There are many elements converging together this Shabbat. I believe these elements, which are seemingly disconnected, might actually suggest to us something new (or at least something to reflect upon) during the day of rest ahead.
A few elements worth noting:
We are coming to the end of the first day of a new calendar year.
We are one night past a fairly rare blue moon on a New Year’s Eve.
We are reading the last Torah portion in the book of Genesis.
And, with Joseph’s death at the end of the parashah, we are standing on the border between freedom and slavery in Egypt.
Remember these disconnected elements as we dive for a moment into the particulars of the Torah portion itself.
This week’s parashah begins with Jacob on his deathbed. Jacob’s son Joseph brings his two sons Manasheh and Ephraim to their grandfather’s bedside, asking Jacob to offer a blessing over them.
As is the custom, Joseph leads the older son Manasheh to Jacob’s his right side and the younger son Ephraim to his left. Jacob is blind by this time and Joseph helpfully arranges the boys perfectly so that Jacob would be able to easily use his right hand to bestow due honor on Manasheh, Joseph’s firstborn son.
A word about firstborn sons...
In the Tanakah, the Hebrew Bible, we are taught that the firstborn son is due quite a lot in life—his father’s blessing, a double portion of his family’s inheritance (Deut. 21:15-17), and the authority to rule over the rest of his family after his father’s death.
What a privilege...
And yet, in this week’s Torah portion, we are reminded that so-called divinely ordained privileges are often not all that they seem to be.
In this week’s parashah, Jacob intentionally crosses over his arms, laying his right hand on the younger Ephraim’s head and his left hand on the older Manasheh’s. When Joseph seeks to correct the mistake, Jacob says, “I know, my son, I know. He too shall become a people, and he too shall be great. Yet his younger brother shall be greater than he” (Genesis 48:19). And Jacob blesses the younger Ephraim.
Jacob is clearly sensitive to birth order, having tricked his older brother Esau out of birthright and blessing.
And at that, Jacob’s father Isaac knew a bit about superseding the so-called “natural order of things,” as he, the younger son, was granted his father’s birthright and blessing in place of his older brother Ishmael.
And why is it that Jacob is blessing the sons of Joseph at all? Let us remember that Joseph is the eleventh of Jacob’s twelve sons. Why is not the oldest son, Reuben, at his father’s bedside? Jacob himself explains that it is because of Reuben’s immorality that the sons of Joseph receive Jacob’s birthright (1 Chr. 5:1).
The list continues. King David passes over his firstborn son Adonijah in favor of the younger Solomon. (2 Chr. 21:3). Chosah chooses Shimri.
In the end, even God chooses to turn aside custom, claiming the Levites as priests, in place of the Israelites’ firstborn sons (Number 8:6-18).
And so, we are left with a dilemma. What sort of a lesson are we meant to take away from this systemic undoing of what is presented as a preordained “donesss”? That is to say, why does the Torah teach of a firstborn’s birthright, if, more times than not, this birthright is given not to the privileged older son, but to the younger son?
We are reminded of this intentional rebalancing on a weekly basis. In the Shabbat blessing of the children, parents are called upon to say, “May you be like Ephraim and Manasheh.” Our words flip the natural birth order, Manasheh and Ephraim, and we continually reinforce the reconstituted hierarchy of life.
---
I mentioned earlier that there are a series of elements converging upon us tonight. We are moving beyond beginnings (full moons and new years) and into the possibilities that lie ahead, at the same time we come to the end of a book of Torah. This Shabbat is one of endings and beginnings.
Our patriarchs begin and end as well. Ephraim begins his new life as favored son. Manasheh ends his. Jacob dies. Joseph dies. And the Israelites are poised to begin a new, not necessarily better, tenure in Egypt.
Beginnings and Endings. Torah tells us: At these moments, things are ever hardly what we expect them to be. What we are told they should be. What we want to order them to be.
Margaret Atwood writes, “Beginnings are sudden, but also insidious. They creep up on you sideways, they keep to the shadows, they lurk unrecognized. Then, later, they spring (The Blind Assassin 232).
Rabbi Zoë Klein told me once that a circle is a dangerous shape. Circles continue revolving on and on, without stopping and without ever advancing. A spiral is much healthier. Spirals have the roundness of circles, but are ever pushing forward, ever advancing.
Maybe this is the lesson we are to learn this week. Not just that Torah favors younger sons or that hierarchical establishments are made to be broken...but, that we have the power to change the seemingly preordained and inevitable circles of our lives. Endings and beginnings are perfect times for making spirals.
Joseph set two sons before Jacob. The future all lined up. Neat and ordered. All Jacob did was flip his hands. Circle made spiral.
And here we are, the moon pregnant with possibility, waxing yet again. The 0s and 1s of 01-01-10 lined up neatly on our calendars. All we have to do is flip our hands. Set the spiral in motion. Start a new book of Torah once again.
Chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek. Be strong, be strong, and may you be strengthened.
A few elements worth noting:
We are coming to the end of the first day of a new calendar year.
We are one night past a fairly rare blue moon on a New Year’s Eve.
We are reading the last Torah portion in the book of Genesis.
And, with Joseph’s death at the end of the parashah, we are standing on the border between freedom and slavery in Egypt.
Remember these disconnected elements as we dive for a moment into the particulars of the Torah portion itself.
This week’s parashah begins with Jacob on his deathbed. Jacob’s son Joseph brings his two sons Manasheh and Ephraim to their grandfather’s bedside, asking Jacob to offer a blessing over them.
As is the custom, Joseph leads the older son Manasheh to Jacob’s his right side and the younger son Ephraim to his left. Jacob is blind by this time and Joseph helpfully arranges the boys perfectly so that Jacob would be able to easily use his right hand to bestow due honor on Manasheh, Joseph’s firstborn son.
A word about firstborn sons...
In the Tanakah, the Hebrew Bible, we are taught that the firstborn son is due quite a lot in life—his father’s blessing, a double portion of his family’s inheritance (Deut. 21:15-17), and the authority to rule over the rest of his family after his father’s death.
What a privilege...
And yet, in this week’s Torah portion, we are reminded that so-called divinely ordained privileges are often not all that they seem to be.
In this week’s parashah, Jacob intentionally crosses over his arms, laying his right hand on the younger Ephraim’s head and his left hand on the older Manasheh’s. When Joseph seeks to correct the mistake, Jacob says, “I know, my son, I know. He too shall become a people, and he too shall be great. Yet his younger brother shall be greater than he” (Genesis 48:19). And Jacob blesses the younger Ephraim.
Jacob is clearly sensitive to birth order, having tricked his older brother Esau out of birthright and blessing.
And at that, Jacob’s father Isaac knew a bit about superseding the so-called “natural order of things,” as he, the younger son, was granted his father’s birthright and blessing in place of his older brother Ishmael.
And why is it that Jacob is blessing the sons of Joseph at all? Let us remember that Joseph is the eleventh of Jacob’s twelve sons. Why is not the oldest son, Reuben, at his father’s bedside? Jacob himself explains that it is because of Reuben’s immorality that the sons of Joseph receive Jacob’s birthright (1 Chr. 5:1).
The list continues. King David passes over his firstborn son Adonijah in favor of the younger Solomon. (2 Chr. 21:3). Chosah chooses Shimri.
In the end, even God chooses to turn aside custom, claiming the Levites as priests, in place of the Israelites’ firstborn sons (Number 8:6-18).
And so, we are left with a dilemma. What sort of a lesson are we meant to take away from this systemic undoing of what is presented as a preordained “donesss”? That is to say, why does the Torah teach of a firstborn’s birthright, if, more times than not, this birthright is given not to the privileged older son, but to the younger son?
We are reminded of this intentional rebalancing on a weekly basis. In the Shabbat blessing of the children, parents are called upon to say, “May you be like Ephraim and Manasheh.” Our words flip the natural birth order, Manasheh and Ephraim, and we continually reinforce the reconstituted hierarchy of life.
---
I mentioned earlier that there are a series of elements converging upon us tonight. We are moving beyond beginnings (full moons and new years) and into the possibilities that lie ahead, at the same time we come to the end of a book of Torah. This Shabbat is one of endings and beginnings.
Our patriarchs begin and end as well. Ephraim begins his new life as favored son. Manasheh ends his. Jacob dies. Joseph dies. And the Israelites are poised to begin a new, not necessarily better, tenure in Egypt.
Beginnings and Endings. Torah tells us: At these moments, things are ever hardly what we expect them to be. What we are told they should be. What we want to order them to be.
Margaret Atwood writes, “Beginnings are sudden, but also insidious. They creep up on you sideways, they keep to the shadows, they lurk unrecognized. Then, later, they spring (The Blind Assassin 232).
Rabbi Zoë Klein told me once that a circle is a dangerous shape. Circles continue revolving on and on, without stopping and without ever advancing. A spiral is much healthier. Spirals have the roundness of circles, but are ever pushing forward, ever advancing.
Maybe this is the lesson we are to learn this week. Not just that Torah favors younger sons or that hierarchical establishments are made to be broken...but, that we have the power to change the seemingly preordained and inevitable circles of our lives. Endings and beginnings are perfect times for making spirals.
Joseph set two sons before Jacob. The future all lined up. Neat and ordered. All Jacob did was flip his hands. Circle made spiral.
And here we are, the moon pregnant with possibility, waxing yet again. The 0s and 1s of 01-01-10 lined up neatly on our calendars. All we have to do is flip our hands. Set the spiral in motion. Start a new book of Torah once again.
Chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek. Be strong, be strong, and may you be strengthened.
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