extra, that birthright will not be taken into account either.

Then comes Rachel. Rachel gives thanks, saying asaf Elokim et cherpati — “G-d has taken away my disgrace” — that is, G-d has put an end to my humiliation, to my shame. One might then have expected her to name him Asaf. But no: she names him Yosef, meaning “may He give me another child.” Here, then, is a firstborn for whom a second son is requested — this will be Binyamin. And Yosef will indeed be a firstborn — bechor shoro hadar lo, “his firstborn bull, majesty is his” — the one who will be recognized as bechor (firstborn), even though kingship is not given to him. For in the end he drew upon himself the hostility of his brothers, and because he drew their hostility, kingship will not be granted to him; it will be given instead to Yehudah. But it is among his children, Efrayim and Menasheh, that the yielding of the birthright will truly be realized. For Yaakov, in blessing Yosef’s children, will cross his arms, placing his right hand on the younger, Efrayim, and his left hand on Menasheh, the elder, giving preference to the younger, who had studied — who had devoted all his time to studying with his grandfather Yaakov — whereas Menasheh was the right hand in managing the affairs of Egypt alongside his father. And it was instituted that the blessing of children would be yesimkha Elokim ke-Efrayim ve-khi-Menasheh, “may G-d make you like Efrayim and like Menasheh.” That is to say, the birthright itself will be a material compensation, so to speak, for the eldest; but in no case may the eldest claim spiritual control over the leadership of the family, unless he truly deserves it. The culmination of this birthright and its consecration, as we have just defined it, we shall find with Moshe and Aharon. For, as you know, it is said that Yaakov suffered a great deal. But Yaakov lived in the land of Egypt for seventeen years, and there at last he knew serenity and rest. His whole life had been nothing but suffering and struggle. So the question has also been raised: was it not, in the end, this large family that gave him so much trouble? Or was it perhaps only the case of Dinah, the only daughter, whom he lost, and Yosef, whom he loved so dearly and from whom he was separated for years? It happens that some commentators say that this may be the reason why, with all it takes to lead a large family in harmony and to face the possibilities of failure in the education of the children, perhaps one should not venture to have a large family. Yet in the book of Shemot, the history — or rather the resistance — will begin with children asking their parents to have more children. That is how Moshe was born: given the hardships in Egypt and the measures and restrictions imposed by Pharaoh, families had separated and no longer wanted to have children.

Miriam went and said to her parents: the restrictions Pharaoh imposes on us in order to finish off the Jewish people are not enough for you? You are helping him by not bringing children into the world and by ceasing all married life. And that is how Amram took back his wife Yocheved, and Moshe was born, when they already had Aharon and Miriam; and Aharon was the eldest. Aharon ran the family’s affairs throughout the absence of Moshe, who had been condemned to exile. And now Moshe returns to Egypt charged by G-d with a mission — a mission he had at first refused, saying shelach na beyad tishlach, “send, I pray, by the hand of the one You would send”: send the one who has been Your emissary until now. And the one who has been Your emissary until now is Aharon, my elder brother; this charge belongs to him. And the Holy One, blessed be He, reassures him, saying: go, you will see how he welcomes you; he will not take offense, you will see. And not only will he accept that you be the leader, but he will rejoice in this birthright yielded to and recognized in his younger brother. That was indeed the project of the history of the family of the Patriarchs. Now there remains one more point to clarify. You know that between one parashah and the next there is always a blank space of nine letters, left to mark the passage from one parashah to another.

You will ask me: why nine? But first I must point out that Vayechi, the parashah of Vayechi, is joined to that of Vayigash: this space does not exist. In other words, Vayigash and Vayechi form a single parashah, as though one could not be written without the other; the space of nine letters has been removed. I told you, I believe, that in every letter there are four resonances. The first is that of the letter itself. The second, that of the chant that accompanies it. The third is the meaning conveyed through the crowns, the small points at the top of the letter, which are meant to draw our attention to the meaning of each letter. And the fourth resonance lies in the blank that surrounds the letter.

