Kosher Queers
Kosher Queers
12 — Vayechi: Dead is Dad/ We are sad/ Raided will be Gad/ Bereishit is over — not bad!
In this week's episode, children are "not mad, just disappointed" at their parents. We get a cool death poem, magic some son into grandsons, spoil another youngest child, and then decide, once and for all, the proper way to mourn (spoilers: however works best for you, with established ritual there as a fallback support structure if you need one). Also, Jaz sort of ended up in Christmas anthology?
Full transcript available here.
The scene from the Tamora Pierce book about a deathbed prophecy can be found in Trickster's Choice. Jaz also recommended I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver, and mentioned the organization Bend the Arc, which is doing progressive Jewish organizing.
Content notes: reference to a genocide at 15 minutes, discussions of death and dying from minute 32 to minute 36, including a death in the text and mourning riturals and a modern-day massacre, and further discussion of death from around minute 46 to around minute 48.
Support us on Patreon! Send us questions or comments at kosherqueers@gmail.com, follow us on Twitter @kosherqueers, and like us on Facebook at Kosher Queers. Our music is by the band Brivele. This week, our audio was edited by Ezra Faust. Our logo is by Lior Gross, and we are not endorsed by or affiliated with the Orthodox Union.
Lulav: Jaz, anything cool and Jewish happen to you this week?
Jaz: Well, I am in an anthology of — okay, so I accidentally ended up in an anthology of Christmas stories but I didn't mean to.
Lulav: Oh no?
Jaz: (laughs) They put out this call that said write flash fiction for winter holidays and so I should have known better, but I was like, there's at least one other Jewish name on there that I recognize and there are people who are talking about sending in things about Yule or their little local holiday that's only happening in their area so you know, really, winter holidays! So I sent in a Hanukkah story and they published it and liked it, which was very exciting. I will put it up on our Patreon, actually probably before this, so only our patrons will have seen this already, but for the rest of you, now you can hear about it. And I'm actually quite proud of this very trans and gay Jewish story that's very short, but the front of the thing does look very Christmas-y
Lulav: Oh no.
Jaz: And it's called Gay Apparel (Lulav laughs) which is a cute pun but a very specific kind of pun
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: And I didn't entirely mean to be in a Christmas anthology. (Lulav chuckles) Also, maybe some of our people know this already. I'm not a huge fan of Christmas.
Lulav: Oh worm?
Jaz: (laughs) So, full respect to people who celebrate Christmas with their family and love it. I wish that I was not also surrounded by Christmas things, as a person who doesn't celebrate it. I don't love mandatory Christianity.
Lulav: Mm hmm.
Jaz: But I do like my story and I am proud of it and you should read it and you should become a patron so that you can have access to it. Yeah, Lulav, what have you been up to?
Lulav: So, not a whole lot actually. I've been extremely depressed the last couple weeks. But just today as I was getting ready for this episode, I was looking up some Hebrew so I could say a fancy thing at the end of the short summary and it reminded me of the 60-something day streak when I was learning Hebrew through Duolingo and just how fulfilling that was and so I'm feeling linguistically Jewish, a little bit.
Jaz: That's lovely.
Lulav: Thank you.
Jaz: Yeah. Linguistically Jewish is a good way to be Jewish too.
Lulav: So —
Jaz: Lulav are we ready for the episode summary?
Lulav: Well, I must say, welcome to Kosher Queers with at least two Jews and generally more than three opinions. (Jaz laughs) Each week, we bring you queer takes on Torah. They're Jaz.
Jaz: And she's Lulav. (chuckles)
Lulav: And today we're going to talk about Vayechi.
[Brivele intro music]
Jaz: Great. That's great. Thanks for reminding us about how our podcast works.
Lulav: But yes, you were asking about the short summary.
Jaz: (chuckling) Now are we ready for the short summary?
Lulav: Absolutely. Can you give me 45 seconds? We're going to take a run at this.
Jaz: We're doing it so fast! So, ready?
Lulav: Mm hmm.
Jaz: Set, go.
Lulav: Yosef makes a thigh-oath to bury Yisrael with his ancestors, and Yisrael offers blessings to his sons. Yisrael repeats his general favoritism for the youngest, blessing Ephraim over Manasseh despite Yosef's protestations. He also punnily gives Yosef the genocided town from Vayishlach, I think? There's a big ol' death poem where he makes predictions for his sons, blessing Yehuda and Yosef MUCH better than any of the others. Yisrael is mummified, I guess, and gets not just a shloshim but a sheviim from the Egyptians. Literally the entire royal court of Egypt goes to Canaan for the funeral and mourns ANOTHER seven days in the middle there. The brothers explicitly apologize for abandoning Yosef, but he reassures them partly to avoid sacrilege. Yosef dies, is mummified, and that is all. M'reishit l'keitz.. (pause, then timer goes off)
Jaz: Excellent job!
Lulav: Thank you! My first go at it was 49 seconds, and I was like, we can do better. We like fives here. (both laugh)
Jaz: We do. Okay, cool. There's a lot going on. Can you translate your Hebrew at the end for us?
Lulav: Yeah. M'reishit l'keitz means "from the beginning to the end" because this book of the Torah is called Bereishit, "in the beginning,"
Jaz: Mm hmm
Lulav: And that's what we're doing here. We're finishing the book of Genesis.
Jaz: Yeah we are! (Lulav laughs) This is so cool!
Lulav: Yeah! I'm excited. Also, for those paying attention to parsha names, that is the same word used in Mikeitz, which is episode... 10?
Jaz: Mm hmm, it's episode 10.
Lulav: Ten.
Jaz: Well, and ours, just to reference your thing about the first one being Bereishit, Vayechi is this one, and we see that a lot in the first parsha in Bereishit, right?
