This Parashah is about the final blessings of Ya’aqov (Jacob) to his grandsons and to his twelve sons. Like in the 5th parashah, about Sara’s burial, which is called “Life of Sarah” and shows her provision for the eternity of Israel, so here this parashah that tells of Ya’aqov’s death is called “vaYechi (Ya’aqov)”, meaning (as we explained in the introduction) “(Ya’aqov) would live” in the extended time where past is inverted to future, for it is the eternal life of Yisra’el that is being prepared here. This is a regular feature on IsraelSeen by Dr. Yitzhaq Hayut-Man. An innovator, futurist, visionary and Bible scholar. I have the utmost respect for the man I consider a friend. He is among the few that is courageous enough to allow the “open source” of the Torah-Bible to be presented in new and interesting ways for our greater understanding. for more go to his web site:The Hope and the sculpture is by Phillip Ratner
The Name of the Parashah
“and Ya’?qov would live (vaYechi) in the land of Mi?rayim seventeen years”. This is how Parashat vaYechi opens. Seventeen years of consolation (seventeen has the Gematria value of “Tov-???” – “Good”) were granted to Ya’?qov in the company of his beloved son Yoseph, the son that was stolen from him when he was 17 years old.
But let us start, as is our custom, with the connection of the name of the Parashah and its contents: “vaYechi” – “would live” has to do with propagation of life, and this was indeed the role of Ya’?qov in coming (YHWH) down to Egypt: to sow his seed in the land of Egypt-Mitzrayim, about which it is written “like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Mitzrayim” (Gen. 13:10), in order to breed a nation. The pregnancy, which issues from the pleasure of copulation, begins with the pleasure of the aged Ya’?qov in sitting among all his children in the land of Mitzrayim. The pains of birth would follow later, in the afflictions of Mitzrayim and the exodus.
There are clear parallels between parashat va’Ye?i, which ends the Book of Genesis, and parashat “vezo haBerakhah” (Deut. 33:1-34:12), which ends the entire Pentateuch: In parashat va’Yechi, Ya’?qov blesses his sons before his death, and in parashat “vezo haBerakhah” Moshe (Moses) blesses the Tribes of Yisra’el, before his death as well. But this parashah is mainly connected with the entire Book of Bereshit/Genesis and gives the essence and solution to all the principle issues of the book. In order to grasp this, it is desirable to first notice an important parallel between the Book of Bereshit and Sefer Ye?irah (the root book of the Qabbalah).
Sefer Yetzirah is intended to parallel the Book of Genesis and to give a numerical interpretation to the acts of creation and the formation of the world. Sefer Yetzirah proposes that certain numbers – 32, 10, 3, 7 and 12 – are the basic patterns by which reality is molded. The main contents of (the rather slim) Sefer Yetzirah is the sorting various phenomena, of the world/space, time and human/soul, according to these groups of 3, 7 and 12. In our commentary on Parashat Bereshit we have already seen the pattern of the Three: Three creation stories, three experiments of God with humankind, three Patriarchs; and we have seen the pattern of the Seven – the Seven Days of Genesis (and we have also encountered the number 32 – the number of appearances of the name “Elohim” (God) in the acts of Genesis, and 10 – the ten utterances of Genesis). But the Book of Genesis leads towards the revelation of the Dozen. We have seen mentions of the Twelve in former parashot. Here, in the final parashah – vaYechi, which is the twelfth parashah in the book – the twelve are presented in a ritual-magical form of blessings-testaments to the Tribes of Israel from their dying father. The book of Genesis has twelve parashot and is divided into 50 chapters. These are connected to the cycle of the 12 months of the year and the fifty years of the Jubilee cycle.
By numerology we can discern another connection between parashat “vaYechi” and “Bereshit”: these two, the first and the last, are connected by the perfect number 28 – which is a number of a cycle (Eccl. 3:1-8). In the first verse of Genesis (in Hebrew) there are 28 letters, and here – in parashat vaYe?i – the names “Ya’aqov” plus “Yisra’el” appear 28 times. This connection makes the whole book of Genesis a kind of a ring, with parashat vaYe?i a kind of a seal (and BTW, also the Gematria of Yechi (???) is 28).