Every letter is autonomous; there is a blank around it. If it touches another letter, the Sefer Torah (Torah scroll) is not valid; the reading from the Sefer Torah is not valid. The Sefer Torah must be set aside until the letters are separated. Why? Because of what is left unsaid in each letter. Each letter has a certain poetry; it answers to something beyond what I myself can express, something that belongs to a metaphysics to which, indeed, I have difficulty gaining access. Now, between one parashah and another there are nine blank spaces. Why not ten? Because, just as the physical constitution of a human being corresponds to ten spheres, so a thought corresponds to ten stages of development; creation takes place in ten stages; the commandments are ten in number; the plagues too are ten in number. A thought — from the moment you receive it through an illumination that comes from outside — arrives in its raw state, and then it passes through the stage of Binah, that is, analysis; it comes back at the stage of Tiferet, which is synthesis. Next, one must verify whether it is merely ephemeral or whether it will endure beyond the present moment. For all the thoughts, all the solutions we can find, may be valid within a well-defined span of time and no further. Then comes Hod: one needs the art of translating, one needs the poetry through which we will communicate it and make it yesod — make it become yesod, that is, a foundational element in reflection. And when we have passed through these nine stages, then the tenth element is always the project for the future, which sets off a new cycle of thought.

Now […] says that sleep constitutes this blank in our life. When we have studied, when we have closed [the book] and shut our eyes and are leaving these ideas at rest, they are not entirely at rest. That is when they are settling into place, ripening in our mind and bringing about a genesis of thought. We regenerate our knowledge; sleep regenerates a person’s thought. And what we can sometimes acquire through this rest, this sleep, is better than what we studied during the day, which always remains somewhat muddled in our mind.

That is why shenah on Shabbat — sleeping on Shabbat, the Shabbat nap — is recommended. The Arizal said that he gained access to revelations during his Shabbat sleep that he did not have during the whole rest of the week, because it is a cyclical regeneration of all his thought. So we have these nine spaces separating one parashah from the next, which tell us: take note — you have finished a parashah? Now try to integrate it, to live it, to give it a place in your life. But Vayechi, as it stands, does not give us this space for thought. Why? Because — I do not know whether you have noticed — Yaakov’s family comes to full realization only in the land of exile, in Egypt.

Yaakov lives these years of complete rest and delight — for these are seventeen years, and seventeen, as you know very well, is a good number, since it is the numerical value of tov, “good” — when he lives this fullness of life in Egypt, when the family is perfectly assembled in Egypt, when the people of Israel forges its identity in Egypt. When the people of Israel adheres of its own free will to the Torah revealed to it at Sinai, it is in exile. At Purim — we are told that only at Purim did they accept to adhere freely to the Oral Law. Why does this not take place in the Land of Israel? Why did this family not manage to realize itself in the Land of Israel? Because the people of Israel cannot realize itself, physically and spiritually, without the universal dimension of the others. That is the reason. Here we are told: do not reflect, do not look for explanations. It is entirely natural that this should follow. Follow what? The last verse: Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the land of Goshen.

In the land of Goshen […] — that is, the Jewish quarter. It had its importance. But it was not enough for them. They need to spread out and to put down roots there […] because they need to develop and to broaden their life […]. Until now we have spoken of vayeshev Yisrael, “Israel settled.” Israel is Yaakov’s spiritual dimension; Yaakov is his physical reality. So: vayechi Yaakov be’eretz Mitzrayim, “Yaakov lived in the land of Egypt” — when we are in the land of Egypt. Take note: we become Yaakov again. When we become Yaakov again, we are that first image of Yaakov’s birth, holding Esav by the heel and keeping him from going further, or else walking in his wake because we do not want to lose him. We are Yaakov: in the land of exile we are Yaakov; at home we are Israel. Then our identity is whole. That is the first lesson of this absence of a blank between the parashah of Vayigash and the last parashah, the last chapter, which closes Yaakov’s life. But in reading Rashi we hear another note. Yaakov lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years — let me remind you of these seventeen years in which he had lived with Yosef, overjoyed to have found his son again, the image of Rachel — and “the days of Yaakov, the years of his life, were seven years and forty and a hundred years”: a hundred and forty-seven years. We shall see a little further on why Yaakov’s life is presented in this way. But there is a parallel: two parashiyot speak of this importance of life, of this account of a life — Chayei Sarah, “the life of Sarah,” which presents the feminine model, and Vayechi Yaakov, which presents the prototype of the masculine life. And both bear the banner of chayim, life: the life of Sarah and the life of Yaakov.

So Rashi says: why is this parashah closed? Why is this parashah closed? Because when Yaakov our father passed away, nistemu eineihem velibam shel Yisrael — the eyes and the heart of Israel were closed. By what? Mitzarat hashi’bud, by the anguish of slavery, of servitude, shehitchilu leshabdam, when the Egyptians began to enslave them. In reality, the Egyptians began to exploit them only after Yosef’s death, not in Yaakov’s lifetime. Why, then, are we told nistemu eineihem velibam? Do you know what ayin and lev, the eye and the heart, are? Why does it say “the eye and the heart”?

