Tevet 13, 5776/December 25, 2015
"In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1)
"And Yosef died at the age of one hundred and ten years, and they embalmed him and he was placed into the coffin in Egypt." (ibid 50:26)
The book of Genesis opens with so much promise and expansiveness. G-d is creating a world according to His will, a world of light and life, a world of birth and renewal. But Genesis' closing words couldn't be more desolate and full of gloom. From life to death, from light to darkness. From a radiant, warming glow, to a shiver and a chill. When we understand the literal meaning of the Hebrew word for Egypt - Mitzraim - a confined, constrained place, we also understand that the world which once included the most distant stars in the firmament, has now been diminished to a small, narrow, lifeless coffin. But when we examine the Hebrew word for coffin - aron - we see that contained within its four letters are the three letters which form the word ohr - light!
Has the world that G-d created in the opening verses of Genesis ended, neither with a whimper nor a bang, but with the soft thud of a coffin being closed and sealed? Or is the coffin that Yosef has been placed in nothing less than a vessel of light and a harbinger of renewal? Like a seed that is placed within the dark earth waiting only for G-d's blessing to emerge and bear fruit, the death of Yosef and the death of his brothers, and the onset of what would prove a long and painful exile, were but a necessary prelude and staging ground for what would come next: delivery from Egyptian bondage and ultimately, true freedom acquired at the foot of Mount Sinai.
But why was it necessary for G-d to bring the world to so dark a place? Even before he had a son, G-d told Avram "You shall surely know that your seed will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will enslave them and oppress them, for four hundred years." (ibid 15:13) G-d indeed told Avram this dark forecast, but He spared him the painful reason for the exile - the inability of Avraham's children's children - brothers - to get along.
G-d created a breathtakingly beautiful world, but the flaw in the perfect crystal was man's inability to get along with man. The crown in G-d's creation proved to be its near undoing. So G-d devised for the sons of Israel, the quarreling brothers who would nearly kill, and then sell into slavery one of their own, the same solution He devised for man when He stated that "It is not good for man to be alone." (ibid 2:18) G-d separated the brothers. Once separated they came to long for one another. Their emotional reunion would take place in two stages. Yehudah's readiness to do whatever necessary to returnBinyamin to his father was the first stage: final proof that the brothers, filled with regret for their past transgression, would never allow a brother to be endangered again. Stage two was when Yosef confessed his identity and guaranteed his brothers' safety and sustenance. The brothers embraced and would never again be separated.
But apparently the reconciliation was not truly complete, for after their father Yaakovhad died and been buried, the brothers again feared for their safety, saying, "Perhaps Yosef will hate us and return to us all the evil that we did to him." (ibid 50:15) AgainYosef reciprocated with love: "Indeed, you intended evil against me, but God designed it for good, in order to bring about what is at present to keep a great populace alive." (ibid 50: 20)
But how could G-d know that the reconciliation was complete and that the brothers' love for one another was pure and untainted by any lingering fears or misgivings? It wasYosef, himself, who called upon his brothers to make the final gesture that will prove conclusively that the brothers' reconciliation is beyond any doubt: "I am going to die; G-d will surely remember you and take you up out of this land to the land that He swore to Avraham, to Yitzchak, and to Yaakov... G-d will surely remember you, and you shall take up my bones out of here." (ibid 50:24-25) What greater vow of love and unity could there be than the fulfillment of a promise to the deceased by those who will also be gone when the time comes for the fulfillment of the vow?
The ultimate fulfillment of the vow, performed three generations later by the children of Israel upon leaving Egypt forever, was the very act which made the exodus from Egypt possible! It was the ultimate expression of brotherly unity, love and responsibility toward one another that enabled and empowered G-d to perform all the miracles that He performed on their behalf to bring them out of Egypt. The cold, dark conclusion to the book of Genesis proves that without love and solidarity among brothers the world is heading toward a dead and dismal end. But the light hinted at in the Hebrew word aron(coffin) will literally see Israel and the world through the oncoming darkness of Egypt, and burst forth again in full glory at Sinai. May our generation, too, unite in love for one another and for G-d and may we stand together once again before Him, in Jerusalem, in His Holy Temple!
-The Temple Institute
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