Vayechi (Genesis 47:28-50:26)

The Family of Joseph, as depicted by the painter Nathan Moskowitz. "This painting is in essence about Hebraic and Egyptian blessings, shared geometric symbolism and rituals, and the powerful subliminal influence which the colossal visual imagery of Ancient Egypt had on Israelite theology and culture."


Parshat Vayechi (Genesis 47:28-50:26), the final portion of the first book of the Torah, describes Jacob's actions immediately preceding his death in Egypt, beginning with his making Joseph swear to bury him in the land of Israel. Jacob then gives Joseph's two sons, Menashe and Ephraim, a special blessing which confers upon them the elevated status of being two separate tribes amongst the Children of Israel. Notwithstanding Joseph's protest, Jacob insists on giving the younger Ephraim the right-hand position of primacy during the blessing, stating that Ephraim would be greater. Jacob then proceeds to give each of his other sons their individual blessing, in accordance with their own unique character traits and missions. Jacob passes away at the age of 147 and is brought by his sons, accompanied by a great procession of Egyptian royalty, to the land of Israel where he is buried in the M'arat HaMachpelah alongside his wife Leah, parents Isaac and Rebeccah, and grandparents Abraham and Sarah. Upon their return to Egypt, Joseph's brothers fear that he will finally take revenge now that their father is dead. Joseph reassures them that he bears no hard feelings, stating that his being sold into slavery was all part of the Divine plan. The Torah portion concludes with Joseph's death and the Jewish people's promise to carry his bones with them to Israel when they are finally redeemed by Hashem.

Good sheep gone BAAAAAd

Sagit is yet another super-talented polymer clay artist from Israel. Today we see door a sign (complete with bell) for an Israeli family. Sagit clamis to love color... you think? Ilil Ziv may be the Israeli Mistress of Sheep (and figurines) as you can see by this adorable trio below.



Two feasts in the parsha of Vayetze sandwich Jacob's two-decade long sojourn in Aram (today called Syria). The first meal -- "Laban gathered together all the men of the place, and made a feast (Genesis 29:22)" -- was held to mark Jacob's wedding. Twenty years later, the occasion -- "Jacob offered a sacrifice in the mountain, and called his kinsmen to eat bread (31:54)" -- entailed Jacob's spontaneous ceremony upon his exit. To be sure, no record exists of what was on either menu besides bread, which is also used in Hebrew as a generic term for food. Nevertheless, we can safely assume that lamb, in light of its recurrent presence in the parsha, was featured on both occasions.

Sheep are practically omnipresent in Vayetze. There are white sheep and dark sheep and speckled sheep and spotted sheep and sheep as salary and even dreams about sheep (31:11-12). Jacob's first sight of Charan was "a well in the field, and lo three flocks of sheep there next to it (29:1)." (According to Ramban, "The well alludes to the Temple, and the three flocks of sheep to the three Pilgrimage Festivals.") Then his future wife arrived with more sheep, "Rachel came with her father's sheep; for she tended them (29:9)." In reverse of Eliezer's meeting with Rebecca at the well, here Jacob "watered the flock of Laban his uncle (29:10)." That uncle promised Rachel as Jacob's wife in return for seven years of shepherd duty, which proceeded with Leah being substituted for Rachel and eventually the term of work extended to twenty years. The majority of chapter 30 involves the husbandry details of Jacob's employment. At the end of the parsha after two decades of being away from his parents' home, Jacob took his own flocks and departed while "Laban was gone to shear his sheep (31:19)." In the midst of all these sheep, the Torah recounts the birth of eleven of Jacob's sons. Thus, the Jewish people literally develop amongst sheep.

Sheep, docile and easily lead, became among the very first domesticated animals. Since these ruminants thrive in dry climates and mountainous terrain, they suited mankind's early nomadic lifestyle, particularly the environs of the Middle East and Mediterranean. Even after the advent of agricultural societies, these hardy animals continued to provide an invaluable source of meat (Isaiah 53:7), milk (Deuteronomy 32:14), leather (Exodus 25:5), and wool (Hosea 2:7). Thus the Torah established that if someone stole a sheep, thereby seriously effecting the victim's livelihood, he must pay back "four sheep for a sheep (Exodus 21:37)."

