Mythic Space: Parashat Vay’hi

Parashat Vay’hi
Genesis 47:28-50:26

As Jacob, the final Patriarch, prepares to die, he begs his son Joseph to take his body out of Egypt and bury it in the ancestral cave originally purchased by Abraham. He chooses to take his place within the mythic space – historical and imaginative – that this cave signifies. (See Sparks 2011) His consciousness of this transformative choice can be detected in the way he recalls the history of the place: “It was there that they buried Abraham and Sarah, his wife; it was there that they buried Isaac and Rebecca, his wife; and it was there that I buried Leah.” (Gen. 49:31)

We may notice a few peculiarities in this verse’s presentation of the past. First, the order of burial of the First Couple is reversed and retold in a way that does not really do justice to the facts. In truth, it is not “they” who buried both Abraham and Sarah. It is Abraham who first buried Sarah. Only much later was Abraham buried there. Moreover, the impersonal pronoun “they” elides the identities of the actors who performed these burial acts. Indeed, how strange it is for Jacob to say that “they” buried Isaac in the cave, when we know that it was Jacob, himself, (along with Esau) who buried Isaac (- see Nahmanides and R. David Kimchi on this)! Yet Jacob takes credit only for burying Leah. And another oddity is that both Sarah and Rebecca are mentioned as the “wives” of their respective husbands. But Leah is not graced with the epithet “my wife.”

Our verse moves between the selective, impersonal recollection of some of the past and the equally selective – but personal – recollection of some of the past. The impersonal and summary report of the burial of the first two couples serves to distance Jacob from them. The faceless “they” have done what they have done. And what they have done is all done with. Jacob owns up to one act, only. He takes responsibility for burying Leah there.

In a sense we can see this act as a bit of restitution to Leah, making up for Jacob’s lack of love for her. The rejected wife is elevated into this elite space. She, who was not Jacob’s first choice as a wife, is included with Sarah and Rebecca, the winners of the official title, “wife.” But, such a sense of restitution is only fleeting. For this act of Jacob’s is not done with yet. It is incomplete until such time as Jacob, himself, will be buried next to Leah. When that happens Jacob will take his place in that impersonal space, owned, not by the family, but by the nation.

Perhaps that is why it must be Leah and he who are buried there together, rather than he and Rachel. For it was possible to transfer the personal dimension into the impersonal domain only in a case where the personal bond was not so strong as to resist such a transferal. The personal bond between Rachel and Jacob was simply too strong to be transfigured. Jacob understood that he had to bring Leah into the cave to lie next to him and takes personal responsibility for it. Jacob admits this, almost as one would admit to a crime.

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi David Greenstein

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Thank you to John Lasiter for suggesting the title and selecting an image for this Torah Sparks – Rabbi Greenstein

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