The CONCLUSION OF GENESIS (Parashat vaYehi)

       Parashat vaYehi (Gen.47:28-50:26)
                         an Address (Drashah דרשה) given at
                              the Si'ah Yitzhaq congregation
                                 By Dr. Yitzhaq Hayut-Man

I'd like to thank (le'hodot להודות) the congregation for letting me give this address and just before gave me the honor to come forth (Aliyah) to the reading of the part of this Torah portion that contains the blessings to most of the Tribes of Israel and in particular to Judah: "Yehudah (Judah יהודה), ata yodukha (יודוך) ahekha" – 'Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise' (49:8).{1} 

(Jacob's blessing for Judah (who represents the Jews in the Assembly of Israel) uses a Hebrew word play. The very name and identity of Judah has to do with praise – hodayah - and with admission of responsibility – hoda'ah. At birth, his mother Le'ah said: "Now will I praise (odeh אודה) the Lord; therefore she called his name Yehudah (יהודה)". Now, at his father's passing, Judah receives a blessing that fits his very name.)

I want to speak even beyond the bounds of Rabbinical Judaism, which is good and fine and broad, yet is not the whole Torah given for all humankind. I want to show how the events in this Torah portion (Parashah פרשה), the last and 12th, that involve Menashe and Ephraim and the blessing for Yehudah-Judah, complement and complete the works of Heaven and Earth, how they complete the Book of Genesis.

In the first chapter of Genesis we receive a certain pattern – the pattern of the Six Days of Creation. On each Day, something is produced. It is apt to compare each Day as a surface figure, a square, and together all the six Days add up to a cube (box, ark). On the sixth Day this ark or cube is completed, and then suddenly, without any other action, there emerges an additional dimension, an infinite space compared with the surface (2D) dimension. This space is the like of the Sabbath (Shabbat שבת) – and on the seventh day He Shabhat va'yinafash (שבת וינפש; Exodus 31:17) – a space for the soul-Nefesh (נפש).

This is the pattern, or template, about which it is written: "Asher bara Elohim La'asot" (לעשות) – "which God had created in order to make". To make what? It is written that in the sixth Day Na'ase Adam (נעשה אדם) – "Let us make humankind" (1:26). There is here a stipulation for a great project of "Na'ase Adam" ("we shall produce Adam") or even  "Ne'ase Adam" ("we shall become Adam").{2} If we take each one of these primal Days as a thousand years, as it is written in the Psalms (90:4) "For a thousand years in Thy sight are but  like the Day of yesterday…" [And in the NT, (2 Peter, 3:8-9) "But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day."{3}], then we are presently in the sixth millennium of the Hebrew calendar, in the period of "Na'ase Adam". This is really happening now – before there was the Internet there was also no real justification to talk about all humankind as one Adam who is capable of making decisions and taking responsibility, to couse a curse upon the earth and to determine the destiny of all humankind.

But the contents of the Book of Genesis is not cosmology. The content is human relationship. "Na'ase Adam" means that we are all shall become Bne Adam - humans, literally "Sons of Mankind".  And as we are all Bne Adam, this means that we are all brothers and sisters. But we know that brothers are still prone to persecute each other, to alienate each other and even to kill each other. In the Book of genesis we read about six acts of relations between brothers, of their struggle for seniority (bekhorah בכרה) and blessing (Berakhah ברכה– same letters), of envy among brothers. We read how the situation gets rectified from one stage to the next.

The first brothers were Qayin (Cain, קין; connected with Qinyan - property) and Hevel (Abel, הבל; literally "breath"), and their struggle ended with murder and exile, certainly a dire situation.

The second stage came with the Sons of Noah (No'ah, נח). Among the Sons of Noah there is one who despises the common father, thereby denies that which holds them as brothers – and gets punished by slavery – and there are two who pay respect to their father and operate in union: "And shem and Yefet took (va'yiqah - written in singular form!) the garment , and laid it upon both their shoulder (Shekhem – again, written in the singular form), and went backward… "(9:23).

The third act is that of Isaac (Yitzhaq, literally "He who would laugh") and Ishmael (Yishma'el – "He who would listen"). Since Isaac's childhood there were worries that there may develop a quarrel between them, that a murder is likely to take place. The solution was deportation, sending out into the desert. There are people with good intentions to bring peace between us and our neighbors, and who say "We are all Children of Abraham". But such an assignment means that actually there is a need to deport "the sons of this bondwoman" (21:10). Yet Isaac and Ishmael have the virtue that they both respected their common father, Abraham. Ishmael and Isaac buried their father together, and thus they reconciled to some extent, but still they continued to dwell separately.

The fourth act of the drama is that of Jacob (Ya'aqov, יעקב; literally "He who would follow" – or cheat) and Esau (Esav, עשו; literally "made up") – very close to each other, twins. In the monotheistic religions Jacob is seen as the chosen brother. The Jews see themselves as Children of Jacob-Israel and the Christians as Sons of Esau, where as the Christian Church Fathers thought it was just the opposite – they are Jacob's and the Jews are Esau. After intentions of murder and the exile of the threatened brother, the brothers met again – and reconciled. They fell each on his brother's neck and cried. But when Esau invited Jacob to come and live with him, Jacob again cheated him, promising to unite with him in a while, but tarried and in fact chose to separate.