Lulav: What do we see, sorry?
Jaz: The word "vayechi." I remember it from "vayechi erev" and "vayechi boker," like, and there was evening and there was morning.
Lulav: Oh, I love that.
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: Thanks for knowing that. (laughs) Yeah, so this whole first bit, purportedly from 47:29 to 49:33, according to the NRSV, is reckoned as a later insertion that presages the setup of the Northern and Southern kingdoms.
Jaz: Hmm.
Lulav: And also just the fortunes of the 12 tribes.
Jaz: Hmm.
Lulav: So that's kind of the framework in which I want to view this, (page turning noise) is a lot of this is written by people who already lived with two Jewish kingdoms and had opinions about the 12 tribes of Israel.
Jaz: Mm. Well, there's definitely opinions about the 12 tribes. (page turning noise)
Lulav: There definitely are. So, we left off last time with Yisrael being fruitful and multiplying exceedingly. Yaakov lived in the land of Egypt 17 years and then died, but I'm skipping ahead a bit there.
Jaz: Mm hmm.
Lulav: So this is the second tie we've had Yisrael doing a death scene. The first time was like 50 years ago.
Jaz: Uh huh. (chuckles) What was the first one?
Lulav: The first one was.. oh wait.
Jaz: It wasn't, right —
Lulav: Oh, I'm sorry, I confused that with his father —
Jaz: Right. Fair mistake as Yitzchak does do his death scene about 50 years before he dies, (Lulav laughs) but no, this is about Yaakov and I think the only one we saw was Yitzchak who was being very dramatic but not actually dying.
Lulav: Yeah. I was just very confused because when you asked me who that death scene was with, I was like, you know, Yaakov and... Yaakov? Wait. (laugh)
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: Okay. So, yeah, my bad. This is an actual death scene right before he dies.
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: But he calls Yoseph and says if I have found favor with you, grab my balls and promise to deal loyally and truly with me. (Jaz chuckles) Do not bury me in Egypt, bury me with my ancestors.
Jaz: Mm hmm.
Lulav: Do you have any questions about this bit?
Jaz: Not yet.
Lulav: No, okay. So after this, Yosef was told your father is ill. I guess it was that the time of Yisrael's death drew near but not that it was the time, so he take Menasse and Ephraim, who I just want to remind you, are the firstborn son and the second-born son of Yosef, so he sits up and he's like, hey, I don't know if you know this, but I made a covenant with G-d that we would be a company of peoples and that my offspring would have the land as a perpetual holding, so your sons are mine, just as Reuven and Shmeon are, and the offspring born to you after them will be yours and will be recorded as children of their brothers, I guess? This is all very confusing.
Jaz: Yes, confusing. So that is my question: why would he want to claim Ephraim and Menasse as like his sons instead of like his grandsons?
Lulav: So I want to take it back to that overarching, there's the northern and southerns kingdom sort of thing.
Jaz: Okay.
Jaz: And they're setting out a divide between Ephraim and Menasse which I'm not sure actually relates to those two kingdoms but it's making a division and saying from these two there's going to be two different lineages, I guess.
Jaz: Mm hmm.
Lulav: Does that seem fair?
Jaz: I think there's the implications that they are going to be like tribes.
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: Except that they're not.
Lulav: But we don't record thirteen tribes.
Jaz: Right.
Lulav: So I'm really not sure what's up with this.
Jaz: Mm hmm. And we don't really know that much about Ephraim and Menasse. I was doing a little bit of Googling and it does look like they get a portion of land, later
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: But it is a joint portion (Lulav laughs) Instead of getting a land that is called, like, the portion of Joseph, they get a portion that is called the portion of Ephraim and Menasse.
Lulav: It might be here that because Joseph was his favorite kid, he's saying my grandchildren are like sons to me because you are so important to me is maybe another reason on that. I don't know.
Jaz: Yeah, maybe.
Lulav: Yeah. Sp he sees them and he's like (old person voice) who are these? (Regular voice) And Yoseph us like, these are my sons and then Yisrael asks to bless them and like his father in his death scene, he couldn't see well, so Yosef brought them closely and he kissed them and he was like, "I never expected to see your face again but here we are with me seeing you children."
Jaz: Mm hmm.
Lulav: And so Yosef takes them forward, Ephraim in his right hand so that he would wind up on Yisrael's left, and Menasse so that he would end up on Yisrael's right, but Yisrael goes out of his way to place his right hand, the good hand, the proper hand, on the younger child, Ephraim, and his left hand on the head of Menasse.
Jaz: Mm.
Lulav: And he blesses Yosef — it's a joint blessing. He's saying, "bless the boys and in them let my name be perpetuated and let them grow into a multitude on the Earth." So there's no favoritism there, but there is a lot of significance in the hands that he's using
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: And specifically that he's disagreeing with his son's attempted ordering of them.
Jaz: Mm hmm.
Lulav: As firstborn and younger. —
Jaz: Mm hmm. I just want to back up for just a moment.
Lulav: I would love that.
Jaz: Because I did double-heck and it looks to me like what I thought was true, it looks like it's true — it's in a portion that we're not going to be reading, (Lulav chuckles) because it's in the Tanakh but it's not in the Torah. It's not in the five books.
Lulav: Is this Ketuvim, or...?
Jaz: This is from Joshua, which is to say I think it's in Prophets, Neviim, so it notes this thing that says the descendants of Joseph constituted two tribes, Menasse and Ephraim, and so the implication, I think, by making them be like sons, instead of Joseph being like his son, I think, is that the descendants of Joseph get two tribes and everybody else gets one.
Lulav: Okay, I see how it is.
Jaz: Yeah.