Completion of the Six-day Cycle of Bereshit (Genesis)
The beginning of the Book of Genesis presented a pattern of creating the world in seven stages – forming it in “The Six Days of Action” (Yeme haMa’aseh) and the completion of its creation (and its healing[1]) through the sacred seventh stage – the Shabbat – in which there is no action. N the course of the book of Genesis the same six-stage pattern serves to describe six phases in the development o relationship among brothers, which starts with a mortal conflict. While the names of the protagonists change, yet this is one story in several developmental phases and in each stage something gets refined, till the completion of the pattern that allows a complete reconciliation among the brothers.[2] In Parashat vaYechi the fifth phase of the pattern gets completed and the sixth phase is told. The end of the Book of Genesis puts us all, the entire humankind, at the phase that fits our contemporary meta-historical situation – at the close of the sixth “millennia day”/phase of the formation of Adam – the phase of unified humankind. At the end of the exegesis we shall also present the forecast of the future, the seventh millennium/phase, as it revealed from the Book of Genesis.
The Plot of the Parashah
1. The Testament of Ya’aqov to Yoseph (Genesis chapter 47)
2. The Blessings to the Sons of Yoseph (chapter 48)
3. The Blessings of Ya’aqov to his Twelve Sons (chap. 49)
4. The burial of Ya’aqov in the Land of Yisra’el and the promise to Yoseph to be buried three
1. The Testament of Ya’aqov to Yoseph (Genesis ch. 47)
“And Ya’?qov would live (vaYechi) in the land of Mitzrayim seventeen years, so the whole age of Ya’aqov was a hundred and forty seven years”. The scripture starts with counting; therefore we shall survey the parashah paying attention to counting and numbers.
The first number in the parashah is 17, and in the first verse (in Hebrew) of vaYechi, the one in which the years of Ya’aqov are counted, one counts there 17 words (as noted above, 17 is the Gematria of Tov – “good”). There were 147 years of Ya’aqov, of which seventeen were considered good years, in the company of Yoseph in Mitzrayim.
These two numbers connected with Ya’aqov’s years: 17 (good years) and 147 (all his years)have inner connection and contain two of the number-patterns of Sefer Yetzirah: 3 + 7 + 7 = 17, whereas 3 X 7 X 7 = 147. These correspond to the book’s expression of the 22 Hebrew letters in terms of “three mother-letters and seven double-letters” – two motives that repeat in the Book of Bereshit. Yet the rest of the Parashah is dedicated to the Twelve, to the Twelve Tribes, which complete the primary numbers of Sefer Yetzira: “Twelve simple letters”.
The key to the story of Ya’aqov, as we have seen, is the change of his name: “Thy name shall be called no more Ya’aqov, but Yisra’el” (Gen. 32:29). The scripture calls him from there on either “Ya’aqov” or “Yisra’el”, according to the context. The first verse of the Parashah emphasizes that the subject of the Parashah is Ya’aqov, and his name is repeated in the verse. It is possible that the reason for this is the subject of the verse – his life and his death. Ya’aqov would die at the end of 147 years, whereas Yisra’el is immortal.
Throughout parashat vaYechi we find the name “Ya’aqov” ten times and the name “Yisra’el” 18 times (Gematria value of “chei” (??), meaning “Living”), to mark the eternal life of the ideal Israel. Altogether, Ya’aqov-Yisra’el is mentioned 28 times – a “perfect number”, as the number of letters in the first verse of the Book of Bereshit-Genesis and the number of durations in Ecclesiastes 3.
Through the connection of the end with the beginning there forms a cycle of the Works of Creation (Ma’ase Bereshit – term for the core of Jewish mystical studies). This cycle is characterized by a 28-fold division, which is the division that characterizes “The New Jerusalem Diagram”. The repetition of this perfect number closes the circle of Ya’aqov’s “few and evil” tumultuous life and gives it order and comfort – but it also closes the great circle that started with genesis. In the placement of the tribes in this parashah the Torah reaches the purpose of Ya’aqov-Yisra’el’s life – which is also the purpose from the Beginning, the very purpose of the creation of heaven and earth. (see appendix ‘A’: “Closing the Circle opened with Bereshit”.
