Memoriam: My Sister Menorah Rotenberg—Parshat Vayishlach and Parshat Vayeshev

Last picture of Menorah Rotenberg z”l in her favorite Hungarian Coffee Shop

It is hard to believe that I am writing again, while sitting shiva once again, this time for my older sister (by six years) who died on Shabbat, parshat vayishlach. Despite the geographic distance between the two of us, we were very close. My favorite (and only) niece wrote about us:

“My mother’s relationship with her only sister taught me a lot about what a sibling relationship could be. Even though my Aunt Naomi moved to Israel in 1967 and she and my mother would not live in the same country for the next 57 years, they remained incredibly close. In the earlier years, when long distance calls were very expensive, and I don’t even think the Graetz’s had a phone, they sent hundreds of aerogrammes. Over the years their correspondence shifted to phone calls, emails, and zooms. There were times when I couldn’t tell them apart on the phone. Their speech had the same cadence, they had such similar voices and they laughed at the same things. A special treat was when I would be on the phone with both of them at the same time. I did not get a word in edgewise. Over the years, they would support each in myriad ways. And spend a lot of time in each other’s homes, get to know each other’s friends, shuls and communities. We always called the small room in my parent’s basement “Aunt Naomi’s” room. They spoke to each other multiple times a week – even this week. They supported each other through good and bad times. Their relationship was one to admire and strive to replicate.”

Many years ago, I wrote a midrash about sisters, keeping in mind my sister, who I imagined as Leah, and myself, who I imagined as Rachel. The death scene appears as follows in the Tanakh:

They set out from Bethel; but when they were still some distance short of Ephrath, Rachel was in childbirth, and she had hard labor. When her labor was at its hardest, the midwife said to her, “Have no fear, for it is another boy for you.” But as she breathed her last—for she was dying—she named him Ben-oni; but his father called him Benjamin. Thus, Rachel died. She was buried on the road to Ephrath—now Bethlehem (Genesis 35:16-19).

I’m sharing with you the ending of the modern midrash/retelling which I wrote in 1985.

ABRIDGED ENDING OF MY MIDRASH ABOUT SISTERS

On the road to Bethel, Rebecca’s old nurse, Deborah, died and was buried under an oak tree. Rachel had encouraged her to come with them to see Rebecca once more before she died. Her death affected Rachel very much, for the old nurse had been the only one who had understood why she had taken the terafim. She had lost her ally. They journeyed from Bethel towards Southern Canaan. They had to cross a wadi which was still full of water from a recent rain.

“Father, come quickly,” Joseph said. “Mother needs you.”

“What is it now, Rachel? I’m very busy.”

“Jacob, I’m not really up to traveling, I feel terrible.”

“We will make you a pallet and the servants will carry you across the wadi.”

They were on the road to Bethlehem two months later when Reuven came running to Leah.

“Mother, come quickly! Aunt Rachel says the baby is coming.”

“Rachel, I’m here!” Leah said as she entered her sister’s tent.

“Leah, I’m in such terrible pain. Help me. Keep me company. I’m afraid that I am going to die.”

“Hush, don’t be silly. Remember when we were little and you said that to me.”

“I remember, we were so happy then. You said you would die before me, because you were older and I believed you then. Leah, I am terrified. I won’t live through this birth. If I die I want you to promise me you will raise this baby as your own.”

“Rachel, don’t be silly, you’re not dying.”

“Swear to me that you take me seriously.”

“If it makes you happy, so be it. But you’re not dying, it cannot be, you are younger than I.”

“Leah, tell Jacob I love him. Love him for me when I am gone.”

“You will have plenty of time to tell him that yourself. I have sent for him. Now concentrate on having the baby.”

“Rachel, push. Good girl. Keep it up. Keep trying. Push, push, it’s coming. Rachel, it’s a beautiful boy. He looks like Joseph did when he was born.”

“Let me see him. I’m so tired. Call him Ben Oni, son of my suffering. I can’t hold him, take him from me. Let me sleep, I’m so tired,” she said as she closed her eyes.

“Jacob, hold me tight. Make Leah as happy as you made me. I love you both.”

These were her last words. Just then the baby cried.