12:05
Lulav: Yeah. SO like Yoseph sees that Yisrael is preferring Ephraim the younger over Menasse the elder, and he's like, "Oh no dad, this one, this one was born first. Can you put your hand on his head?" And he was like, "I know! I know which one of them is the first born. Like, Menasse is still going to become a people and still going to be great, but nevertheless his younger brother shall be greater than he and his offspring shall become a multitude of nations." And this is kind of tying it back to the way that Yosef was preferred over everyone else and the way that Yaakov was preferred over Esau, even though he was the second born. There's just a lot of youngest child favoritism.
Jaz: Yeah. So, two questions. One, why do you think he prefers the younger child?
Lulav: Well, in this chain of preference for the youngest child, he's really the first one to receive that obvious preference from his mother Rivka, and so his whole shtick is that the youngest child is going to be the smartest child and is going to be great. This is shown in how he was the cunning trickster and was preferred as youngest child. This is shown in how he loved Yosef better than his other sons, and is shown in how he loved Binyamin better than his other sons.
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: So I would actually be more surprised if he blessed them in order, honestly.
Jaz: Fair enough. My sort of extrapolation of this question is, what does it say about the Jewish people that we've always cast ourselves as the younger sibling?
Lulav: Yeah, that's a good question. I think there's an extent to which we are not always the underdog in situations, despite the fact that we really like to claim that.
Jaz: Mm.
Lulav: Like how Yisrael is the one with all of the sheep that he takes from Laban and brings back to his brother. So I don't know, I'm having trouble seeing anything in particular to take from that, of what that means for the Jewish people.
Jaz: Mm.
Lulav: But there certainly is a lot of us seeing ourselves as the underdog in ways that are true and in ways that are a little overstated. Both happening at the same time.
Jaz: Yeah, okay. What comes next?
14:28
Lulav: He says, "By you Yisrael will involve blessings saying G-d make you like Ephraim and like Menasse," so Yisrael's like, "I'm about to die," and Yosef's internally like, "Yeah, I know, that's what this entire parsha has been about so far." And he says, "I now give to you one portion, Shekem, more than to your brothers. The portion, against Shekem, that I took from the hand of the Amorites with my sword and with with my bow. So I think that's a callback to Shechem, the people from that Dinah story.
Jaz: It is spelled in the text Shechem, yeah In the Hebrew, that is. So I think so too. I think that might just be where they lived.
Lulav: I think that gives us a little more context on how he was feeling about the situation after his kids murdered everyone. It was more that he was afraid of retribution than that he actually felt bad about it because he's talking about my sword and my bow.
Jaz: Right. And it's not viewed as a negative thing, just a practical thing, not about listening to Dinah but about their own power.
Lulav: And very soon after this, he does talk about Shmeon and Levi and their anger with which they killed men. So like, he clearly has complex feelings about it but the complex feelings are on the side of him claiming that land. (laugh)
Jaz: Yeah. Yeah.
Lulav: The problem was the anger and that is would draw attention, not that they actually did a bad thing.
Jaz: Mm hmm.
Lulav: So yeah, after this blessing of Ephraim and Assessment, Yaakov calls to his sons and it's basically like, I've just seen a couple movies or maybe TV shows where the grandma that was kind of the head of this whole family recently died and there's a video will where she's telling everybody what they got.
Jaz: Uh huh.
Lulav: And this is one where it's like, "and you get all these things and all these things and these things and these things and Dave, you get a dollar." (Jaz laughs) Do you have any feelings before we launch into the death poem?
Jaz: No, let's go right into the death poem.
Lulav: Yeah, so Reuven, you are my firstborn, my might and the first fruits of my (chuckles) vigor. (Jaz groans) Oh G-d. (chuckles) He's calling him as unstable as water because he went into his father's bed and defiled it. This is a reference to that thing that didn't seem to be picked up at all in, uh, Vaye — the one you did your family.
Jaz: Yeah. Vayeshev.
Lulav: Yeah. There was just that one line and then nothing followed from it. And I guess we get the payoff now four parshot later. (laughs)
Jaz: Uh huh. Kind of intensely though.
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: My version has it go "licentious one, boil up like water no more. Oh, you mounted your father's bed then defiled my couch. He mounted my couch!"
Lulav: There's a restatement there?
Jaz: Uh huh.
Lulav: That's so good.
Jaz: It's very Greek epic.
Lulav: Yeah, wow. And then Shemon and Levi are given there prophecy together. Weapons of violence are their swords.
Jaz: Oof.
Lulav: May I never come into their counsel. May I not be joined to their company for they killed men and just like, hamstrung oxen on a whim.
Jaz: Ooh.
Lulav: So he says, cursed be their anger, for it is fierce. And their wrath, for it is cruel. I will divide them in Yaakov and scatter them in Yisrael.
Jaz: Mm.
Lulav: So like, this is the Dave, you get a dollar.
Jaz: Yeah. Which mostly means they don't get land, right. That's what's happening to them?
Lulav: Yeah, that seems to be the case.
Jaz: And also, we were talking last episode about this when do they use Yaakov about when do they use Yaakov and when do they do Yisrael.
Lulav: Mm hmm.
Jaz: Do you think that this follows a similar pattern, Yisrael as like —
Lulav: Yeah! I will divide them in my family and scatter them in my nation.
Jaz: Yeah. Yeah, does that track for you?
Lulav: That definitely tracks, yeah.
Jaz: Okay.
Lulav: And I want to take it back to that overarching thing that I was talking about, with the northern and southern kingdoms.
Jaz: Mm hmm.
Lulav: One of the kingdoms, I can't remember whether its northern or southern, but one of the kingdoms is attributed to Yehudah in lineage of Yehudah, King David is a descendant of Yehudah.