“So the whole age of Ya’aqov was a hundred and forty seven years”. 147 years, of which 17 in the land of Egypt. Seemingly this is a random number, but it has an inner order, as we showed above. Let us add that there may be meaningful series of numbers of years of the lives of Biblical figures: Life of Sarah – 127, life of Yishma’el – 137, life of Ya’aqov – 147. In the Book of Exodus is mentioned that Levi lived 137 years (6:16) and Amram lives 137 years (6:20).[3]
“and the time drew near for Yisra’el to die”. Most of parashat vaYechi deals with the figure of “Ya’aqov”, to hi relationship with his sons and his death. But when he ages and dwells in Egypt, he knows: unless his bones would be returned to Kena’an, to the cave of Makhpelah – and Ya’?qov takes pains to emphasize to his sons that his parents were buried there – the connection that the children of Abraham had to the land of Kena’?n, the father Yisra’el would die and no people of “Yisra’el” would become established.
“and he called his son Yoseph, and said to him, If now I have found favour in thy sight, put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me”; bury me not, I pray thee, in Mi?rayim. But I will lie with my fathers, and thou shalt carry me out of Mi?rayim , and bury me in their burying place”. There is here a repetition of the swearing in that Abraham made his servant to take care that Yi??aq would live I the land of Kena’?n and would not return to exile in Charan: “And Abraham was old, advanced in age; and the Lord had blessed Abraham in all things. And Abraham said to the eldest servant of his house, that ruled over all that he had: ‘Put, I pray thee, thy hand under my thigh. And I will make thee swear by the Lord, the God of heaven and the God of the earth, that thou shalt not take a wife for my son of the daughters of the Kena’?ni, among whom I dwell. But thou shalt go to my country, and to my kindred, and take a wife for my son Yitzchaq” (Gen. 24:1-4).
Ya’aqov’s testament to Yoseph and swearing him in that he would bury the bones of Ya’?qov in Hebron and not in Egypt – was aimed to ascertain to the children of Yisra’el that their true place is in Kena’?n and not in Egypt. The Parashah of Chaye Sarah builds the bond between the land and the house of Abraham, and the burial estate that Abraham buys for Sarah is the first realty property of the house of Abraham in Kena’an; the parashah of “vaYechi Ya’aqov” aims to return the bond to Kena’?n and that property.
“and he said, I will do as thou hast said. And he said, swear to me, and he swore to him and yisra’el bowed himself upon the bed’s head”. This act ends with the name “Yisra’el” – the name of greatness; but at the sme time, this is the realization of Yoseph the youth, that his brothers and his father would bow to him. Years after the brothers bowed to Yoseph, now even Ya’aqov – this time at the status of Yisra’el – bows before his son. Ya’aqov-Yisra’el swears in his two sons who attained seniority: Yehudah came of his own initiative and swore to his father concerning Binyamin “I will be surety for him; of my hand shalt thou require him” (43:9), whereas here it is Ya’aqov who demands of Yoseph not to allow to bury him in Egypt, and only then he lives in peace trusting that he would fulfil his vocation as “Yisra’el”.
3. The Blessings to the Sons of Yoseph (chapter 48)
“and it came to pass after these things, that one told Yoseph, Behold, thy father is sick; and he took his two sons, Menasheh and Ephrayim”. The Book of Genesis keeps to the pattern of the Six: The creation of the world in six phases, in the six days of creation of chapter one is like placing the six faces of a cube, the symbol of order, inside the chaos (Tohu vaBohu). When the cube is formed, there form automatically with it the twelve edges of the cube and the inner space of the added dimension (3D), which is akin to the Shabbat day. The main story of the Book of Genesis is the relationship among brothers: 1) Qayin (Cain) and Hevel (Abel); 2) Shem, ?am and Yefet; 3) Yishma’el and Yitzchaq (Isaac); 4) Ya’aqov and Esav; 5) The sons of Ya’aqov (and the contention for the seniority, both between Re’uven ad Yehudah, and between Yehudah and Yoseph). Now, with Manashsheh and Ephrayim, we reach the sixth phase.