“Jacob, she called him Ben-Oni. That’s not a name to give a child.”

“We will call him Ben-Yamin, my right-hand son. But to me he will always be Ben-Yamim, son of my old age. I feel my heart breaking, I feel old suddenly.”

“I lied to you Rachel,” Leah wept. “I really hoped you would die first. You were always so lovely. Now Jacob is mine. It is my turn to be beautiful. But I miss you so.”

She turned to Jacob and they comforted each other. Together they buried Rachel on the road to Bethlehem. Leah raised Benyamin as her own son.

Menorah and Me Israel, 1962

When I was writing this many years ago, I cried at this death scene. I could not envision losing my sister, certainly not when I was in my mid-forties. This week I did lose my sister. Unlike Rachel, she was buried next to her beloved husband, Aubey and many of her close friends accompanied her and her family to the gravesite. My sister died, still hoping to live, not realizing how grave her situation was–and that was a blessing.

PARSHAT VAYESHEV

This week, we are reading Vayeshev, which begins the Joseph Saga. My sister was preoccupied with the Joseph story and for years was planning to write a serious article about him. Unfortunately, she never got around to writing her magnum opus about Joseph. But, in 2003, exactly twenty-one years ago to this day, she wrote an article for the Forward comparing the Joseph story to the Akedah.

EXCERPTS FROM “A HIDDEN MASTER PLOT,” MENORAH ROTENBERG Z”l

Jacob’s return to Canaan inaugurates the beginning of the Joseph story, which reprises many of the repetitive motifs of the Genesis saga. Almost immediately, for example, the motif of casting out — this time of Joseph — is highlighted. But the story of Joseph also bears a resemblance to the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac, even though the Akedah is a singular moment when God demanded the sacrifice of Abraham’s “beloved” son Isaac (Genesis 22:2).

….We need to consider the impact of a foundational myth such as the Akedah. Clearly it partakes of the unthinkable. But once the unthinkable is acted on, it exerts a powerful pull through the generations. It shapes our imagination. It is surprising, then, considering its powerful mystique and the vast literature it has generated, that we seem to find no trace of sacrificial recurrences in the Genesis text itself,

With this in mind, in rereading this week’s portion I was indeed struck by the many textual allusions to the language used in describing the Binding of Isaac (Genesis 22). Jacob tells Joseph he will send him to his brothers (who hate him on account of his tunic and, later, his dreams; Genesis 37:3-11) to see whether they are pasturing peaceably (shalom) in Shechem (Genesis 37:14). Even if Joseph’s narcissism had blinded him to his brothers’ hatred for him, and even if he hadn’t grasped the exasperated irony of Jacob’s precipitous send-off, he would have recalled that Shechem reeks with the butchery and violence associated with the rape of Dinah (Genesis 34). Joseph agrees to seek out his brothers and, in a striking parallel, he uses the terminology of the Akedah, echoing his great-grandfather Abraham’s words: “I am ready” (hineini, 37:13). He then goes out to seek his brothers, foolhardily wearing his tunic, which enables them to “see him from afar” (37:18), just as earlier Abraham saw “the place from afar” (22:4)

…..What can we make of these sacrificial allusions? Have the Akedah’s mistrustful, hateful, deceitful, intergenerational subterranean whisperings and sacrificial imagery been gathering momentum? Will they now finally push for enactment?….

And so, once again, the beloved son was nearly sacrificed but saved by God to play a redemptive role. While the Akedah may not have been consciously revisited, it may nevertheless be the hidden master plot directing the narrative of the Joseph cycle. It may direct the Ishmael cycle as well, but that is for another Torah portion.

If any of you are interested in what I wrote for the past two years on this parsha you can go to these two links.

Needless to say, I have not yet recovered from the death of my partner in life and am still observing the sheloshim. Yet, in my grief, I find myself comforted by finding many pictures which include both my sister Menorah and my husband Michael, who actually knew each other in Camp Ramah, Wisconsin, before we ever met. Perhaps they are having conversations somewhere during the seven days of mourning when according to some traditions the soul is grieving over the loss of its body.

יהיה זכרם ברוך

May their memory be a blessing