Jaz; mm hmm
Lulav: So that's why there are six entire lines here where he says your brothers shall praise you, your hands shall be on the neck of your enemies, your father's sons shall bow down before you, There's comparisons to a lion, there's talking about how the scepter and the staff shall be with him until tribute comes to him and the obedience of the people is his. Lots of stuff about grapes and how I guess, hot he is? (chuckle)
Jaz: Yeah, yeah.
Lulav: I don't know if this is the case, but the "he washes his garments wine" thing might be related to how for instance, purple in the Byzantine empire was a color reserved for the emperor. The color that you dye things with wine might just be —
Jaz: Purple.
Lulav: Yeah, purple, considered holy and reserved for kings.
Jaz: Royal purple, yeah. Or also, relatedly but not exactly the same thing, just a marker of wealth
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: You can treat wine like it's water.
Lulav: (chuckle) Do you have any feelings about the blessing of Yehudah?
Jaz: Yeah, It's related to the blessings of the whole thing but specifically, from an in-universe Watsonian standpoint, why did he pick Yehudah to be the king, who is neither the oldest nor the youngest nor his favorite? Why him?
Lulav: Well, he was the first after his three older brothers were out of favor, because Reuven — I don't even know how to phrase that. Reuven did the Reuven thing. And Shmeon and Levi did a big murder
Jaz: It's true.
Lulav: So Yehudah's the first one out there. and also, I'm trying to remember points at which he's come up in the story. (page turning noise)
Jaz: Is he the one who rescued —
Lulav: Yeah, he offered himself as bond for Binyamin.
Jaz: Cool, yeah. Okay.
Lulav: And I guess that got back to his dad?
Jaz: I think, must have. Okay. Second of all, because you said this was a thing that they did after the fact and we know Judea becomes sort of the largest category, do we think that in reality, this is a divine right of kings thing happening here?
Lulav: Oh absolutely. (laugh)
Jaz: Okay
Lulav: Yeah. And the NRSV posits that maybe just the blessing for Yoseph form this poem was the original poem and then the rest of it was constructed around that based on what happened to the tribes.
Jaz: Got it.
Lulav: But yeah, that's an idea rather than definitely what happened.
Jaz: Mm hmm.
Lulav: So we get to the minor characters. We got Zebulon, whose border shall be at Sidon. Issachar, who is a strong donkey lying down between the sheepfolds and became a slave at forced labor. Dan shall judge as one of the tribes of Israel. He'll be a snake by the roadside, a viper along the path that bites the horses heels so that it's rider falls backward.
Jaz: Mm hmm
Lulav: I think this is more in the prophecy for Ishmael. where he shall be a wild ass and everyone's hand shall be against him. That does seem to be in some cases an actual nice blessing.
Jaz: Mm hmm
Lulav: So he says I wait for your salvation Oh Lord, just kind of in the middle there. I guess he had a coughing fit in-universe. Gad shall be raided by raiders, but he shall raid at their heels. Some more everybody's hand shall be against you. Asher's food shall be rich and he shall provide royal delicacies. Naphtali is a doe let loose that bears lovely fawns or that gives beautiful words, depending on your translation. And then, we get to the big one
Jaz: Uh huh.
Lulav: Yosef is fruitful bow, a fruitful bow by a spring, His branches run over the wall. The archers fiercely attacked him. They shot at him and pressed him hard, yet his bow remained taught and his arms were made agile by the mighty one of Yaakov, by the name of the shepherd, the rock of Yisrael, by the G-d of your father who will help you by the almighty who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts and of the womb, the blessing of your father are stronger than the blessings of the eternal mountains, the bounties of the everlasting hills. May they be on the head of Yosef, on the brow of him who is set apart from his brothers. So we see a very clear setting apart here.
Jaz: Uh huh.
Lulav: And I guess we can contrast this with how Yehudah was promised a scepter and staff and a lot of temporal ruling
Jaz: Mm hmm
Lulav: Whereas Yosef's blessing is phrased a lot in terms of the covenant. The G-d of your father, like a lot of inheritance of the religious traditions of the family.
Jaz: Yes.
Lulav: And then as an afterthought, Binyamin is a ravenous wolf, in the morning devouring a prey and at evening dividing the spoil. You had questions?
Jaz: I did, and I actually meant to do one of them earlier.
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: because it's about Judah again, which is I am curious what your translation has for 49:10.
Lulav: It has "the scepter shall not depart from Yudah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet until tribute comes to him or until Shiloh comes/until he comes to Shiloh and the obedience of the people is his."
Jaz: Okay. The reason I ask —
Lulav: Are you wondering about the Shiloh thing?
Jaz: Well, yes, so, that's the reason I ask, because there's a note on mine noting that that's been a verse interpreted differently by Christian and Jewish traditions
Lulav: Oh, I didn't know that.
Jaz: and interpretations and so I was curious if your translation would have it differently, which is, they note that Shiloh is a location, located in what they would have considered Ephraim's territory, so some interpretation would have said they interpret Shiloh to be the messiah, a new David who would come out of the house of Judah, and therefore Christian interpretations have tended to read that as Jesus.
Lulav: (sarcastically) Great.
Jaz: Right. But if you think of it more specifically as this physical place, in Ephraim's area and someone from the house of Judah, that they note "we might translate it as "until Judah comes to worship at Shiloh, which is until the northern and southern kingdoms are reunited."
Lulav: Mm. Okay, Interesting.
Jaz: Yeah.
25:45
Lulav: And I was also thinking, wasn't there a major military victory that David won at Shiloh?
Jaz: I think so?
Lulav: Oh, I guess we're not going to be reading Neviim huh.
Jaz: No. Not this year.
Lulav: But yeah, I remember when I was a teen watching the NBC shows Kings which was based on One and Two Samuel. It was unfortunately kind of Christian but it was the story of Saul and David set in modern times and I think there was something about Shiloh.