Thus there are two main issues that take place in six phases: (1) the creation of the world in six “days”; (2) six phasesor degrees of relationship between brothers and their contention over seniority and its blessings (Bekhorah and Berakhah). The “after these things” brought here is exactly the sixth case of contention between brothers over seniority and blessing. But here it takes place within a new context that was not there in the previous cases – the context of twelve sons/tribes.
“.. one told Yoseph, Behold, thy father is sick; and he took his two sons, Manashsheh and Ephrayim”. Yoseph, just like his father Ya’aqov earlier on, commits an underhanded opportunism, he appears before the rest of the brothers, in order to receive the entire tribal blessing. Ya’?qov’s eyesight, just like that of his own father, was impaired with age, and he does not identify his grandchildren who stand in front of him. For it is not Yoseph, but his two sons, who stand to receive the blessing, these are the two sons who would join as equals the (12-fold) tribal union. As we shall soon see, Yoseph gained in this occasion a double portion blessing, two blessings one for each of the two sons, and thereby he actually received for himself two blessings – as is the custom for the firstborn senior son.
We Jews are so used, for over two thousand years, to a “Jewish reading” of the scriptures, which gives automatic seniority, or even exclusiveness, to Judah-Yehudah and “The Jewish People”, that it is hard for us to realize how much the story of parashat vaYe?i (comprising “the last word” of Genesis) is actually an attempt to secure the seniority of the House of Yoseph for generations to come. All the prior instances of contention and hatred among brothers are still underhandedly here, where Yoseph is trying to inherit the seniority close to his father’s death.
“And one told Ya’aqov, and said, ‘Behold, thy son Yoseph comes to thee.’ And Yisra’el strengthened himself, and sat upon the bed. And Ya’?qov said to Yoseph…” The names are apparently confused here: first “Ya’aqov”, then “Yisra’el” and soon again “Ya’aqov”. But upon scrutiny it seems that there is meaning in this ordering of the names. “Ya’aqov” is his name in his weakness, and when he gets strengthened (by his joy of the visit of his most beloved son), then he is “Yisra’el”. In the next instance, he is again “Ya’aqov”, but only for an instance. After that he would be referred eight consecutive times as “Yisra’el”. Ya’aqov is called “Yisra’el” only when he is not under is customary worries, when his mind is n dealing broadened, and this happens to him when relating to his beloved son Yoseph.
This doubling of the names also divides the blessing to the grandchildren into two parts. In the first half he is “Ya’aqov” (follower) who follows without initiative, gets seduced by Yoseph and gives the blessing as expected. But on the second phase, as we shall see, he appears as the enterprising “Yisra’el”, and acts opposite to Yoseph’s intention.
For a while it seems as if Yoseph himself is about to receive the blessings: “And Ya’?qov said to Joseph, ‘God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Kena’an, and blessed me, and said to me, Behold, I will make thee fruitful, and multiply thee, and I will make of thee a multitude of people; and will give this land to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession”. But immediately he strays to other things in his personal history, till the moment that he lays his right hand upon the younger and his left hand over the senior brother.
A Comment: in the verse: “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Kena’?n, and blessed me”, the word translated as “God Almighty” is originally El Shadai (a word usually associated with breasts). This divine name appears five times in the Book of Genesis and once in the book of Exodus. This is the name in the epiphany at the covenant of the cuts (17:1); in the blessing that Yi??aq blessed Ya’aqov before he leaves to seek him a wife in ?aran (28:3); in the promise of the land for Ya’aqov, which is also the occasion of changing his name to Yisra’el (35:11); when Ya’aqov hopes that the Lord will give to the Egyptian ruler compassion to his sons (43:14) in these it appears related to divine blessing for fertility – and that is how it appears here. In the next case, in the blessings for the tribes, we’ll see that Yoseph was blessed “By the God of thy father, who shall help thee, and by the Almighty (Shadai), who shall bless thee, with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that couches beneath, blessings of the breasts (Shadayim), and of the womb” (49:25).
