27 November 2010 | 20 Kislev 5771

“NO MATTER WHERE YOU GO…THERE YOU ARE”

One thing I did not expect when becoming a parent was how much I would sound like my father. I usually notice my father’s voice when my kids are doing something I would rather them not do. We might be at the mall or in the grocery store, the day has been long but the kids are still working at full capacity. In fact, they seem to just be getting started. Then it happens; that statement I swore as a child I would never say to my own children flies out of my mouth. It usually starts with something like, "If I have to tell you one more time . . . !"  And there it is – my father’s voice escapes from my lips. People often joke about this phenomenon as some sort of cosmic justice – just as I was a difficult child, thus I am girded with difficult children. In truth, I hear my father’s voice in other situations as well, not just the frustrating ones. Every time I sing a silly song with my son Avram Eli, I remember that my father was the king of silly songs. Every time I lay on the floor with my middle child Ariela as she stacks blocks, I find myself lying on the floor just like my father use to sprawl out on the ground to play with me. Every time I press my lips up against my youngest child Ma’ayan’s smooth cheek, I remember how it felt to have my father’s scruffy, bearded skin next to mine. So if I pay attention, I can hear, see and feel my father’s presence in so many of the things I do.

Our Torah speaks of this phenomenon in this week’s Parshat Va-yeshev:

Now Jacob was settling in the land where his father had sojourned, the land of Canaan. This, then, is the lineage of Jacob: At seventeen years of age Joseph tended the flocks with his brothers…(Genesis 37:1-2)

The aforementioned verses signal a transition of our Torah narrative from the life of Jacob towards his son Joseph. These types of transitions are not unusual for the first book of the five books of Moses. Unlike the other books of the Torah, the book of Genesis is all about transitions. We begin with Adam and Eve, make our way to Noah, soon to Abraham and then with one person after another, the story weaves its way to Egypt. However, the words offered above elicit a few questions.

What happened to “the line of Jacob?” Often when a chapter begins with this sentence, it is poised to list a genealogy, a collection of names, listing who begot whom, helping us to tie the characters of the Torah to one another. However, our Torah seems to skip the lineage and move directly to the life of Joseph.

Midrash Rabbah, the great collection of rabbinic exegesis (the explanation or interpretation of texts) asks this exact question.

Rabbi Samuel Ben Nahman commented: These are the generations of Jacob: Joseph.

Surprised by the sudden direction of our text, Rabbi Samuel correctly observes that if the Torah wanted to list the linage of Jacob, it should begin with his first child Reuben, not with his second to last son Joseph. Surely Scripture should say, these are the generations of Jacob: Reuben. (Genesis Rabbah 84:6)

Notwithstanding, the Midrash goes on to list many striking similarities between Jacob and Joseph:  Similarities in their personality, challenges in life and interpersonal relationships.  The Midrash understands that the Torah is not interested in listing a genealogy; it is trying to connect the life of a father to the life of his son. Being the youngest of my father’s children, I can attest to the fact that my closeness to him was not measured by my birth order, but by the way I embraced his kindness, mannerism and sense of being, all of which I eventually made my own (even though, as I child, I swore I would be different).

Returning to our verses from Genesis, there is another interesting question that arises: Why does the narrator tell us that Jacob dwelt in the land of his father and then tell us that the name of that land was Canaan? If the Torah told us that he sojourned in the land of his father, I would have surmised that he was settling in the land of Canaan. Conversely, if the text simply said that he lived in Canaan, I would have remembered that Canaan was the land in which his father lived. Why the repetition? The Torah is trying to tell us two completely different truths: a physical location and a spiritual locality. Jacob settled physically in the land of Canaan but he lived in the place of his father – or better yet, he lived IN PLACE of his father. After all those years of Jacob trying to be somebody that he was not, he finally became the person he was meant to be; one imbued with the values, mannerisms and personality of his father.

Today my family and I live in Atlanta, Georgia, and although my father never lived within a thousand miles of this city, I can still say that I sojourn in the land of my father. Every time I interact with my children, every time I reach out to help another human being, every time I make somebody laugh, I hear my father’s voice and feel his presence. As I come to understand this, I am provided with a lot of comfort because, as long as I stay true to myself, no matter where I live, I am always somewhere familiar.

Shabbat Shalom & Happy Thanksgiving