Parashat Vayechi, Genesis 47:28-50:26

What turns a place into home?

I've been watching a lot of old movies recently. Not necessarily classics – just old black and white films that have a patina of quaintness about them. Perhaps it’s a coincidence, but a number of these films focus on home & family, sharing a common symbol for this: an embroidered sampler with the words "home sweet home," or the song Home Sweet Home as background music:

Mid pleasures and palaces
Though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble,
There's no place like home.

This last line would be familiar to anyone who has seen The Wizard of Oz; the words are spoken by Dorothy as she clicks her heels in Oz and wakes up back in Kansas.

What turns a place into home? Is it the familiarity with the physical aspects of the location? Is it the predictability of the events and interactions? Knowing a place is home brings to mind feelings of comfort and wellbeing, often felt most strongly when home is out of reach:

Who has not felt how sadly sweet
The dream of home, the dream of home,
Steals o'er the heart, too soon to fleet,
When far o'er sea or land we roam?

Thomas Moore, The Dream of Home

The dream of home provides the underlying theme of parashat Vayechi. We find a family, Jacob’s family, reunited, living comfortably in their new surroundings. But there are tensions – is it truly home? Jacob was concerned about going to Egypt, a fear that was addressed God in a vision that Jacob experienced in last week’s parasha: Fear not to go down to Egypt, for I will make you there into a great nation. I Myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I Myself will also bring you back; and Joseph's hand shall close your eyes. (Genesis 46:3-4).

Jacob's apprehension was only partially alleviated because this week in parashat Vayechi, he extracts a deathbed promise from Joseph: Do me this favor, place your hand under my thigh as a pledge of your steadfast loyalty …please do not bury me in Egypt. When I lie down with my fathers, take me up from Egypt and bury me in their burial-place. (Genesis 47:29-30). But burial with his ancestors is not enough for Jacob as he reminds Joseph: I am about to die; but God will be with you and bring you back to the land of your fathers (Genesis 48:21).

For Jacob being in Egypt is temporary and difficult to take. Burial "back home" brings him comfort, as does the knowledge of God's promise that eventually his family will return to the ancestral home.

But this parasha is one of transition; change is inevitable and evident. Joseph was already unrecognizable to his brothers; the transition had begun. In the description of Jacob's burial, the transformation of his family is also clear. The burial party that accompanies Jacob out of Egypt is a sizable one consisting of Jacob’s sons and extended family members, as well as a contingent of who's who of ancient Egypt. Yet Jacob's family is a large entourage even without the accompanying dignitaries. How interesting then, that the Canaanites observing the burial procession comment "This is a solemn mourning on the part of the Egyptians" (Genesis 50:12). The father who wants to be buried back home is mourned by the children who appear to others as comfortably Egyptian.

Granted, Jacob's sons know they have no choice but to stay in Egypt. That is, after all, part of God's plan. Joseph even reminds his family of this on his deathbed saying "I am about to die. God will surely take notice of you and bring you up from this land to the land that He promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob." So Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, "When God has taken notice of you, you shall carry up my bones from here." (Genesis 50:24-5) But that is off in some unknown future. Joseph's burial is very different from his father's. Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years; and he was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt. (Genesis 50:26) Jacob gets an entourage accompanying him to his ancestral home; Joseph is buried in the new home, Egypt. At the same time, Joseph maintained a spiritual tie to the land he has not seen since the age of seventeen. So what is Joseph: Hebrew or Egyptian? Actually, neither- Joseph is the first Jew, or more accurately, the first modern Jew.

A few weeks ago, we looked at Abraham and Isaac as being spiritual immigrants, never really fitting in to their surroundings. Despite this, with God's help, they were very successful in their alien surroundings. Joseph and his brothers are in a different situation. They are truly immigrants in the entire sense of the word. The challenge is not to be swallowed up by the majority culture. Joseph wears Egyptian attire; he has an Egyptian name, an Egyptian wife, and an important place within Egyptian society. What is to keep him an MOT (member of the tribe) and why bother?

Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi describes this very Jewish predicament as

Exile and Domicile… the simultaneous awareness of being in exile, yet the profound sense of attachment to the land or place in which one lives, the sentiment in exile of feeling at home. Exile & domicile…have often existed in dialectic tension.

Exile and Expulsion in Jewish History

Yerushalmi notes that exile is a theme throughout the entire book of Genesis beginning with the expulsion from Eden, proceeding to Abraham’s leaving his homeland, and finally, Jacob’s family settling in Egypt. He points out how unusual it is to have a people’s “origins and formation” take place outside its homeland.

A recent article, New Jews: The End of the Jewish Diaspora, by Caryn Aviv and David Shneer looks at how Jews have adapted to different surroundings.

Over the course of several centuries, Jews added various cultural strategies for remembering the homeland while firmly “rooting” themselves in local places. Jewish communities established cemeteries—a very concrete act of claiming both place and space that meant acquiring land and investing it with cultural and metaphysical power.

Joseph's brothers did much the same as their descendants in other lands. They lived apart, in the land of Goshen. They were shepherds, an occupation the Egyptians didn't care for. This helped them maintain their identity.

Nevertheless, Joseph was buried in Egypt. Burial ground provides both presence and permanence. Interestingly, the message in Vayechi is one solely of presence. Joseph himself denies the permanence, saying his bones will be taken out of Egypt.

A funny thing happened on the way to the Diaspora. We became who we are as a people. Our earliest "rooting" is actually an uprooting. People in Diaspora tend to look to the past with great nostalgia. We derive meaning not only from "homeland' but also from Diaspora. This first Diaspora in Egypt forged our identity. How often are we instructed to behave in a certain way because we were strangers in Egypt? Later Diasporas strengthened our identity. Rabbinic Judaism is a Diaspora creation. So are the holidays we observe, the lifecycle events we celebrate, and the various movements of Judaism we uphold. Our great leaders of transition, Joseph and Moses, both lived in Galut (Diaspora).

Genesis begins with the spiritual migration of individuals and concludes with the physical migration that will shape a spiritual community. As we transition from Genesis to Exodus let us ponder the meaning of the homes our people have had. Not all of them deserve the embroidered sampler with the words “home sweet home.” But in retrospect, the words of the historian Philo can be applied to our experience as sojourners: "It often happens that people who are actually in unconsecrated spots are really in most sacred ones." (Legum Allegoriae I, 62)

Shabbat shalom,
MS