|
|
This is for Deena: I begin by noting that, after hounding myself and all of you for many years in search of life's meaning, just the other day I was driving along, my thoughts meandering as they do -- and suddenly a whole new framework occurred to me! Life doesn't need to be -- and maybe can't be -- meaningful. It needs to be whole.
Right now in our cycle of Torah readings we are in the latter part of the book of Genesis. And we notice right away that the life of the patriarch Jacob dominates the second half of the book. Where else in scripture does one find such a lengthy, detailed story of one life? Or one so rich in dramatic and moral tensions, so troubling and multivalent? (Perhaps only the story of David in the books of Samuel comes close in both detail and drama.)
I find myself noticing the beautiful, musical names of the weekly portions: Vayetze, Vayishlach, Vayeshev -- then the discordant-sounding Miketz -- then Vayigash and finally Vayechi. A life flows through these chapters:
In Vayetze ("he came out") Jacob is born the younger of twins, absconds with the blessing and the birthright of his rival and sets out into the world to find a bride.
In Vayishlach ("he sent") he falls in love (the first, or at least the hottest, romance in Torah) and becomes a man of means: wives, children, cattle, land.
In Vayeshev ("he settled") he is alone, wrestles, is wounded. Meets his estranged brother. Unbearable losses begin. His beloved Rachel dies. His favored son is killed by beasts. He attains a kind of sorrowful stillness.
[Let's wait a moment to talk about Miketz, which is altogether different…]
In Vayigash ("he approached") it is the void he approaches. Bereavement becomes central. All his children have gone. He is alone and hungry, sees only loss ahead.
In Vayechi ("he lived") all this is reversed. Jacob is reunited with all of his children, even the beloved Joseph, who was not slain by wild animals after all. Their needs are fully satisfied. Jacob arranges his own burial, blesses each child (well almost every child -- there is no blessing for the one daughter -- named, curiously, Deena) and, surrounded by his children and grandchildren, "lies down and is gathered to his kin." And here ends the book of Genesis.
You could tell the story much more briefly: fight, love, gain, lose, [the anomalous Miketz] despair and resolve..
What makes a whole life, then? A rich journey with important chapters. Growth, challenge, transformation. One might even say "a good story."
A "meaningful life," by contrast, sounds more static. A life occupied with virtue, inquiry, love -- these are the things of meaning. You could take a cross-section of a life at any point and say, "Is this meaningful or not?" Or, as we sometimes say to slackers (including, perhaps, ourselves) "What the hell are you doing with yourself anyhow?"
A full life, though, is about all its parts -- rich and poor, generous and withholding, strong and feeble. It's about the unattractive and unsuccessful parts as much as the successful ones. And it is about all those aspects flowing through the medium of time. Jacob might have been a better person if he worked out his sibling issues right away and got right on with living a life of service and study. But to live a whole life there has to be material. In the end of it all, Jacob had a very full blessing to offer each of his sons and grandsons -- because he earned every insight.
Now on to that matter of Miketz. Ketz is a special word. It means 'end' -- but not just any end. It means The End. Ketz yamim is the "End of Days." Miketz means "from the end." Our parshah Miketz barely mentions Jacob, and its goings-on happen far from him. We might think of this chapter, with its incongruous-sounding name, as a kind of rabbit hole [or, Deena, a kind of hypertext] allowing us to drop through the story we thought we were hearing into another layer entirely. Jacob's son, Joseph, whom Jacob thought had died many years before, is in fact alive. At the beginning of Miketz we find Joseph in an Egyptian prison. Because of his personal intricacies, he undergoes a journey of his own. He is lifted from prison and becomes chief advisor to Pharaoh, administering the wealth of the kingdom. He has the insight to store grain against future famine. Meanwhile up in Canaan…famine in fact ensues. Jacob sends his sons down to Egypt to buy food. These are the same brothers who had faked Joseph's death, sold him into slavery and broken their father's heart. Now they are face-to-face with this Chief Advisor. Joseph recognizes the brothers, but they do not recognize him. He has the power of life and death over them. What will he do???
The story of Joseph is my favorite in Torah -- such a poignant, elegant tale. But this year I read it differently. It is the story of Jacob, really, more even than the story of Joseph -- only Jacob doesn't know this part of the story. From the perspective of Jacob the aging patriarch alone up in Canaan, sending his surviving children down into the maw of Egypt, he knows only bereavement and despair. But there is a larger engine to the story than what he knows, happening elsewhere than where he is, with factors in play that he can't begin to imagine. There is that rabbit hole of Miketz, "from the end," which drops us down into another layer, where a larger force-field is in play, a field which includes healing, reconciliation and regeneration, which will pull our hero, Jacob, into a reality quite other than what he sees for himself. At the end of his life he is surrounded by all his children and grandchildren, sustained with their wealth, and knowing that the story will go on beyond him. It's a better story than even Jacob knows.
We may think that we know the story of our own life, at least as it has played out to this moment. But perhaps there is more information miketz -- "from the end," down the rabbit hole, in hypertext -- than what we can see from our own vantage point. Maybe there are larger forces than those we see in operation as we fight, love, gain, lose, despair and resolve. Maybe, as we can see in Jacob's biography but he could not, those forces have to do with reconciliation and transformation across a larger playing field than even the terms of our individual lives. A good story indeed.
I should add that the occasion for this particular davar Torah was the first yarzheit of our dear Walter Green -- who certainly lived an epic life (weighted significantly in the direction of generosity, beauty and love.) In the story of Walter's long life we can see the larger forces of history, faith and transformation at play on his own lovely soul. And we can see today how the story of his years in the world continue to affect and transform us, even after he is gone. Vayechi -- he lives onward.
- Rabbi Margaret Holub
© 2008 Rabbi Margaret Holub
(home) (calendar) (info) (articles) (sponsors) (links) (bios) (reviews) (travel) (recipes) (projects) (photos) (art)
Updated 12/30/2008 (rge)