Because the ayin, the eye, is what analyzes, what distinguishes; and the lev, the heart, is what feels — it is regesh, feeling. There are indeed two ways of grasping an event: either through the heart or through the eye. Here both were closed. They did not see what the consequences would be of what they regarded as the good life in Egypt — how pleasant it is to get along with other cultures, to live in harmony with others; living conditions are not bad. But they did not look beyond that to what was taking shape for them in the long run. They had the opportunity, while Yaakov was still alive, to say: “Well, now we have achieved the formation of our family; we have the unit. We can indeed return to the land we came from and settle there, since it is the promised land.”

So there is a condemnation of this prolonged, voluntary stay in Egypt. Whereas Yaakov did not even want to be buried in Egypt; Yaakov did not want to hear of being buried, even for a while, in Egypt. It is not like Yosef, who says: when you are set free, do not forget to take my remains from here and carry them to the city of Shechem. No — here Yaakov does not want that. That is, if he is only passing through Egypt, it is, as he sees it, by G-d’s command, since the Shechinah promised to accompany him when he did not want to go down to Egypt, and said to him: ve’anokhi a’alekha gam aloh, “and I will surely bring you up again.” So the children of Israel should have understood — all the more so since he made his son Yosef swear to carry his body immediately to the Land of Israel,

so attached was he to the land of his fathers. That is the first comment. But when Rashi brings a second comment, it means that there is something insufficient in the first, which must be completed by the second. So the second is davar acher, which is translated “another interpretation,” or in other words: he sought to reveal the final project, the limit of time — that is, the ultimate purpose of this history — and in the end nistam mimenu, it escaped him. That is, his prophetic power left him. So he began to ask himself why, for what reason. First we should try to explain what it was he wanted to reveal — the ketz, the final project. Yes, Avraham had indeed been told ger yihyeh zar’akha be’eretz lo lahem, “your descendants will be strangers in a land not theirs”; and Yaakov was aware of this covenant between the pieces, made by G-d with Avraham, which announced to him that the people would spend its days in Egypt under harsh conditions before forging its identity and leaving Egypt with a thirst for freedom. And the first message it was to bring to the whole world is freedom of action and each person’s committed responsibility in the building of the world, for good or for ill.

He wanted, in a sense, to comfort his children, and through them his descendants. We shall see, moreover, that when he speaks to them, he will content himself simply with bringing out the identity and the potential of each child. But this did not keep him from being troubled by the sudden disappearance of his gift of inspiration. He was prevented. Prevented from revealing what? The ketz. So, if he was prevented from revealing the ketz — you know the names of the children of Israel that the kohen wore on his breastplate: since the people was constituted as a people of kohanim (priests), a people of priests for the other nations, the kohen represented all the tribes of Israel; when he performed his service in the Sanctuary, he wore the names of all the tribes on his breastplate in order to associate them with this service in the holy place.

But there were four letters that did not appear in the names of the twelve tribes. Of the four, the kuf and the tzadi make ketz, “end.” Now, you know that this word also means something in a military context — but this is not the moment for that. And there are two other letters missing: the chet and the tet. The chet and the tet — put chet and tet together and you get chet, which is sin. Moreover, the letter chet is open only at the bottom, and that is why it represents a break, a rupture. So Yaakov asked himself: if I am prevented from revealing the ketz, that means something remains unresolved at the level of my children.

Perhaps there is something that does not ring true, and this shalom is simply a shalom meant to spare me pain. It has not yet proved itself, because the father is not yet gone. And a true brotherhood is tested when the father is already gone. When the parents are absent — that is when one sees whether this brotherhood, this harmony, will truly hold. So he said to himself that perhaps this is simply a way of consoling me, and each one is holding back until after the father’s death to settle the problems. It was at that moment that the children of Yaakov said to him: we know what is going on in your mind; we can guess it.

The profession of faith, Shema Yisrael, was recited by the children of Yaakov at his bedside to tell him: just as you have complete faith in the Echad, in the unity of the One who unites heaven and earth, the One who is at the origin of creation, the One who is Master of all creatures — know that we too are united by this same faith. And when we recite this profession of faith, what is the immediate gesture? To close the eyes, to reach beyond. It is not something we are going to reason out, something that obeys any logic whatsoever. No — it is faith in unity. We may not perceive it now, but it is there; it is present within us, and when it is put to the test it will assert itself, it will manifest itself, it will assert itself.

And from this it is advised to recite this profession of faith when we are in community. We stop and wait until everyone reaches this part of the prayer; or even when not everyone is at the same point in the prayer, once people are reciting the Shema we must join in their profession of faith, because that is the mark of our belonging to this same faith, this same belief — that we are at once the children of Yaakov and of Israel. I will stop here, and if you have any questions, I will be glad to take them.