Genesis Cycle Four Vayechi

Vayechi

There’s a painting by Chagal. In it Jacob is blessing the sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manassah. Jacob is white and not in bed but leaning against a white amorphous substance. The two children are prostrated before him, their heads on or near his lap. Joseph is standing staring at Jacob in dismay. At the center we see where Jacob’s hands cross, that place of touch-connection, the movement that shifts more than material inheritance.

There’s a move I do in yoga. In it we lay on our front on the mat. We place hands palms down at our sides. We raise our chests up with as little help from our hands as possible. The whole time our legs are straight behind us, strong and connected, like one leg. This is a heart-opening move. To do it two must join to form one. One pillar on which we can lean.

What do these scenes have in common? There’s a focus on our physical selves…and even more specific…on the meeting and merging of bones/flesh within one body. With Jacob it is his hands/arms. With me (this moment) it is my legs.

Now, let’s look at the word used in Torah for crossing the hands. To repeat, let’s look at the word written in the sacred scroll to demonstrate that Jacob crosses his hands when blessing the boys, placing his right on Ephraim, and his left on Manassah. It’s from the root word sacal. This is what we read: Sacal et yadav. He crossed his hands. The same word also means to bind, as in binding arms or legs. Here’s more. The same root-word…with different vowels…means insight, knowledge and intimacy. Therefore, with this one word Jacob is crossing his hands/arms as well as joining them as well as forming/transmitting insight knowledge and intimacy.

What does Jacob really want? According to the Talmudic scholars our ancestors he wants redemption.

What is redemption? Well the sages talk about it a lot. There are prayers in our liturgy that drive it home. And without it the mystics would have to pull back on their commentary and re-think the very definition of kabbalah.

Redemption, to make it simple, is the offering up of our-light to God. God sends light to us…or we help to bring it down…and it rises right back up. But it doesn’t rise up alone. We have to move it along. And we want to make sure that we…our sparks…are (hopefully one day) in the center of this highly acclaimed and sought after energy-flow.

So the question becomes…How does this sacal ond/or secel bring about redemption?

Well as I’ve been discussing….the power of visualization can help. It is transformational. It is exponential. If we can visualize our two arms or legs joined in one place of connection the atriums of our (metaphoric) heart will also join. In that one moment of merge the light can flow from tiferet, one central-heart-place, through arm/hand to child/lover/friend/teacher/person- on -the-street.

Of course my mind is open when I do that yoga move. The blessings happen though I might not always know it. Jacob knows it. He knows very well what he is doing. That moment of hand connection on his body he is enacting the heart- flow through his blessing.

As Jews we are so fond of story that we often under-estimate this power of body-movement, how it is beyond-earthly, made for the beyond-human, the place to which we are evolving. In Torah, our body is important. Even the children of Manassah and Ephraim are born on Joseph’s thighs. Think of the sciatic nerve. As soon as the angel touches Jacob’s sciatic nerve his thigh is dislocated. Jacob is aware of this body-flow-power. And he’s even more aware of it in Vayechi.

This is because Jacob, as we read quite cleanly at the beginning of the parasha, dies. We read this: He lived (past tense) 147 years. This is simple grammar. If someone is said to have lived, then that person is now physically dead. And from what I might imagine, death makes us acutely aware of body.

So Jacob is not a living being as we know living beings. He is alive-in-soul and is therefore acting in-soul. Ah, one can argue, but Torah is not linear. And if he is blessing his children and grandchildren, how can he be physically passed? Well, let’s look at Chayay Sarah. Here, we are told the number of years of Sarah’s life. Right after she is dead. And she remains dead. If (therefore) we are reading in Torah that Jacob’s years were so many we can only infer that his years are finished as well. Jacob is no longer attached to worldly things. He is attached to the root of life (Sfat Emet). Rashi says that Jacob saught to reveal the end but it was hidden from him. The Sfat Emet says that he revealed what he wanted but in a hidden way (Zohar). This means that in faith we can find truth and it is really all a matter of hiding.

In my opinion therefore, Jacob is hiding his true manifestation. He can’t reveal his knowledge of redemption because he can’t reveal. I don't know why he can't but he can't. The wild visuals of his blessings show a truth pushing and scratching to be revealed. Later, he curls his feet back on his bed and becomes weary (vayigvah)and is gathered back to his people. But it doesn’t say he dies. Because, as strange as it might seem, he already did that death-thing.

Therefore what I am seeing in Vayechi is that we can learn a huge amount. We can learn that the power of hands-crossing propels a light-flow of blessing that has the power to unify. It has the power to unify the two boys as well as all dichotomies past present and future. Dichotomies created by our mistakes. Dichotomies created by our wisdom. Our dichotomies must be healed in order to solidify our redemption as a people. In short, no one is going to make it through any cavities under the earth to the land of Israel if it is even suspected that we (or our ancestor) fooled with the birthright of his twin or sent one child into the wilderness while the other received the inheritance.

Jacob (I repeat) is using his body to enable teshuvah and redemption for his descendants.

We so often skip this piece of the journey. But if we can bring that merge within ourselves, through visualization and intent, the sky is the limit. This doesn’t mean we all need yoga. There’s a whole buffet of opportunities so we can be in touch with our body-potential.

What I find so interesting in the painting by Chagall is that he knew (I am sure) that Jacob did that blessing from his bed. Yet Jacob is sitting upright against this white amorphous substance. There isn’t a bed in this painting. And Jacob is white. And leaning against this substance.

This reminds me of a piece of Talmud (Ketuboth 111a). The brothers of Rava are trying to convince him to return from Babylon to Jerusalem. They say that a man who studies on his own is not at the same par as a man who studies with his teacher. The intent (from what I can see) is to join the scholarly vision of two places into one place. Finally they say to him, if you stay in Babylon just do not sit too long (sit a third of the time) and do not stand too long. And do not walk too long. Better to stand rather than sit if one has nothing to lean against.

Jacob in Chagal’s painting is leaning against God. He is unifying himself with God and transferring this ability to lean to his children.

What I understand here therefore…and of course there’s a lot I can’t understand…is that we need to see ourselves beyond separated beings if we want to get anywhere or unify anything. Here’s more. We want to see this mission of merging within ourselves as well as with others. All of it is important and all enables us to rise to God to lean on God like the dead or like rain, and not only when dead, but now, in a radically new state-of- living as exemplified by Jacob.

As Rumi says…

You’ve gone to the secret world.

Which way is it? You broke the cage and flew. You heard

The drum that calls you home. You left this humiliating shelf, this disorienting

Desert where we’re given wrong

Directions. What use now a crown?

You’ve become the sun. No need for a bed

You’ve slipped out of your waist.