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Va-Yehi 5762, Genesis 47:28-50:26
Shabbat Shalom-
“Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years, and the days of
Jacob, the years of his life, were seven years, and forty and one hundred
years.” (47:28). It is interesting that Jacob lived with Joseph 17
years before Egypt and 17 years in Egypt. The sages (2-6th CE) comment
that these 34 years were the only truly happy years of Jacob’s life, as hinted
at by the phrase “And he lived, VaYeHI”, numerically signifying
34 in the Hebrew. That leaves him 113 years without Joseph, or perhaps
“BaL MiLVeH, without loans” to pay. Of course, we know parents
prefer having their children around than paying their loans.
Anyhow, I thought that since this week’s portion is the last in the book of
Genesis it would be appropriate to talk about the book as a whole and what it’s
trying to do. Genesis is a microcosm of biblical literature. It
contains the seeds for all of biblical literature, appropriate for a book of
beginnings. What Genesis does is set the stage for the book of Exodus and
the covenant at Sinai. On a grander scale, Genesis is a treatise on
knowing who we are. A Jew need merely look at the book of Genesis and he
sees that his ancestors walked with God, made covenants with God, and ultimately
how God came to form a special relationship with his people.
But Genesis is not a history book. It contains variant accounts,
contradictions, and anachronisms without any attempt to harmonize them.
That makes it more a book of traditions faithfully recorded, preserved for their
value to subsequent generations than a straight history. Ever since Jews
left Babylonia in the 5th century BCE and accelerating in the last 200 years,
people of the book have been searching for their past, for that lost
relationship with God so gloriously portrayed in the Five Books of Moses.
Current opinions in archeology tend to see the biblical account somewhat
sympathetically. Geography, language, customs, motifs, and even literary
styles are preserved in many of the stories. Archeology has induced the
history of the near east, the wars, conquests, jewelry, and foods of
kings. But history is only relevant insofar as we learn from it. We can
learn where we came from and maybe understand ourselves a little better. But in
the end, archeology just paints political and social stories. Archeology
is a dead thing. The Biblical narrative, for all its difficulties and lost
nuances, leads us to a sense of identity and how to be a better person in a way
no archeology text can.
Joseph the man lived only once some 3300 years ago. He died at the
Egyptian’s ideal age of 110 (50:26) and was mummified. His body, however,
could not return to the resting place of his fathers until his lessons had been
learned, the narrative tells us. In exchange for selling the Egyptian
people into slavery (47:23), his bones must await the slavery of his people
before they receive their land and take him to his heritage (Exodus 13:19,
Joshua 24:33). Only then could he return. The historical ownership
of Egypt has long since passed, but its lessons await discovery anew every day.
For some brief articles on the topic, see the links below.
Historicity of Exodus
On Biblical History
On Biblical Archeology
Have a caring week!
Benjamin Fleischer
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