And Yosef died at the age of one hundred ten years

(Genesis 50:26)

Tevet 15, 5777/January 13, 2017

In the beginning the earth was full of darkness, chaos and void. G-d said "Let there be light," and G-d created Man and man bore sons and brothers were filled with envy and enmity. Brother killed brother and brother mocked brother and brother fought with brother and brother took from brother. Brother spoke evil of brothers and brothers sold brother into slavery. And then brothers reconciled, forgave and embraced. And the light that G-d created on the first day shined at last upon the brotherhood that G-d had been seeking ever since He put an end to the darkness.

And then "Yosef died at the age of one hundred ten years, and they embalmed him and he was placed into the coffin in Egypt." (Genesis 50:26)

The reconciliation of Yosef and his brothers represents the high point of the first two thousand years of creation, the point of greatest light. Man was not only the jewel in G-d's creation, man was also the only flaw in it. G-d, in His great wisdom, created His only flawed creation with the self-ability to overcome his flaw and perfect his own being. Man, and only man, can heal and repair his own soul. Man, and only man, can forgive, or ask for forgiveness of another, and man, and only man, can reconcile with another. G-d can do His part. He can inspire man with dreams, He can cause a company of traveling Midianites and later Ishmaelites to pass by at just the right time, and He can cause seven years of plenty and then seven years of famine to visit the land. But the heavy lifting - the recognition of one's own culpability, the admission of one's own guilt and asking the injured party for forgiveness - this is up to man. The potential to forgive one another and form a bond stronger than that which existed before was placed by G-d in Adam the day He formed him and breathed life into him. But it took twenty three generations, the entire two thousand year history of the book of Genesis for man to spiritually mature, spurred by crisis, to the point where he could bring himself to ask his own flesh and blood for forgiveness. And that is exactly what happened between Yosef and his brothers. The light of creation had at last been released from the darkened hearts of man.

And then "Yosef died at the age of one hundred ten years, and they embalmed him and he was placed into the coffin in Egypt."

Yosef's death is reported in the very last verse of the book of Genesis. The coffin that he is placed into is known in Hebrew as aron - a word derived from the very same three letter root that spells the word ohr - light. The light with which G-d lit up creation on the first day, and which only now, with the reconciliation of Yosef and his brothers shines without restraint, with Yosef's death has been locked up with him inside his coffin, shut away, again, from the world. Midrash tells us that Yosef's coffin was then lowered to the bottom of the Nile River, (ironically, in Hebrew called Ye'or, from the word for light), and there it would rest in profound darkness until the day that Israel, fleeing from Egyptian slavery, would fulfill its word to Yosef, raise up his casket and bring it with them through forty years of desert sojourn and into the land of Israel to be buried in Shechem, in the plot of land purchased by his father Yaakov.

The book of Genesis ends in a darkness which will only grow darker when, in the opening verses of Exodus a new Pharaoh arises who does not know Yosef and Israel descends into the darkness of slavery. For one hundred and thirty years darkness reigned in Egypt. And then "A man of the house of Levi went and married a daughter of Levi. The woman conceived and bore a son, and when she saw him that he was good, she hid him for three months." (Exodus 2:1) "Good," like the light G-d created on day one, and then the mother of the child placed on the very same Nile which contained the coffin of Yosef "a reed basket, smeared with clay and pitch" (ibid 2:3) and inside it, the infant Moshe. When Pharaoh's daughter comes upon the basket and opens it the light of the first day of creation, the light of brotherhood and reconciliation will be released into the world, never to be hidden away again. A new chapter in the creation of the world and man's place in it, will begin anew. The light of brotherhood and the light of creation will shine as one light at Sinai where G-d and man will form an eternal covenant and a new light of the knowledge of G-d will fill the world.

-The Temple Institute