Two Minute Torah Podcast

Vayehi 5768 by Dr. Richard Lederman

Shalom. My name is Richard Lederman. I am Director of Public Policy and Social Action for the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism and Executive Director of the Seaboard Region of United Synagogue.

The Parasha we are reading this week is called Vayehi, from the opening words, vayehi Yoseph, “Joseph lived.” Yet much of the story is focused on death—the death of Jacob and the death of Joseph. Why would a narrative of death begin with a word meaning life? In the Torah, among other challenges that death presents is the challenge of sustaining God’s covenant. God’s promise to the Jewish people, beginning with God’s promise to Abraham--that we would become a great and numerous nation, that we would become a blessing to the world, that, indeed, all the world would bless themselves in our name—that promise is called into question whenever an heir to that promise dies.

Facing death, Jacob makes sure to pass the promise of God’s covenant on to his decedents. In a familiar theme of reversal, a theme well known to Jacob from his own experience with his brother Esau, Jacob crosses his arms when blessing his grandsons, placing his right hand on the younger child Ephraim, thereby elevating him to a higher status than his older brother Menashe. That is why, we are told, we bless our children with the blessing, “May God make you like Ephraim and Manashe,” placing Ephraim, the younger son, first in our blessing.

I wonder why this theme is so common in the Torah. What does this reversal of the younger over the older tell us about the Jewish character and the Jewish consciousness? Do we perhaps have something of an inferiority complex, or is there some other message?

I believe there is another message. Our ancestors looked at themselves and the world much the way we do. We are a small people, few in number. We often despair of this, seeing our declining numbers as a crisis. But our Torah teaches that size is not what counts, that the younger child can obtain the birthright; that the smaller nation can receive God’s promise, God’s covenant. As long as we remain focused on the mission to be a people in covenant relationship with God, to be a holy nation, a people determined to bring the blessings of justice and well being to the world, then we will surely remain heirs to God’s promise.

Shalom uvrakhah—may we all enjoy God’s peace and God’s blessing.