Familiarity in Life (and Death)- Vayehi 5785
Beth David Cemetery lies very close to Belmont Racetrack in Elmont, New York just over the border from Queens. This is the location where three generations of Einsidlers are laid to rest, in a plot of land originally purchased by my great-great grandparents, Samuel and Mollie Willner. If you then drive further east on the Southern State Parkway to Lindenhurst out on Long Island, next to Farmingdale, you’ll come to Mount Ararat Cemetery. This is where my great grandfather Herbert Benjamin Rosenthal (who I’m named after), along with his wife Belle and my maternal grandparents are all buried, and I’ve been told is the spot where my parents- they should live long and be well- will eventually be laid to rest themselves.
Although I spend less time in New York these days than earlier in my life, if I have the time while I’m there I try to visit both cemeteries to pay my respects, especially in the late summer or early fall before the high holidays. Why do I do this? I suppose apart from showing respect to one’s elders, I enjoy the sense of being on familiar ground, in a familiar place. I was fortunate to be very close with my grandparents and have fond memories of them, and enjoy recalling stories of them with my parents, as well as being in New York, a place that is in many ways still my family’s “old homestead” and with which I’m all too familiar.
It seems that we crave that which is familiar to us, even in death. In older Jewish cemeteries, it’s not uncommon to see graves grouped together by town or shtetl, where all residents from a certain place in Europe choose to be buried together. This is often administered by a landsmanschaft, a Jewish mutual aid society that saw to the community’s needs for both the living and the dead.
In parshat Vayehi, which we read this morning, we read the final section of the book of Genesis, closing out the story of our matriarchs and patriarchs before we begin the book of Exodus. The book closes with the death of Jacob, followed by the death of Joseph. Both of them exhort their family to “bring them home”, as it were, to Canaan and bury them in the family burial ground, the Cave of Machpelah, which Abraham first purchased to bury Sarah when she died. In his seminal essay “Death As Homecoming”, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes:
“Death may be a supreme spiritual act, turning oneself over to eternity: The moment of death, a moment of ecstasy. Thus afterlife is felt to be a reunion and all of life a preparation for it … Death is not understood as the end of being but rather as the end of doing. As such it is a dramatic break, a radical event: cessation of doing.”
The last verses of our parsha make up the ultimate cliffhanger: Joseph, foreseeing that the Israelites are to remain in Egypt as slaves, dies with a vision and a warning pointing at what’s to come. The Torah teaches:
וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יוֹסֵף֙ אֶל־אֶחָ֔יו אָנֹכִ֖י מֵ֑ת וֵֽאלֹהִ֞ים פָּקֹ֧ד יִפְקֹ֣ד אֶתְכֶ֗ם וְהֶעֱלָ֤ה אֶתְכֶם֙ מִן־הָאָ֣רֶץ הַזֹּ֔את אֶל־הָאָ֕רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר נִשְׁבַּ֛ע לְאַבְרָהָ֥ם לְיִצְחָ֖ק וּֽלְיַעֲקֹֽב׃
“Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am about to die. God will surely take notice of you and bring you up from this land to the land promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.’”
וַיַּשְׁבַּ֣ע יוֹסֵ֔ף אֶת־בְּנֵ֥י יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל לֵאמֹ֑ר פָּקֹ֨ד יִפְקֹ֤ד אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶתְכֶ֔ם וְהַעֲלִתֶ֥ם אֶת־עַצְמֹתַ֖י מִזֶּֽה׃
“So Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, ‘When God has taken notice of you, you shall carry up my bones from here.’”
Joseph exhorts his brothers, in his final moments, to not allow his final remains to stay in Egypt forever. In their own way, both Jacob and Joseph’s deaths teach us about Judaism’s own mourning customs and provide an example to follow. Firstly, regarding Jacob’s funeral, a whole coterie of senior Egyptian officials accompany Joseph and his brothers across the Jordan. We learn in Genesis 50:10:
וַיָּבֹ֜אוּ עַד־גֹּ֣רֶן הָאָטָ֗ד אֲשֶׁר֙ בְּעֵ֣בֶר הַיַּרְדֵּ֔ן וַיִּ֨סְפְּדוּ־שָׁ֔ם מִסְפֵּ֛ד גָּד֥וֹל וְכָבֵ֖ד מְאֹ֑ד וַיַּ֧עַשׂ לְאָבִ֛יו אֵ֖בֶל שִׁבְעַ֥ת יָמִֽים׃
“When they came to Goren ha-Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, they held there a very great and solemn lamentation; and he observed a mourning period of seven days for his father.”
