Genesis Cycle Five Vayechi

The Greater Challenge

Vayechi

At the end of Vayechi an astounding thing happens.

 Jacob has died. The brothers of Joseph approach him frightened. They don’t know what Joseph will do now. They pushed him in a pit and sold him. Now, he is so powerful and there is nothing to stop him from exacting some kind of revenge. In short, they expect Joseph to act as they may have acted in the same situation.

Joseph though says to them: Fear not, for am I in the place of God?

He recognizes that his brothers meant to hurt him. In a round-about way though…attributed to God…they placed Joseph in a position in which he could prove his inner power and prosper and save many people.  

Then Joseph assures his brothers that God will also remember them and (the word if is not used) they will carry his bones up out of Egypt.  When Joseph dies he is then placed in an aron…in other words in a coffin. The only other time in Torah when aron is used is to refer to the Ark.

What is this all about? 

Let me ask this question: Don’t we ever find ourselves in situations of great beauty but only after having traveled through great pain? And once in those situations, do we ever look back astonished? As the Talking Heads say: How did I get here? We know perfectly well that if our car didn’t break down on the highway we wouldn’t have met the man of our dreams who stopped to help. We know that if we hadn’t kept that baby we wouldn’t have our brilliant son today. In Les Miserables by Victor Hugo  the protagonist is in forced servitude for twenty years for stealing a piece of bread. When he gets out he tries to steal silver from a priest. The priest then blesses him and lets him keep the silver. Soon, our protagonist is healing so many others in pain.  What we know is that he wouldn’t have met the priest in that way if he wasn’t really suffering. The suffering led him to a place where he could heal others.

These places of great beauty and healing though can only be seen and accessed if we recognize that they necessitate sustenance and therefore structure. That’s because structure includes entry. In other words, without structure there is no-way-in to God. Bones are human structure and therefore allow human entry. The fact that they are in the aron as well as the Holy of Holies simply means that Torah is like our bones. Torah, we can say, is the bone structure of God. Torah is the structure of God-on-earth and creates the entry for us to God Himself.

I used to become so exasperated with people who obsessed with practicalities and planning, strategy and form.  They always seemed to wave the banner of physical survival before my eyes with little regard to spiritual-reach.  What I needed to learn is that the two are the same.  We must walk towards God (with the use of discernment, focus, strength, inner power and form) continually in order to be Him.

But let’s re-visit what  Joseph is saying: Am I in the place of God?

Well we all know that he isn’t yet but he will be. He will be in an aron.

For now though he is asking this: Do I live where the walking has already happened? Or am I just doing the walking and showing you all how to do it? 

What do you think? Remember those circuitous happenings in his life? Joseph, like all of us, is walking towards God. He’s just one step ahead.  And he does hold the key to get there. And so do we all. Within  the sustenance of our bones. 

Finally,  accessing our very bones within our human form might actually be the greater challenge.

In fact Rabbi Johanon says that man’s sustenance (structure) is more difficult to come by then the redemption… for of redemption it is written “ for the angel that has redeemed me from all evil” thus a mere angel sufficed, whereas of sustenance it is written, “the God who has fed me.” (Pesachim 118)