The next act, the fifth one, is of the relations between Joseph (Yoseph, יוסף; literally "He who would make addition") and his brothers, and especially with Judah-Yehudah. Here were not only musings but an actual preparation for fratricide, to killing a brother, and then of actually selling the brother to slavery. The state of alienation between the brothers was such, that Joseph's brothers could no longer recognize him: "And Yoseph saw his brethren, and he knew them, but made himself strange to them… and Yoseph knew his brethren, but they knew him not" (42:7-8). But in the end there came the reconciliation and all the brothers came to live together as a multifaceted but one entity of "Children of Israel".

Now, at the vaYehi Portion of the Book of Genesis, we arrive at the sixth act. "And it came to pass after these things" (48:1). Here comes a strange case of abduction in the struggle for seniority. Jacob told Joseph, already before seeing the children that, for him, the younger Ephraim is the senior: "Ephraim and Menashe (in that order)… as Re'uven and Shim'on they shall be mine" (48:5); in fact, instead of Re'uven and Shim'on. Joseph presents his sons according to their order of birth, but Jacob crosses his hands and lays his right hand upon Ephraim's head. Joseph, who got to become the preferred son himself, even though he was almost the youngest brother, still wanted the natural thing, the seniority to the firstborn, just as his grandfather Isaac wanted. But his father, who contended all his life over the seniority – of him and of his beloved son - did his tricks again: "I know it, my son, I know it; he also shall become a people, and he also shall be great, but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he… " (48:19). So it is Ephraim who gets the blessing and in the future would gain the kingdom. Unlike in the case of Isaac and Ishmael, or of Jacob and Esau, here the matter of birthright is determined beforehand, without struggle and contention. This is a very important matter; it is a case of trust. Later in the Bible we find cases of mighty struggles between Joseph and Judah, between the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah, including wars – but not between the tribes of Ephraim and Menashe. Moreover, Menashe eventually gets to receive the portion of the firstborn, to receive twice – two homesteads. Because half of the tribe of Menashe settled east of the Jordan river and half the tribe of Menashe at the Menashe hills, north of the Ephraim hills. Namely, Menashe did not have to contend and demand his extra rights, he received them without contending with his brother.

From here I want to move to the great blessing, which was given openly in the plenum, and examine the blessing for Judah. This blessing starts with the words "Yehudah (יהודה), ata yodukha (יודוך) ahekha" – 'Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise' (49:8). This is a reminder that what the relationship between the brothers are the most important. It was already told about Judah that "And it came to pass at that time (after the selling of Joseph), that Judah went down from his brothers…" (38:1). Judah would have actually preferred to live alone, without his brothers, according to the cursing-blessing of Balaam (Bil'am, בלעם; literally "without a people" בלי עם), "a people that shall dwell alone" (Numbers 23:9).

This is the current reality. We Jews habitually think that we are a people apart, "The Jewish People", who has no brothers but only "seventy wolves" around us – the one lamb. But as I see it, this is not the intention of the scriptures. In addition to the blessing for the tribes at the end of the Book of Genesis, there was given a blessing by Moses (Moshe משה; literally "pulling out of liquid"), at the end of the Book of Deuteronomy (Devarim, literally "pronounced things"). This blessing is of a different character. When Jacob blessed his sons, he still was not completely "Israel". He had both small-mindedness and greatness, the smallness is called "Jacob-Ya'aqov" and the greatness – "Israel-Yisra'el". It was actually during the (hidden) blessing to Menashe and Ephraim that he was (as written) in the role of Israel. But in the public blessing to his sons, there was also smallness. In some of the blessings he comes to judgment, and actually tries to dispossess  some of his sons: Reuben (Re'uven, ראו בן; literally "see the child"), Shim'on (and Levi), and reserve a place for Ephraim and Menashe instead. Moses, on the other hand, blessed all the Tribes of Israel. And what was "Israel" for Moses? In the first chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy Moses expressed his hope concerning Israel: "The Lord (YHWH, countless meanings, chiefly as a verb and legitimately meaning "Will Constitute") God of your fathers will add to you a thousand times as you are and bless you…" (Deut, 1:11). Six-hundred thousands of army-age was not enough. Moses wanted six hundred millions with a divine blessing to all of them. Six-hundred millions – this is the hope of Moses for the People of Israel. 

Therefore, even if "The Jewish People" will consist of twenty millions or thirty or even forty millions people, this would still be but a part of the whole. There are a great many people who view the Torah as their starting-point. There is a huge potential Israel, and the task is just to search for these brothers, who would gather so as to fulfill 'Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise' and get a blessing from us, there should be what to thank for.

I do not want to expand here about political and other implications, what is important is this very realization, that we are a great nation and are not alone and are not in peril, and even "Losing the Jewish majority" in Israel is not the end of the world. There are those who would stand to our Left, and there are those who stand by our Right and we Jews, as Judah, are situated at a good place in the middle. Our world is big and we live in an age when humankind is being re-formed through the Internet etc. and according to the Torah the figure and main entity that bears responsibility to this whole process is the Nation of Israel. This is the Torah we have and this is the opportunity to influence for good.

Notes:
{1}  The numerous inclusions of the un-translated original Hebrew names and meaning may seem a bit cumbersome. It was done in order to allow better understanding of what the protagonists names mean, so they can be seen not only names of specific persons but as prevailing types and modes of conduct.
{2}  The Hebrew script of the Torah does not give the vowels but only the consonant letters. So words can often be read in different ways, all legitimately contained by the original Hebrew scripture.
{3}  This reference was not given in the synagogue address. Only after translating to English I found that there are controversies among Christians about this passage as indication for eschatological time reckoning. But in Judaism, without any connection to the Christian issues, the sixth-thousand years spans of the world is fully accepted and is mentioned already in the Talmud. The scheduled translation of the introduction to the Re-Genesis project will discuss this topic exhaustively.