The central act of a Jewish funeral is the hesped– the eulogy, which according to tradition is supposed to stir up emotion, like the “great and solemn lamentation” discussed in this verse. There are, in fact, days on the Jewish calendar where eulogies are not given since they will intrude on the joyous nature of those days. Furthermore, this verse is the textual basis for sitting shiva, the first seven days of mourning observed after a funeral. For seven days after the funeral of a first-degree relative, a mourner is exempt from all positive time-bound mitzvot, including prayer, and ceases from their normal routine and activities. After seven days they make their initial forays back into the world, just as Joseph and his brothers return to Egypt after they bury their father.
The great retinue of Egyptians that accompany them, including Pharaoh’s courtiers, is another lesson for us. We learn in the Talmud in tractate Shabbat that one of the actions from which a person derives benefit in both this world and the world to come is levayat ha’met, accompanying the dead. In modern Hebrew, this is connected to the word for funeral- levaya, or accompaniment. There have been instances in Israel when notable rabbis have died where there are literally hundreds of thousands of people accompanying the funeral cortege in fulfillment of this mitzvah.
The very last verse of the parsha, which are the last words of the book of Genesis, are full of trepidation, pointing at what’s to come:
וַיָּ֣מׇת יוֹסֵ֔ף בֶּן־מֵאָ֥ה וָעֶ֖שֶׂר שָׁנִ֑ים וַיַּחַנְט֣וּ אֹת֔וֹ וַיִּ֥ישֶׂם בָּאָר֖וֹן בְּמִצְרָֽיִם׃
“Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years; and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt.”
Nahum Sarna writes in his commentary on our parsha that “a touch of local color is added by the mention of the embalming of Jacob, as well as Joseph after him, the only instances in the Bible of such a peculiarly Egyptian practice.” He goes on to say that embalming itself seems to have been purely a practical measure, a means of preserving the body before undertaking the long journey back to Canaan and the Cave of Machpelah.
Apart from being embalmed, it’s noteworthy that Joseph’s body is placed in a coffin. While this was also a method of preservation, it’s noteworthy that this is the only instance in the Tanakh of a coffin being used after death. Traditionally the body after death was placed directly in the earth. Even today in Israel, this is the custom. If a person dies a “normal” death, the body is first ritually prepared for burial by the hevra kadisha (burial society), and then wrapped in linen garments or a kittel and placed directly in the earth at the cemetery, unless the body has sustained extensive physical damage. Outside of Israel, it’s customary to use a plain, unadorned wooden casket and sprinkle some earth from har hazeitim, the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, into the casket as well.
I can tell you that I myself have been a member of the Community Hevra Kadisha of Greater Boston for many years, and being able to see our mourning rituals up close and participate in this holy work has been incredibly moving and spiritually rewarding. They are always interested in having new members join and routinely hold training sessions; if you are interested in joining in this holy work or would like more information, please let me know.
Crucially, both Jacob and Joseph let their families know what their final wishes are. Having officiated funerals and worked with families after the death of a loved one, I have seen firsthand how much easier this painful time can be when the deceased’s wishes are known. Judaism looks favorably upon end-of-life and estate planning, and without being too morbid, I encourage you to make the time to do that. Having a perhaps difficult or awkward conversation with a loved one can spare unnecessary difficulty and strain after death. When I last visited my parents’ house in Maryland last summer, they told me that they wanted my oldest brother and I to be the executors of their will, and we went over details and then had dinner, satisfied in the knowledge that we were all on the same page.
Of course, despite Joseph and his brothers carrying out the wishes of their father and honoring him in death, they return to Egypt and die there, with their descendants becoming slaves to a Pharaoh that “did not know Joseph”. However, we know the story (spoiler alert): G-d eventually does take notice of the Israelites, as Joseph foretold, and brings them up from Egypt and frees them from slavery. They begin their own journey home, literally and figuratively, while still living, with Joseph’s bones in tow.
This, one can say, is what it means to be Jewish: looking hopefully towards the future, despite its challenges, while not discarding our past or overlooking our personal and collective journeys. Our lives are a journey of taking comfort in that which is familiar, while simultaneously doing our best to have a relationship with the divine in a future that is always unfolding.
The 70 individuals that go down to Egypt grow and multiply, living within the cycle of life and death which we all experience. The Tradition’s care and concern for us, both in life and death, serve to bring comfort to us and those we care about. Let us be grateful to be heirs to that comfort and care, even in challenging times, expressing our hopes and wishes to those who can hopefully help bring them to fruition.