The first book of the Torah draws to an end but the story will go on. (Spoiler alert! There are are four more books still to get through before next Simchat Torah.) First the life of Jacob draws to an end – the Torah is very specific that ”the days grow close for him to die” (Gen. 47:29), indicating that for each of us there is a specific span – and, aware of this, he faces the responsibility of leaving good advice, a unified family, his burial wishes and ”famous last words” behind him.
It is clearly important for him to be buried next to at least one of his wives, Leah – or at least his parents, for Rachel, the wife he had loved, was of necesssity buried at the roadside somewhere. He has been a wanderer in his life, going to Haran as a refugee, going to Egypt out of necessity but he wants to be buried in his homeland. At Machpelah, in Hebron.
Later in the same chapter Joseph also instructs his family to ensure that he will be buried back in the homeland. Things are more complicated now – as a government minister he had been able (with Pharaoh’s permission) to escort his father’s body to Machpelah for burial, but once he himself has gone there will be nobody else left with the same status and privileges and so instead he tells them: ”The time will come in the future when God will take you all from here and back to our homeland – the one that God promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – and when that happens, take me with you.” They promise and, on his death, he is embalmed and mummified and placed in a coffin.
Years, decades, centuries pass by, the life of the Israelites is embittered with slavery, persecution and infanticide, but they remember somehow where this coffin is stored and when they are eventually expelled from Egypt amidst scenes of great drama and tumult and haste, Moses (who has been an Outsider until now, but who must have been told) takes it with him. (Exodus 13:19.) This is the symbolic key to the land they have been covenanted. The tablets of the Torah given on Sinai represent the Law, the Aron HaKodesh box with its curtains and hangings and lamp which they make for themselves in the wilderness (following instructions) represents the contact to God, but the coffin with the mummified remains of Joseph is their link to the promises made to the Patriarchs.
Forty unexpected and unplanned years will have to pass before Moses is compelled to hand over to Joshua and Joshua starts the campaign to conquer the land. At the very end of the Book of Joshua, in chapter 24:32, after Joshua himself has died and been buried on his estate in the hill-country of Ephraim, the Israelites – the people, not the judges, not the priests – will bury this coffin in Shechem, in the plot of land which Joseph’s had father bought for cash all those centuries ago. (This was later called Neapolis and from this comes it modern Arabic name Nablus…) Somehow they still know all the details.
I have referred to the end of the Book of Genesis, the end of the Book of Deuteronomy, the end of the Book of Joshua. Jacob dies, Joseph dies, Moses dies, Joshua dies, Eleazar dies – do we see a pattern here? A motif? A lesson? It is that each generation has its leaders but that the leaders themselves are not immortal. Each book has a different location, each leader has had a different biography, each has had a different part to play in the story, in the mission. None can do it all. There is a time to stand back and hand over. THAT is the best sort of Happy Ending.
If only all modern leaders would understand this basic, universal truth!
- Rabbi Dr Walter Rothschild is based in Berlin, Germany. You can follow him on Substack.