“And now thy two sons, Ephrayim and Menaseh, who were born to thee in the land of Mi?rayim before I came to thee into Mi?rayim, are mine; even as Re’uven and Shim’?n they shall be mine. And thy issue, which thou begettest after them, shall be thine; they shall be called after the name of their brothers in their inheritance” (48:5-6). Here takes place the adoption of Menasheh and Ephraim as the direct sons of Ya’?qov-Yisra’el – that is, of the same status as the direct sons, those who are included in the 12-tribe array (and in practice, as we shall see below in the blessings of the twelve sons by their taking the place of Shim’on and Levi). The very act of secretly giving two portions to the sons/representatives of Yoseph means that Ya’?qov knew the rule of the firstborn in inheritance, but did not keep it. “If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have borne him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the first-born son be hers that was hated. Then it shall be, when he makes his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not give the preference to the son of the beloved wife, over the son of the hated wife, who is the firstborn. But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he has; for he is the beginning of his strength, the right of the firstborn is his” (Deut. 21:15-17). The changing-around the order of calling the sons – “Ephrayim and Menasheh”, which is not according to their age – also serves as further emphasis for changing the order of blessing between the sons of Ya’?qov: the preference of the younger Ephrayim over the firstborn Menasseh is similar to the preference of Yoseph over the sons of Le’ah.
“And as for me, when I came from Paddan, Ra?el died by me in the land of Kena’an on the way, when there was but a little way to come to Ephrat; and I buried her there in the way to Ephrat; that is Beit-le?em”. This sentence seems odd and is not required for the matter under discussion. But this fond remembering by Ya’aqov of the beloved Rachel, the mother of Yoseph, introduces the importance of Ephrat-Beit Le?em for the future as well. In the sequel we shall see the recall of the Cave of the Makhpelah and the determination of Ya’aqov to be buried with his parents and forefather. Both ?ebron (where the Makhpelah Cave is) and Beit Lechem are actually in the possession of Yehudah, yet immediately in that same occasion there is a hint about the future sacred burial place of Yoseph: “Moreover I have given to thee one portion (Shekhem ???) more than thy brothers…” (48:22). The word translated as “one portion” is in the original Hebew “Shekhem Echad”, literally “shoulder” and historically the name of the city of Shekhem (Nablus), which is “the Navel of the land”, the main capital of the Kingdom of Israel within the domain of Ephrayim. Ya’?qov bequeaths to Yoseph the city of Shekhem, and forms thereby the geopolitical tension between the Kingdom of Yehudah and the Kingdom of Yisra’el, between ?evron and Shekhem-shomron.
The Preference of Ephrayim over Menashe and the crossing of hands
“And Yisra’el beheld Yoseph’s sons… Now the eyes of Yisra’el were dim from age, so that he could not see…. And Yisra’el said to Yoseph: ‘I had not thought to see thy face; and, lo, God has shown me also thy children”. There is here an unclarity about Ya’aqov-Yisra’el’s sight. This is quite similar to the condition of his father Yi??aq: “And it came to pass, that when Yi??aq was old, and his eyes were dim, so that he could not see, he called Esav his eldest son, and said to him: ‘My son’; and he said to him: ‘Here am I.’ And he said: ‘Behold now, I am old, I know not the day of my death” (27:1-2). In the darkness of his blindness, Yi??aq tried to distinguish between his two sons, Ya’aqov and Esav, whereas Ya’aqov gained the name of “Yisra’el” only after he contended with the stranger in the dark all through the night. It is most likely that Ya’aqov-Yisra’el, on the occasion that he is the blind father who gives the blessing, would well remember what he has done to his father. In the whole following sequence he already acts and initiates in the status of “Yisra’el”.