Jaz: Oh, I did hear about that! I did watch like, a snippet of that show (Lulav laughs) when I was in high school.
Lulav: It was really boring and nobody liked it except for me. (laughs)
Jaz: I watched it in high school for like an episode in like a Jewish studies class.
Lulav: Oh okay. So you weren't watching it when it was live.
Jaz: No.
Lulav: 2009 was the year I graduated from high school.
Jaz: Mm hmm. No I definitely only ever heard of it in this Jewish studies class.
Lulav: Oh my G-d, that means you must have watched it like half a decade later.
Jaz: You didn't really need to be like, five years later is half of a decade, but I did, yeah, watch it five years later.
Lulav: (laughs) Okay. But yeah, I think that the reason they use Shiloh is it might be a call out to David, the king of Israel. But we'll see if we eventually get around to Neviim. I don't know.
Jaz: Yeah. Alright, so this is a long poem and it's a deathbed prophecy so the thing it evokes for me immediately is — so I was really into reading Tamora Pierce's books
Lulav: Oh yeah.
Jaz: Did you read any of those?
Lulav: As an adult.
Jaz: Great. I also read them as an adult. There is one of them, I think it's in Trickster's Queen — nope, I think it's in Trickster's Choice.
Lulav: I didn't read either of those and I was very interested because the fan art involved like, crow people?
Jaz: Yeah, there are crow people. They're good books. I mean, there's a little bit of unfortunate white saviorism
Lulav: Oh worm?
Jaz: But they are good otherwise, I think. Anyway, there is a moment when the god who rules over the isles goes and takes over a dying king and has him give a deathbed prophecy that basically prophecies the end of his dynasty and his family and says it will be given back to the native people who will rule over it instead.
Lulav: Oh nice.
Jaz: Yeah. And then the god leaves his body and the king dies and the god whispers to our protagonist, "oh I always love deathbed prophecies." (Lulav chuckles) I think the thing he says is,"They always put the cat among the pigeons," because everybody looks started or whatever.
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: It's great. Anyway, that's the image that came up for me with this thing, so my question, I'm stealing your segment and saying Drash-maker, drash-maker, drash me midrash
Lulav: Yes!
Jaz: How did his children react when he delivers this prophecy about what's going to happen to all of them?
Lulav: So Yehuda is just flexing (Jaz laughs) Like, okay, I'm going to be the champ. This is what happens when you don't murder a whole bunch of people or sleep with your mother in law. So yeah, he was having a great time. Reuven was devastated because his father had not brought this up in like 30 yrs. And Shmeon and Levi were like, "oh yeah, I guess we did get told off about that, whoops." And all these secondary characters, like Zeulon, Issachar, Dan, Gad, Asher, and Naphtali are all just like, we all just got two lines, what's up with that? And Dan nudges Issachar and is like, "is that a good thing? Should I — horses?"
Jaz: Serpents?
Lulav: I guess I'm a judge? Yeah and then Yosef is just like, getting the same praise that he's gotten his entire life and I really don't think it impacts him too much.
Jaz: How does everyone react to him getting all that praise? (both laugh)
Lulav: It's just more of the same. This is why they threw him in the pit in the first place. I don't think they're surprised
Jaz: Okay
Lulav: But I think they are disappointed.
Jaz: (laughs) okay, That's supposed to go the other way around...
Lulav: (laughs) And it's interesting that Binyamin and the youngest child and the favored one when he thought that Joseph was dead also gets one of those minor character lines.
Jaz: Hmm
Lulav: Yeah, that's all I have to say about that.
Jaz: Alright.
Lulav: Next, Yisrael is like, I"m about to die and everyone is like, we know. Bury me in the field at Machpelah, near Mamre, where all my ancestors were buried.
Jaz: Mm hmm
Lulav: And he lists off the people who were buried there. And it's really interesting that Leah was buried there and Rachel was buried in Beit Lechem and when it comes down to it, he asks to be hired in Machpelah with his first wife and with his ancestors rather than with his favorite wife. And immediately after he says that, he drew up his feet into the bed, breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: Do you have any questions about this part?
Jaz: I don't. I have a historical note that there is a place, like a physical and real place that's considered to Machpelah. theoretically it's supposed to be according to Jewish tradition, one of the holiest places that we have, and is also a place that has important religious significance to Muslims as well. Like, they consider ti the same place.
Lulav: Okay. Like, same place, not like, another thing happened here.
Jaz: So, I'm not as familiar, but my understanding in Muslim tradition there are more stories associated with this particular cave and I don't know what all of them are, but that they also consider it to be where Abraham's buried and therefore important to them.
Lulav: Yeah. It's my impression that a lot of surahs were taken from midrash of the time by jews so stuff that doesn't appear in the text of the Torah but was common stories told by traders in the Arabian peninsula gets incorporated as Muslim holy text.
Jaz: Mm. That's cool. If we want to do any history about it too there's also a messy history there. Christians took it over, right, when they did conquering and the Crusades took it over, but then when it was reconquered back by Muslims, then they turned that into a mosque and the modern day Israel took it over and separated it into a synagogue and a mosque, and there is a famous massacre in 1994 that happened at that mosque. A Jewish settler killed Muslims in the mosque. So, that's what's going on in the place we recognize as Machpelah.
Lulav: Question: is Machpelah in Israel proper, or...?
Jaz: I'm trying to look it up... it's in the West Bank.
Lulav: Okay. Yeah that makes sense, given the 1994 massacre.
Jaz: Yeah, so.
Lulav: So yeah! Yoseph goes to the doctors in his service and they embalm his father. They spend 40 days drying him out with salts and taking his organs out and putting them in jars, presumably.
Jaz: Mm hmm.
