Torah reading: Genesis 47:28 to the end of Genesis.
Haftarah reading: 1 Kings 2:1 to 12.
This week's Torah reading, Vayehi, Genesis 47:28 to 50:26, concludes the book of Genesis. Jacob tells his son Joseph that he will soon die, and resolves to adopt Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, as his own. In a scene immortalized by Rembrandt, Jacob crosses his hands to put his right hand on the head of the younger Ephraim, to give Ephraim preference over his older brother. (The prejudice against left handedness has a long history - when I was a baby and young child my mother would slap my left hand every time I reached with it - likely messing me up for life.) Joseph tried to reverse his father's hands, trying to guide Jacob's right hand to the older Manasseh, but Jacob stopped him:
"I know, my son, I know, he too shall be great. Yet his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall be plentiful enough for nations." So he blessed them that day saying, "By you shall Israel invoke blessings saying, 'God make you as Ephraim and Manasseh.'"
Genesis 48: 19-20.
Jacob's blessing, giving the birth right to the younger Ephraim, recalls his own usurption of the birth right from his older brother Esau.
What made Ephraim and Manasseh so great? Some commentators state that they kept their Jewish identities and their Jewish faith, in an alien land. Others state that they were the first siblings in the Bible, after Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, and Joseph and his brothers, to get along with each other.
Allow me to make two diversions from this discussion of the Biblical text.
First, for over a millennium Jewish fathers - and mothers can do it too - have blessed their sons every Friday night, immediately before or immediately after the Kiddush prayer chanted over wine. The parent places his (or her) hands over his (or her) son or sons' heads, and repeats, in Hebrew, the same words said by Jacob many millennia ago:
God make you as Ephraim and Manasseh.
The rabbis who developed our faith may have shared the same sexism that infected the rest of society, but they had the foresight to decree that fathers - and mothers can do it too - bless their daughters as well. The parent places his or her hands over the daughter(s)' heads and says, in Hebrew:
God make you as Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah.
For both daughters and sons, the blessing concludes with the priestly blessing [Numbers 6:24 - 26]:
May the Lord bless you and keep you;
May the Lord cause His spirit to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
May the Lord turn His spirit unto you and grant you peace.
And the second diversion from the Biblical text: According to Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, an early Medieval (9th Century) text, chapter 37, as a result of Shechem's rape or seduction (Genesis chapter 34) of Dinah, Jacob's only daughter, Dinah became pregnant and gave birth to a baby girl. Dinah took her baby to Egypt and abandoned the baby on the wall surrounding the Pharaoh's palace. Potipher, who would later become Joseph's master (Genesis chapter 39), was taking a walk and found the baby. He took her home, adopted her as his daughter, gave her the name Asenath, and raised the baby to adulthood. Later, Pharaoh would give Joseph Asenath to be his wife, Genesis 41: 45 and 50, where she is called "Asenath the daughter of Potipher." Thus, Joseph unwittingly married his niece. Asenath was the mother of Ephraim and Manasseh, and Jacob, in blessing Ephraim and Manasseh, was blessing children who were his great grandsons as well as his grandsons.
But back to this week's Torah text.
After blessing Ephraim and Manasseh, Jacob called his twelve sons (but not his daughter Dinah - did her abandonment of her child cause Jacob to exclude her from his blessings?) to "bless" each of them before his death. Jacob did bless Joseph and Judah, but his "blessings" of Reuben, Simeon and Levi were really curses:
Reuben, you are my first born,
My might and first fruit of my vigor,
Exceeding in rank and exceeding in honor.
Unstable as water, you shall excel no longer;
For when you mounted your father's bed,
You brought disgrace - my couch he mounted!
Simeon and Levi are a pair;
Their weapons are tools of lawlessness.
Let not my person be included in their council,
Let not my being be counted in their assembly.
For when angry they slay men,
And when pleased they maim oxen.
Cursed be their anger so fierce,
And their wrath so relentless.
I will divide them in Jacob,
Scatter them in Israel.
Jacob's "blessings" of Reuben, Simeon and Levi recall the blessing that Isaac had given Esau. Esau was determined to murder his brother for supplanting the better blessing, but now, as Genesis draws to a close, the rancor has come to an end. There is not even the slightest hint in the text that Reuben, Simeon or Levi bore any resentment over their father's dying curses - and they joined their brothers in burying their father. After the burial, Joseph's brothers feared that Joseph will finally take revenge, but Joseph assured them:
"Have no fear! Am I a substitute for God? God intended it for good, so as to bring about the present result - the survival of many people. And so, fear not. I will sustain you and your children." Thus he reassured them, speaking kindly to them.
Genesis 50: 19-21.
So, we conclude our study of four generations of a dysfunctional family, which finally becomes functional. The brothers finally unite in love, their children will unite as first cousins, and their children's children will unite as second cousins, so the story of a single family, when we begin the reading of Exodus in next week's Torah portion, becomes for the first time the story of the people who develop the Jewish faith. In a month's time we will reach the Torah reading of the revelation at Sinai. God will reveal Himself, and proclaim a Code of Law by which we live, not to an individual nor to a family, but to a nation, and this nation will ignite the sparks that will create the faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.