“And Yoseph took them both, Ephrayim in his right hand toward Yisrael’s left hand, and Menasheh in his left hand toward Yisra’el’s right hand, and he presented them to him. And Yisra’el stretched out his right hand, and laid it upon Ephrayim’s head, who was the younger, and his left hand upon Menasheh’s head, changing his hands; for Menasheh was the first-born” (48:13-14)… “And when Yoseph saw that his father laid his right hand upon the head of Ephrayim, it displeased him, and he held up his father’s hand, to remove it from Ephraim’s head to Manasseh’s head” (17-18). Yoseph himself wanted to bequeath the seniority to his firstborn, Menasheh, whereas his father Yisra’el acted smartly and crossed his hands wittingly, so to give the seniority to the younger brother. This is also the way he related to them earlier, saying “Ephrayim and Menasheh are mine, as Re’uven and Shim’on they shall be mine” (48:5), first the younger and later the firstborn.
We may find a certain justification for the preference of Ephrayim over Menasheh in their very names, which represent their mission. “Menasheh” is associated with neshiyah – forgetfulness – and alienation, and it represents Yoseph’s initial desire to settle in Egypt and forget his father’s house. “Ephrayim”, on the other hand, is associated with Piryon – Fertility –ich is the motif that would characterize the house of Yoseph (as “BenPorat”) in the following blessing for the tribes. In the course of his mission in Egypt Yoseph changed from forgetting his father’s house (“For God, he said, has made me forget – nashani – all my toil and all my father’s house”; 41:51), to taking care of the fertility – Piryon – inside the strange land and for it (“For God has cause me to be fruitful – hiphrani – in the land of my affliction”). But this fertility became later a blessing for all the children of Yira’el. Also the fond remembering of the place of the grandmother Rachel – Ephrat – may explain the preference of Ephrayim and recalling him as the firstborn.
In effect, in the historical move of the settlement in the land Menasheh returned to receive the material part of the firstborn, because Menasheh became two tribes receiving a double portion – half the Tribe of Menasheh East of the Jordan River and half the Tribe of Menasheh north of the Mountains of Ephrayim. But Ephrayim received the main seniority – the Kingdom – because the first king of the Northern Kingdom of Israel, Yerov’?m, issued from him.
The crossing of the hands between Menasheh and Ephrayim has yet a geometric plot. The firstborn stood on the right and the younger brother on the left, but crossing of the hands turned the directions – and the younger became the senior – to the pioneer who would lead “the standard of the Camp of Ephrayim” (Num. 4:18). Bu crossing his hands, with the right hand pointing left, Ya’?qov pointed the direction that “The Camp of Ephrayim” would take in the camping of the tribes around the Tabernacle –according to the New Jerusalem Diagram – in an angle of about 26 degrees left of the cardinal east-west axis.
From the differences between the private blessing of Ya’aqov to his grandchildren and his blessing at the gathering of all his sons, it is possible to sense Ya’aqov’s worry. It seems that Ya’aqov was concerned that a public announcement of Yoseph’s seniority would meet the resistance of the other brothers, and it might lead to it that eventually, “at the last days” as he said (49:1), the brothers might gather and do to Yoseph’s house what they did to him when he was seventeen. Therefore in the sequel, in the ceremonial testament to his sons, Menasheh and Ephrayim are not mentioned. But the beginning of his address, for the first three sons, is aimed to diminish the part of the elder brothers, reject some of them, in order to make some place for Ephrayim and Menasheh within the sacred twelve.
The addition (Tosephet) of the sons of Yoseph, the need to find them a place within the given framework of the Twelve, would bring later to the “ejection” of the Tribe of Levi from the pattern of the twelve. But since the twelve formed a volume, a form of a cube (which has twelve edges), the Tribe of Levi was ejected into the space that was formed – a space that was marked for the travels of the Levites among all the other twelve tribes and their concentration at the sacred inner domain, which is equally close to all the twelve. The seventh phase of the relations among brothers – which we have shown to be the essence of the Book of Genesis – would be presented inside the sacred domain of the sons of Levi, in the relationship of the holy brothers, Moshe and Aharon, from the tribe of Levi.
