Parashat Vayechi 5786

by Rabbi Margie Cella

Seventeen years after moving to Egypt, Jacob’s death was now at hand. Calling Joseph to him, he made him promise to bring his body back to Canaan for burial.

Joseph brought his sons Manasseh and Ephraim to visit their grandfather. When Jacob blessed them, he switched his hands, giving the firstborn’s blessing to Ephraim, who was younger. Joseph attempted to reverse his father’s hands, but Jacob insisted he knew what he was doing. Jacob said that all Israel would forever bless their sons with the words he used: “God make you as Ephraim and Manasseh.”

Jacob then gathered his sons together to tell them what the future would hold for each one. Much of what he had to say was less than flattering. That is, of course, until he got to Joseph, when he actually invoked the word “blessing” and the name of God. Only afterwards did he actually bless the others. Joseph was still his favored son.

After completing the mourning period for Jacob, Joseph honored his promise and, accompanied by his brothers, buried his father in the Cave of Machpelah.

Afterwards, fearing that Joseph would exact retribution on them now that Jacob was gone, his brothers sent word to him that before he died Jacob he had left instructions for Joseph to forgive them. In death, Jacob was able to correct what he could not bring himself to do in life: heal the wrongs that had been done and unite his sons as one family. In order to face what their future in Egypt would bring them, and to become the nation that God intended, they would all need to forgive one another.

Oseh Shalom, Master of Peace, may we, the descendants of Jacob, remember today that we are one family, and there is more that unites us than divides us.