The pervasiveness of sheep in this parsha reflects their essential role in the life of the Israelites throughout the biblical period. Judaism has always held sheep in special regard and this intrinsic connection with the lamb is prevalent throughout Jewish lore and liturgy. A host of biblical figures, including Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David, were shepherds, and the Torah is filled with related references, such as "The Lord is my shepherd (Psalms 23:1)." As an element in the Exodus story, lamb plays an important role in Passover festivities and remains a traditional main course at many Sephardic Seders. Sounding the shofar (ram's horn) serves as the central Rosh Hashanah rite. In some homes, the head of a lamb is displayed on the Rosh Hashanah table, signifying the hope that in the coming year we will be the "rosh (head) and not the tail" (the reverse of Deuteronomy 28:44) and a reminder of the ram substituted for Isaac as a sacrifice (Genesis 22:13). Torah scrolls and mezuzot are generally written on sheepskin parchment. The conclusion of this d'var from Gil Marks can be found here.

Man, O Man, O Mandrakes!

From the Dov Bear: Mandrakes are mentioned once in the bible when Leah trades them to Rachel in exchange for a night with Yaakov.

Rachel, we're led to believe from the context, wanted the flowers because she thought they would help her conceive. This is the view of Rashi (who, in fact, thought the flowers were jasmines, not mandrakes) and Sfrorno. Both men thought the flowers were fertility-charms, similar to garlic, an herb the Sforno additionally notes, "...our Sages suggested be eaten Friday nights by men."

This discussion of mandrakes introduces a larger issue. It's clear that Rashi and some other Rishonim thought that the flowers had medicinal (or even magical) properties. To be blunt, it's equally clear they were wrong. Mandrakes aren't fertility aids. Was Our Mother Rachel, who eagerly desired the powerless mandrake, from among who the Rambam called"...fools and stupid people [scholim u'chasrei daa't]... the category of [people] who have incomplete mental facilities?"

The same question might be asked of OurFather Yaakov. Later in the sedra he exerts an inordinate amount of effort putting peeled branches into the watering troughs of his sheep. He thinks this will encourage the flock to bear speckled offspring. In the view of Samson Raphael Hirsch, however, Yaakov was wrong:
"What Yaakov attempted with the sticks would have been a fully justified means of self-aid even if it could be considered as a proven expedient which experiments which have been made show hardly to be the case... the result must be considered purely as Divine Intervention."

In other words, Yaakov's dabbled in superstition because he thought it might do some good, but ultimately he was wrong: it was Divine Intervention, and not the sticks, which caused the flocks to produce specked sheep, just as it was Divine Intervention, and not the mandrakes, which caused Rachel to conceive. And it's worth noting that in the next section, when Yaakov explains the source of his wealth to Rachel and Leah, he says nothing about the sticks. Instead, he gives all credit to God. This leades Robert Alter to suggest that the business with the sticks was just a dodge to popular beliefs and even Yaakov doubted their eficacy.

This, however, is not the view of the non-rationalist rishonim, like Rashi. In their mind, magic works, so Rachel (with the mandrakes) and Yakov (with the sticks) made use of it. Unfortunately, the non-rationalist rishonim are, to put it bluntly, wrong: Magic is nonsense. So why are Jacob and Rachel messing around with it? Why do we pray in the merits of people who's knowledge of God was imperfect? Wouldn't we better off praying in the merit of someone like the Rambam, who knew that God alone controls the world and that his sovreignty isn't shared with sticks and flowers?

A possible answer, suggested by Balabusta, is that Yakov and Rivka weren't dabbling in magic but in medicine - flawed medicine, but medicine all the same. Do we destroy the reputation of Yakov and Rachel if we say they made use of the science of their times? Is using flawed medicine a spiritual failing? No. Of course not. But if it isn't a spiritual failing, it is an intellectual failing.

And the implications of this intellectual failing are troubling. We venerate the Sages despite their imperfect science [Moreh Nevuchim (3:14)] because they are our great teachers of Jewish law. But if you follow Rashi, Yackov and Rachel knew less about the world than we did; if you follow Rashi, what's left to venerate? If Jacob and Rachel were, intellectually speaking, ordinary men and women of the Bronze Age, who, as it happens, taught us no Torah, why are they worthy of being remembered at all?

The Ramban, thank god, will have none of Rashi's quack-medicine. He believes "Rachel wanted the duda'im for delight and pleasure, for Rachel was visited with children through prayer, not by medicinal methods." He's also done his homework:"...people say [the mandrake] is an aid to pregnancy... but I have not seen this in any of the medicinal books discussing mandrakes." The Rambam's view, therefore, is that the plants had no power.

The old switcheroo...

Philip Ratner does it again with his rendition interpretation of Esau receiving the (reluctant) blessing of his father Isaac. I was very excited last week when wandering my new Temple when I discovered amongst the collected Jewish art was a Philip Ratner sculpture. Now I know to where I will wander when I get shpilkes during services.This d'var is from Rabbi Dov Fisher....
In Parshat Toldot, we encounter the remarkable event described in Genesis 27, as Yitzhak prepares in blindness to confer an eternal blessing on one of his twin sons.