Lulav: And all told, the Egyptians wept for him 70 days. So it looks like they had a shloshim after the whole embalming period And when the days of weeping for him were past, Yoseph talked to Pharaoh and said, "My father made me swear to bury him in Machpelah, so can I got to the land of Canaan to bury him there. I'll come back." And Pharaoh's just like, "Yeah, go up and bury your father, as he made you swear to do." So he takes all the servants of Pharaohs, the elders of his household and all the elders of the land of Egypt as well as all the household of Yoseph, his brothers, and his father's household. Only their children, their folks, and their herds were left in the land of Goshen, which is like, that's so many people.
Jaz: Yeah, it's so many people.
Lulav: And it's just really wild that he's so beloved and I guess his dad was also so beloved for like 17 years that the Egyptian nobility makes such a big deal out of this,
Jaz: Yeah. Do you think it's like he's also nobility, like how when you marry into the British royal family, your family is now also kind of royal family?
Lulav: Okay. So because Yoseph is the royal secretary, he gets a whole bunch of state funeral stuff for his fad.
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: That makes sense actually. Good point. Yeah so they're on their way, they get to the threshing point of Etad, and then they just sit there for seven days. And observe a time of mourning.
Jaz: Mm hmm
Lulav: So we're kind of doing it backwards.
Lulav: Burying him first and then doing shloshim and then doing shivah.
Jaz: Yeah.
Lulav: The way I pictured this was Yosef was so sad that he broke down crying in Etad and everybody else was like, should we wait? And so they just camped out there for seven days and sat with him and mourned his dad with him
Jaz: I think, though correct me if I'm wrong, that this is the first time we see those types of specific days laid out for mourning though, right?
Lulav: Yeah, for mourning, sure.
Jaz: So does this feel like, even though it's not in the right order, how our mourning rituals are incubated?
Lulav: Yeah, that's very fair, because there's a very great and sorrowful lamentation where you observe a time of mourning and then there's a general weeping which is shivah and shloshim to my understanding.
Jaz: Yeah. And also shivah's seven days of this morning where you sort of don't do anything and then — they have these staggered times of different degrees of mourning
Lulav: And presumably while they were camped out Yosef was like, "oh I've been ugly crying for so long, don't look at me!" And they covered all the mirrors.
Jaz: Mm hmm
Lulav: Yeah, so anyway he's buried and Yoseph goes back to Egypt. Then his brothers are like, hey, what if Yosef bears a grudge against us still for drooping him in that pit? And we're not sure here whether this is something they're actually relaying from their dad or something that they're making up but they say, "your father gave this instruction before he died — I beg you, forgive the crime of your brothers and the wrong they did in harming you. "And Yosef cries and his brothers are like, "oh no." And they cry and fall down before him and are like, "we are here as your slaves!" But Yosef said to them, "guys, don't be afraid. Am I in the place of G-d? Even though you intended to do harm to me, G-d intended it for good, so it all works out and don't fear, I will provide for you and your little ones." Any questions about that?
Jaz: Yeah! So, for this one, partially, we have this sort of statement that sounds sort of like everything happens for a reason because G-d wants it to.
Lulav: Yeah. Which I am personally not a fan of.
Jaz: Yeah, so what is your opinion of that sentiment religiously, both in the context of that text and also in terms of general ethics and how you feel about it in your life.
Lulav: So I think descriptively, this is great for Yoseph I'm glad he's come to peace with his brothers and that they're moving forward. Prescriptively, I think that this is really bad theology. That whole, everything happens for a reason and so because your mom just died, don't worry about it, that kind of thing is not good in my opinion.
Jaz: Say more?
Lulav: Bad things happen and sometimes they're just bad. And you can draw good things from the bad things, but that doesn't make it less bad in the first place. I'm thinking here more about illness and stuff, but like, this is a specific transgression. And I think, going back to forgiveness, you can ask people to forgive you, but you straight up cannot ask them to forget that you harmed them. I don't know. I just have a lot of feelings.
Jaz: I like that a lot. Also, that part of what is entailed in forgiveness is the "and it would never happen again" type of deal, right?
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: Like part of what it means to properly do teshuvah is that you are changed by it as a person in your interaction with the world, so you can't ask people to forget it because they need to have a reference point to know that you've really changed because if you continue to engage in your pattern of harm, then they know you haven't really done it.
Lulav: Yeah, you're using that bad thing you've done in the past to commit to do better in the future. So that's where good things can come from transgressions, but they're not the point of the transgression, is my feeling on that, which might even be textually indefensible, in the whole of Torah. We'll see, but.
Jaz: I don't think it's textually indefensible. We have texts that have it.
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: Yeah. Also do you think, just given the text that we have, that this is true? Is this just Joseph's interpretation, or did G-d actually set that whole thing up?
Lulav: So yes to both I think that Yosef is just seeing how things worked out and being like, "oh G-d did that, that was a G-d thing," but I also think that the way it was portrayed here is that G-d did in fact arrange for bad things to happen and good things to come from it.
Jaz: Okay.
Lulav: What do you feel?
Jaz: I think that it is hard to say when people hurt us it's all in the greater plan even if things do happen. He gets thrown out of his house. I just finished reading a book that I actually very much enjoyed and would recommend called I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver, which is about a nonbinary kid who comes out to their parents and gets thrown out of the house.
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: And by the end of the book they are doing pretty well in a number of ways and they have friends and love and a thing to do in their life and a better relationship with their sister that they never would have had otherwise, and also a lot of trauma. (chuckle)
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: And part of the resolution and happy ending is their parents do not come back in their life.
Lulav: Mm hmm
Jaz: And that that's a choice they get to make. So, yeah, I think the idea that everything happens for a reason is a hard sell, kind of, when people just do bad things and you feel like, okay, maybe something good happened from it, but that doesn't mean they should have done it.
