Parashat HaShavua - Vayechi
וַיִּשְׁלַח֩ יִשְׂרָאֵ֨ל אֶת־יְמִינ֜וֹ וַיָּ֨שֶׁת עַל־רֹ֤אשׁ אֶפְרַ֙יִם֙ וְה֣וּא הַצָּעִ֔יר וְאֶת־שְׂמֹאל֖וֹ עַל־רֹ֣אשׁ מְנַשֶּׁ֑ה שִׂכֵּל֙ אֶת־יָדָ֔יו כִּ֥י מְנַשֶּׁ֖ה הַבְּכֽוֹר׃
But Israel stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim’s head, though he was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh’s head—thus crossing his hands—although Manasseh was the first-born.
In 5th grade, one of the essential questions of our Humash curriculum is “Can people change?”
Last week in Parashat Vayigash, we arrived at the narrative peak of the Yosef cycle as Yehuda begs Yosef not to enslave Binyamin but to take him in place of his brother. The rabbis teach that this is the example par excellence of teshuva — personal change. Yehuda finds himself in the exact same situation that he was once before with Yosef, only this time he makes a different choice: he takes responsibility for his brother Binyamin, even at the cost of his own life.
If the Torah ended with last week’s parasha, we could have answered our essential 5th grade question with a resounding “yes.”
But our story continues. In Parashat Vayechi, we witness Yaakov preparing for death. Yosef brings his two sons, Ephraim and Menashe, to Yaakov’s deathbed for a blessing. Yosef places Menashe, the older son, so that Yaakov can bless him with his right hand — the superior position — and Ephraim, the younger son, by Yaakov’s left hand. But Yaakov crosses his arms and blesses the boys in reverse order, just as he gave Yosef, his youngest, all of his blessings and ignored his older sons, setting the story of Yosef’s enslavement in motion.
Later in the parasha, Yosef’s brothers worry that after Yaakov’s death, Yosef will now punish them for their earlier actions towards him. So they come up with a plan to avoid this outcome by deceiving Yosef, telling him that it was their father’s dying wish that Yosef forgive them (which is not recorded anywhere in the Torah). Like Yaakov, Yosef’s brothers are once again up to their old tricks.
Can people change? The Torah does not insult our intelligence by serving up a simple answer in which everyone learns the error of their ways. Instead it offers a far deeper and wiser insight about the complexity of being human: we change, we stay the same, we improve, we lose ground…
There is a Talmudic story about the way that Rabbi Akiva began his career as a Torah scholar at age 40: He stood at a spring and observed water dripping onto a rock. Over time, the steady drops of water had carved a hole into the hard stone. He wondered: who engraved this stone? They told him: it was the water, which drips every day. He immediately drew a conclusion about himself: if something soft (the water) can chisel its way through something hard (the stone), then surely the words of Torah, which are as hard as iron, can penetrate my heart which is flesh and blood. He immediately turned to studying Torah.
As Jon Levisohn points out, this story offers two different ways of looking at change. Sometimes change occurs in a moment of insight, as Yehuda showed us in last week’s parasha when he finally realizes what it means to take responsibility for his actions, or as Rabbi Akiva realizes in a flash that it is not too late for him to learn Torah. But sometimes change is so slow and subtle that we might almost despair that it will occur. But it is still happening, drop by slow drop.
As the fires continue to rage in Los Angeles, we are reminded that life can change in a moment. Hopefully we will also be reminded of the need to make changes that will address the problem of climate change, which can feel as impenetrable as stone in its enormity.
We enter Shabbat wishing nehama to members of our community whose loved ones have been affected by this natural disaster, and wishing for ourselves to possess the dedication to change that Rabbi Akiva commits to in that moment by the spring.
Rabbi Anne Ebersman
EC/LS Director of Jewish Life/Director of Hesed (Community Service) and Tzedek (Social Responsibility)