He wants to extend that blessing to the viscerally evil Esav, who nevertheless always has acted with the utmost respect for his father. Esav has Yitzhak figured out, and Yitzhak really loves him. By contrast, Rivkah is devoted uniquely to the simpler, gentler, less charismatic Yaakov.

Why the dichotomy? We have met Rivkah as a kind, young lady, offering water to slake the thirsts of Avraham's servant, Eliezer, and his camels. We have heard a midrash that her father, Betuel, attempted to poison Eliezer's food but died himself when an angel sent by God switched the plates. Later, we have learned of Rivkah's difficulty in conceiving and of her travails in bearing these particular twins to term.

We further will learn that her brother is worse than her dad. Besides her murderous father, Rivkah's brother, Lavan, is a prototype for Simon Legree. Lavan will squeeze some 20 years near-slavery out of his nephew and son-in-law, Yaakov, after switching daughters on Yaakov's wedding night, pulling the beautiful and desired Rachel out and slipping the sad-looking Leah in her stead. Even as Lavan steals from Yaakov for two decades, his own daughters will lament that he has stolen all he could from them, too, treating them as veritable strangers. That's Rivkah's bro.

So it emerges that although she is an incredibly sweet soul, Rivkah also grew up in a household with dramatic issues of dysfunctionality at its core. To put it simply, she grew up street-smart.

On the other hand, Yitzhak was intensively protected. Not only were his parents the progenitors and founding patriarch and matriarch of the Jewish people, but they further protected the spiritual elevations of their home by expelling the Yishmaels and Hagars who threatened Yitzhak's innocence.

The home was sterilized for spirituality, cleansed of any foreign influence. As a further protection, Avraham virtually hand picked Yitzhak's wife by setting guidelines when he dispatched Eliezer, his servant, to find a suitable match:

1) No one from the surrounding environs, thus no one who will bring along in-laws and other corrupting and disruptive influences;

2) Only someone from Avraham's own birthland in Charan, assuring both that the wife would be alien to the local environment, thus impeding assimilation into the morally perverse Canaanite culture, and that another set of prospective in-laws would be kept far out of reach.

Thus, Rivkah was raised in a streetwise milieu, while Yitzhak was extremely insulated. So Esav easily played to Yitzhak's innocence.

By contrast, Rivkah had the tools to read Esav like a roadmap. It then devolved on her to draw on her own street-smarts to save the day, to move her own intensely protected son, Yaakov, to the fore. For this, she drew on a tactic that seems unique to her family -- the switcheroo.

Few families practice the kind of prevalent switching that seems to have been endemic in the Betuel-Lavan-Rivkah family. Betuel switches the plates, trying to poison Eliezer. Lavan switches and disguises his daughters on Yaakov's wedding night. And Rivkah switches and disguises Yaakov for the blessing.

In time, as the family legends grow, Yaakov's sons one day will deceive him with animal blood they will say is Yosef's blood on the precious striped coat. And then Yosef will disguise himself from his brothers in the Pharaoh's palace.

In the end, is the switching of the brothers justified to assure that Yitzhak's blessing was conferred properly? The commentators are not all of one mind. What if Rivkah had tried reasoning with Yitzhak, even months and years earlier, trying to use her street-smarts to enlighten him, in his protected spiritual innocence, as to Esav's true character of evil? Perhaps she did try unsuccessfully, and we do not know. Perhaps not.

Yitzhak ultimately is satisfied that he acted correctly in blessing Yaakov; he reiterates Yaakov's blessing later with full scienter. But consider the price: Esav feels cheated and pledges to murder Yaakov as soon as his father dies.

Rivkah, hearing of the intent, desperately persuades Yitzhak to dispatch Yaakov to Lavan's house to find a wife. Yaakov ends up exiled for 20 years, victimized incessantly through two decades by an uncle and father-in-law so heinous, that the haggadah recounts that Lavan was worse than Pharaoh.

It is not clear whether Rivkah had an effective alternative to switching and disguising Yaakov to obtain Yitzhak's eternal blessing. But it does seem that the idea of switching may well have come from the culture of her upbringing, reared in the house of Betuel and Lavan. When in doubt, switch them out.

Sometimes it is useful for each of us to pause, too, and to wonder what practices and shticklach we practice in our homes, in full view of our children, with the attendant consideration of whether these behavioral quirks and anomalies that we sanction as normative and convenient will be passed down through our children and theirs in generations to come.

And in that light, we well might ask: Is it worth it? To deceive? To live by incessant white lies? To constantly criticize? To yell? To measure people by money? To deny fault and refuse ever to apologize? To always be the one who takes and never the one who gives? To be arrogant in one's self-estimation?

With children watching and emulating -- is it worth it?