Lulav: Yeah. And we talk about how the arc of history bends toward justice, in Judaism.
Jaz: Mm hmm
Lulav: But I don't think that necessitates the suffering that does happen.
Jaz: Right.
Lulav: There will be suffering but it doesn't have to be that bad, and you don't need to excuse that as, oh it's all good because it ended up okay.
Jaz: Right. And also, we have a Jewish organization that exists out there in the world that's called Bend the Arc, the idea being it's not it's going to do it on it's own. We have to make the arc of history bend towards justice. We have to work on it.
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: So, yeah.
Lulav: And this is a thing that I was struggling with when I learned about liberation theology in college. It's a theological school of Catholic thought where things are bad for us here in Latin America and everybody keeps oppressing us, but the arc of history will bend toward justice. And my struggle is that I don't think that if it is an excuse for the bad things that are happening right now, the way that people outside of Latin America might take it, that it's good theology. I think that is in fact bad theology. But the way that a lot of the labor organizers and people with whom liberation theology really resonated seemed to be taking it as it's going to turn out alright because we're going to make it alright.
Jaz: Mm. I'm not deeply familiar with liberation theology as a thing, but I know a little bit about the idea of the way that people who are oppressed is really different than the way people who are not might read a text and how you choose to interpret "G-d intended it for good in order to accomplish what is now the case in order to keep alive a numerous people" can be a "look, we can turn around, G-d has the power and we have the power to turn around things that are opponents intend to harm us. We can turn that one around and use it to make the world better."
Lulav: So the chapter ends —
Jaz: Sorry, yeah.
Lulav: No, it's totally fine. This was a really good discussion that we had. The chapter ends with Yoseph remaining in Egypt and he lived 110 years. He sees Ephraim's children of the third generation. I don't know how many generations that is, but he sees a lot of kids, is basically what that means. And then he says, "I'm about to die but G-d will surely come to you and bring you up out of this land to the land that He swore to Avraham Yitzchak, and to Yaakov." And he makes them swear that when G-d comes to him, they shall carry up his bones from Egypt. And then he dies and is mummified. And that's hakeitz.
Jaz: Yeah. So one last question, I guess.
Lulav: Yeah?
Jaz: Maybe two. But i think this is the short one first, which is why do they each subsequent generation live for less time?
Lulav: I have never had a strong opinion on this. I like the original party theory, but
Jaz: Uh huh.
Lulav: Just — I don't care about this. What do you think?
Jaz: I'm not deeply invested in it, but I might look up to see if there's been any interesting commentary at a different point, but I've always thought that it was supposed to be some sort of the way people talk about, well the sages back then were so wise and so close to G-d that this is becoming more normal and more mortal type of deal.
Lulav: But as we've seen, the older people weren't necessarily better people.
Jaz: No.
Lulav: So I don't think that holds up.
Jaz: Yeah. Yeah.
Lulav: that's why I don't care about this, is because there's nothing coherent to draw from it that has good implications for how we morally should behave. Okay! Fair enough.
Lulav: Anybody listening, Jaz included, you are welcome to care about this, I just don't.
Jaz: Also, if you have a better interpretation than we found, please tell us it.
Lulav: Yes, write in!
Jaz: But my actual last question, which I think is more interesting, is he was put into a coffin in Egypt. He's not buried in Machpelah. This is kind of a big question, but they put a lot of effort into making sure that his father gets buried where he wants to and as far as I can see, none for him. How much should we feel obligated to honor the wishes of the dead and how much are funerals for the living?
Lulav: Oh! Okay. That was a zag. I like that. So personally I don't think that anything can happens when you die. You just stop being meat. Sorry about the fatalism. But in that sense, it doesn't matter how you are buried. Funerals are entirely for the survivors. I also do think that culturally and in Jewish practice, it is very important to care for how people ask to be buried.
Jaz: Mm.
Lulav: Does that make sense as a dichotomy there?
Jaz: Yeah. It doesn't really really matter to the dead person, but it does matter culturally that we have a norm that we will care about what the person said while they were alive.
Lulav: Yeah. What do you think about this?
Jaz: I mean, I also basically think that funerals are for the living, and I do have a sense that there is value in trying to listen to and live out what the person who was dead wanted, for a number of reasons, not least of which is because one of the things I've always appreciated about Judaism's attitude towards ritual, especially ritual around things death and dying, that are so heavy, is that it gives you a framework to hang onto when you're overwhelmed because you've lost somebody, you get to say, "The thing that I'm supposed to be doing is sitting here for ten days and finding a specific kind of pine box and saying these specific words over the grave and —" Like, it gives you a framework so you don't have to be like, oh my G-d, what do I do?
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: It give you things to do that you are supposed to be doing and listening to the wishes of a dead person can be one of those things that you're supposed to be doing.
Lulav: Nice.
Jaz: So I really appreciate that as a sense of stability and grounding and a thing that you can do to care for the people in your life and for the survivors. And I also think that people who are living always come first. If there is a reason you can't go to another, like if you were to say, "we want to go up to Machpelah but there is a war happening there and it would bring danger to our life," you should not do that. And we don't get any textual basis for it, but that feels like a really solid basis for it
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: And so it seems like a possibility to me.
Lulav: I originally thought that you were going to ask me why does he just get buried in Egypt and not Machpelah?
Jaz: Mm hmm.
Lulav: And this ties into a bigger thing that I want to talk about, but specifically in the case of Yosef, I think he knows that there's going to have to be some time spent in Egypt right now, but that ultimately, he wants his people to be elsewhere.
Jaz: Mm
Lulav: To find their own place. And so he is buried as is the custom locally, in the land that he's lived in for decades, but he says, when you leave, when you go to where you are going, take me with you, because he insists that this will happen.
