Vayechi
Genesis 47:28-50:26
I Kings 2:1-12
With Rebekah’s prompting, Jacob changed his fortune and received the first blessing of his father by disguising himself. As we remember, the only real effort to make things different was to cover his hands with the skin of the goats killed to make a savory stew.
So much could have given (and maybe did give) Jacob away — the stew itself (can you imagine that Isaac did not know the difference between wild game and domestic?); the speed of delivery and the undisguised voice of Jacob, both of which Isaac comments on; and the smooth skin of the second son, the one who cooked lentils and sat in the tents of his mother.
Now, at the end of his life, Jacob has a bizarre opportunity to reverse the situation — he is old and ready to bless his sons in turn. This time, however, he has some clarity about which one is which, and he blesses them according to their qualities.
But first, he blesses his favorite son, the one who has been returned to him in his old age, and his grandsons in a scene both powerful and confusing.
It starts with Joseph being told his father is ill. This is probably not so strange, as he was surely still involved in Pharoah’s administration, and was not able to visit daily. He grabs his two sons and leaves immediately.
In the next few verses, we have a remarkable duality: At first, Jacob seems cogent, though a bit desperate. He is aware of what is happening and he claims the boys as his. It is as if his early loss of Joseph has never been removed fully from his memory — Rachel’s firstborn, the one he loved best.
Benjamin doesn’t seem to have replaced Joseph, and understandably, as he was tied to the death of his mother, Jacob’s beloved.
Now Ephraim and Menasseh are claimed as Jacob’s, as the real inheritors of the chain of ancestral blessing. They are even to lose their claim as Joseph’s heirs!
Then, suddenly, the text shifts, and we have an old man, a man reminiscent of Isaac, whose name is no longer Jacob, but, tellingly, Israel.
Israel’s eyes are dim with age, and he does not even perceive his grandsons at first, though they are seated in their father’s lap. As he does, he blesses them, and passes on a similar desire to them as that expressed in the earlier paragraph — but it is as if the Jacob of decisiveness is now hidden behind the eyes of the Israel of agedness.
His blessing is interesting, in that it invokes the Divine, and does not directly impart the gifts of land and progeny as the blessings of Isaac did to him so many years ago.
As Israel, he is now conscious of the Holy engagement in his life, in the world and through his family. And in his blindness, he recapitulates the act of his father: He blesses the younger grandson above the elder. Here, however, he is aware of what he is doing, and when Joseph tries to correct the situation (after the blessing has taken place, incidentally) he uses the words that God used to comfort Abraham about Ishmael — “his one too shall be a great nation.”
The brash, decisive Jacob has mellowed. The young, uncertain Jacob has matured.
He who made a deal with God has both won and lost in the end. We see both sides here: the strong Jacob, the humble Israel.
In his encounters with God, Jacob grows wiser and more human. Now, he chooses what to do with his hands — he chooses to reverse the blessing, rather than allowing fate and another’s desire to shape the future, as he once did. He is Israel, the one who wrestles — and we are Israel, his children.
May we, too, use our hands wisely and with intent, as we bless our children, and the world.
Rabbi Elisheva Salamo is the spiritual leader of Keddem Congregation in Palo Alto.