Genesis Cycle Two VaYechi 47:28 to 50:26

VaYechi

What is death? In Vayechi it’s the moment we curl our feet up and leave our bed (49:33). Many of us are born in a bed. We dream in beds, make love in beds. Beds are the one thing that connects us to the mundane…after our bodies. So, next step. Death is the moment we leave our bodies. Now we need to make a leap. If we can leave them, we certainly are not defined by them. We are not our beds. We are not our bodies. Rather, we are our souls. Life is an in-body experience. Very spiritual. Death is an out-of-body experience. Very spiritual. They are parallel, like left and right, inter-changeable. reflecting images.

And Torah is the divine mirror. So, in this parasha about the deaths of Jacob and then Joseph, we glance at our bodies, our souls and the nature of life/death cycles.

First, we learn that one soul rises within itself. Then another is born within the rising and so on. They are all one. In Torah we read (during Jacob’s blessing for Ephraim and Manassah) may He give to your seeds after you a perpetual possession (48:15-17). The meaning here goes beyond our physical descendants. Jacob is referring to birth within birth, the radiance of a soul being blown into another. And like with Ephraim and Manassah we can move in and out of each other, in and out of Levi and Simeon whose inheritance they now replace.

Next, we need to understand that cut-offs create connections. When the physical is seemingly cut-off the connection moves to a higher level. It’s natural. There’s a great moment in Torah (in my opinion) when Joseph brings Ephraim and Manassah to Jacob’s sick bed. Jacob speaks to Joseph about the blessings and about Rachel. It is clear that Ephraim and Manassah are there the whole time. But then, Israel asks who are these? Israel is blind. He doesn’t know. The physical is cut-off. But the truth is, he isn’t relating to their bodies. He doesn’t need to know the body to love the soul.

Now, to continue with cut-offs, even the name of the parasha Vayechi is in the grammatical clipped form. The final vuv has been dropped. Therefore, we need a vuv and we will be looking for it, waiting and yearning for it, letter after letter, line after line. It’s like we’re waiting for that final C major note to finish a lifelong symphony. It needs to come at the right moment, in the right word. Now, think of the Amidah blessing (…m’chayay hamatim…). Life and death are inter-wound here, almost synonymous. So we figure the vuv has to be found in either word. When Jacob dies it’s a false climax. The word mot is not used. At Joseph’s death we find it (line 50:26)…v’yamat Yosef…Therefore this vuv has created far more connection then if used in the word from which it was clipped. It has served to physically bring the life of Jacob into the death of Joseph.

Finally, we learn that the dead lead. There are thousands of souls of prophets known and unknown who are leading us today. They are inside us in ways we can’t even realize. The dead are real, as real as the letters and the white space combined. Some are the true teachers as they bow to us from the heads of their beds (47:31) and lean forward to gift us with the essence of all of the days of their years (47:28), the growth of their soul among souls. The dead lead us out of Mitzrayim to Canaan in a huge funeral procession right to where we need to go (50:7-13), to where we could have stayed if we only understood the meaning of death. How fascinating that we all return with docility to the place of exile and our future bondage. How similar we are today. I think the question is how can we keep the funeral procession moving forward, even with our little ones and our flocks, beyond even where our ancestors are buried.

I don’t know the answer to this. I understand though why the Talmud says that Jacob doesn’t die. It’s because when a soul gets to a certain light in life its in-body experience becomes its out-of-body experience. The reflections merge. And maybe that’s what Torah is all about. Torah is where this mystical event can happen. Then, and only then, can the enlightened soul be free to enter and re-enter bodies close enough to the sacred scroll to be seen. In that way Jacob is alive and living. He is living in us as we look carefully for a way to clean ourselves from Mitzrayim and its shadow for good.

So, may we all love Torah. May we feel the blessing of Jacob as we grow and blossom into solid gold. May we allow the radiant pillar to rise and rise within so that the darkness can become a distant blur. May we drink from the life/death reflection in one sweet moment. May we allow the souls of our fathers to enter, guide us and grow with hands of fire. May we know the life of the prophet and soon know everyone’s lives and only see death as archaic. May we, our souls, merge forever with compassion patience and love in the one being of God.