Jaz: Yeah. Yeah. I guess we could check later on if they do, when they leave, some hundreds of years later.
Lulav: Yeah, get back to you in like two months.
49:01
Jaz: Yeah
Lulav: So the wider thing that I wanted to talk about is that honoring the wishes of the dead is a way of taking the paradigm that they had and seeing it carried out in the world, so for some people it might not be that intentional. It might just be oh, do the thing that's always been done and for some people it's like, give me a traditional Jewish morning or at the wake, have a party instead of mourning me.
Jaz: Right.
Lulav: And so I think that is why it is important nevertheless to honor the wishes of the dead.
Jaz: Yeah. And obviously, just on the queer front, we've had to recon with how do we think about death and dying in major ways when we lost a huge portion of a generation. Not that we have rituals in the same way, but that we've also had things about you try to honor and remember people when they're gone. That's why we have an AIDS quilt.
Lulav: Yeah.
Jaz: Yeah. Alright.
Lulav: Jaz, there's some stuff in Continuity Corner from last episode. Want to talk about that briefly?
Jaz: Oh right! We had just a couple questions about terminology and stuff, so there is this bit about, it says his heart grew cold or grew numb, when Jacob hears that Joseph might be alive, and that root is pug, peh vav gimel, and we actually have it every specifically. I looked up that word and it is pretty much translated that way.
Lulav: To grow cold?
Jaz: No, sorry. My Biblical grammar is a little fledgling, but I found the very specific reference for this form in Genesis 45:26, that this is in kal imperfect, which means that they type of verb conjugation it is is more like past tense, an action has been completed, and also it's in a pretty basic default form, so it's just "to grow numb."
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: Yeah, so it's "he grew numb," that's how it's translated.
Lulav: Okay, so they translate it as one word into a phrase, "his heart grew numb?"
Jaz: No, it is his heart, sorry. It says his heart grew numb.
Lulav: Ohh. Okay. Yeah, and I guess my copy just didn't care for the poeticism of that. (laughs)
Jaz: Yeah so this one was pretty literal about "and his heart grew numb."
Lulav: Okay, Was there another thing?
Jaz: There was, but it was not an interesting thing slash I couldn't find it as well, but I did want to clarify that they did specifically say "and his heart grew numb" as a self-protective measure when he hears the news that his son is alive. It's not like, "and then he rejoiced!" It's like, and then his heart grew numb, like he couldn't believe it.
Lulav: Huh! Jaz can you take us to the close?
Jaz: In a minute. But first, would you rate this parsha for us, as we go into... (laughs)
Lulav: Yes. (laughs) Welcome to Rating G-d's Writing, a segment where we chose two rating scales that we just made up and use them to rate the parsha.
Jaz: Great. In this parsha out of two burials, what would you give this parsha?
Lulav: I would give this parshah two burials, because like a burial, there is a sense of finality to ending Bereishit here. It's just a nice chapter to close out on. There's a lot of poetry that was written in priestly times... yeah. it's nicely written. It is kind of boring, like the last one, but in a good way.
Jaz: Okay.
Lulav: Jaz, out of 40 days spent being embalmed, how many embalming days would you rate this parsha?
Jaz: I would rate this parsha like 37.
Lulav: Okay.
Jaz: Maybe 38. I really want to give credit to any parsha that doesn't dwell on slavery as its thing. I know that feels like a low bar. I really appreciate the finality around this one, slash I'm excited that we have this many episodes now. And I love that there's poetry. I love poetry. And I love that it feels like a pretty natural stopping point, that it is a move from now we are a family to now we are a people.
Lulav: Yeah
Jaz: And that you have a sense of and here's where we went from characters who we could all track with their personalities too here's what they will all become as tribes and here's sort of the dying out of the founders.
Lulav: And — sorry to make the podcast go on for longer, but — it just makes me think of how we've had all these genealogies where it's like, this person begat this person and so on and so on, and the last several parashot could all be contained in a very short genealogy and it's just interesting to think about all the stories that are untold in our history.
Jaz: Yeah. Whose stories do we tell and not tell?
Lulav: Oh yeah, also that.
Jaz: But yeah, you tell the stories of the monarchs and the people with power and not stories of the little people along the way who like, I don't know, maybe played a good harp or something.
Lulav: Yeah. Jaz, can you hunt us to the close?
Jaz: Yeah. (laugh) Thanks for listening to Kosher Queers! If you like what you’ve heard, you can support us on Patreon at patreon.com/kosherqueers, which will give you bonus content and help us keep making this for you. You can also follow us on Twitter @kosherqueers or like us on Facebook at Kosher Queers, or email us your questions, comments, and concerns at kosherqueers@gmail.com, and please spread the word about our podcast! Our artwork is by the talented Lior Gross. Our music is courtesy of the fabulous band Brivele, whose work you can find on Bandcamp. Go buy their album, they’re great. Our sound production this episode is done by Ezra Faust. Ezra, I hope I'm pronouncing your last name correctly, please correct me if I'm not, and we're really excited that we have a new person. Again, please support us on Patreon so we can continue to pay people for their work. I’m Jaz Twersky and you can find me @WordNerdKnitter on Twitter. I recorded this audio on the traditional lands of the Lenape people.
Lulav: I’m Lulav Arnow and you can find me @spacetrucksix on Twitter, or yell at me @palmliker! I recorded this audio on the traditional lands of the Wahpékute and Anishinaabeg.
Ezra: I'm Ezra Faust and I edited this audio on the traditional lands of the Lenape people.
Lulav: Have a lovely queer Jewish day!
[Brivele outro music]
Lulav: This week's gender is fivehead and thigh-highs.
Jaz: This week's pronouns are hi, li, and sheli.