Bringing Home the Bones

"Joseph adjured Israel’s children, saying 'God will surely take care of you; bring my bones up from this place!' Joseph died at the age of 110 years. They embalmed him and he was put into a coffin in Egypt." (Bereshit 50: 25-26). Thus the Book of Genesis concludes, the children of Israel—for now—prosperous and well in Egypt, the patriarch Jacob buried in the land of his fathers, and in a coffin uniquely described as an aron (like the ark that will hold the tablets of the covenant), Joseph’s bones in Egypt, waiting to be returned home.

For Jacob, home—the place that defines the core of him—begins in Luz, the spot where he dreamed of a ladder reaching from the earth into the heavens, the place he called a Beit Elohim, a house of God. On his deathbed, when Jacob hears that his beloved son Joseph has arrived, he gathers up all his strength and sits up in bed. "El Shaddai appeared to me in Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me," he says, and relates the promise God made to him (48:5). Jacob is not only giving Joseph crucial information about the covenant between God and Israel, but offering his son his own origin story. This is where I come from, Jacob excitedly reports, and this is who I am. That place, that dream, that covenant—that’s home.

Just about two weeks ago, I was happily eating shish kebab in Jerusalem with a group of Beth Elohim members. Everyone wanted to know how the first year of rabbinical school is going, what I have been learning, how I have been coping with being so far away from home. A new city, a new language, a new academic program, a new career path—of course I have felt, at times, overwhelmed and homesick. But I honestly did not realize how much I missed this place— this Beit Elohim—until I saw the familiar faces from this community, in many ways the birthplace of my Judaism, a source of my dreaming, and a familiar ground. Back here tonight, in the same room where I converted, I feel comforted, sure, but I want to ask, what do we do with this feeling of home? What do we do with our origin stories? Most of us cannot and will not (and really, if we want to grow as human beings, should not) stay in one place forever. I know this acutely as I feel, now, a tug toward Jerusalem, City of Gold, its stones and its narrow streets, the rhythm of Hebrew, the hot and crispy falafel. When we return home, what do we bring from our other experiences? When we go out into the world, how do we reveal our origins to those we encounter?

For Jacob, his burial place marks a crucial tie to home. He tells Joseph, "When I rest with my ancestors [in death], carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their burial-place." Concerned that his request be carried out, Jacob ignores Joseph’s willing reply and insists, "Swear it to me!" (47:29-31). Later in the paresha, Jacob again repeats his request to be buried in Canaan to all his sons, specifically mentioning the Cave of Machpelah, the burial place of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, and Leah (49:29-31). Jacob wants the place where future generations will specially recall his memory to be a place linked to his ancestors, not the foreign soil of Egypt. And when he dies, Jacob’s sons fulfill his wish and bury him in Canaan.

But something else happens first. Having lived in Egypt for the better part of his life, Joseph—successful, important, acculturated to Pharaoh’s court—honors his father with some Egyptian customs. At the moment of his father’s death, Joseph follows his personal instincts: "Joseph threw himself upon his father and wept over him and kissed him" (50:1). Then, he has his father’s body embalmed and the whole of Egypt wept for Jacob for seventy days (50:2-3). After receiving permission to leave Egypt from Pharaoh, Joseph then journeys with his brothers to fulfill their promise to bury their father in Canaan. "When they reached Goren ha-Arad on the other side of the Jordan, they held there a great and solemn lamentation,” we read. Joseph “mourned his father for seven days" (50:10). This second period of lamentation is a shiva, a Jewish custom Joseph performs despite the long Egyptian mourning period, despite his distance from his brothers and from his father’s land and customs. When he crosses into the land of his ancestors, when he comes home, Joseph enacts his Jewish identity.

Joseph’s life in Egypt is not a life lived "on hold," simply waiting to return to the land of his fathers. Rather, Joseph thrives in Egypt, establishing a family there, engaging in a lucrative and important career, adopting Egyptian customs, learning the local language. He retains his personal character and instincts—crying at his father’s bedside, weeping just before he finally reveals his identity to his brothers—but also incorporates lessons learned from his Egyptian peers and colleagues. Ultimately, when he returns to his origins, he realizes that he retains, too, Jewish values—sitting shiva for his father. And it is by the names of Joseph’s Egyptian-born sons that Jews bless our children on Erev Shabbat: ישמך אלוהים כאפרים וכמנשה, Yismcha elohim k’efraim u-k’menasheh "May God make you like Ephraim and like Menasheh."

It is important to value our homes, our places of origin. But it is crucial, too, to retain all the parts of ourselves as we move from place to place, from experience to experience. Joseph brings his personal character, his Egyptian ways, and his Jewish heritage with him around the ancient world. Returning to Beth Elohim, I hope I have brought with me a bit of Jerusalem: the complicated political balance, the Jewish rhythm of the days, the richness of the Hebrew language.

In Jerusalem, it’s been easy for me to have a "traditional" and personally fulfilling Shabbat. Stores close on Friday afternoon, forcing me to prepare early. My Friday ritual usually involves frantically completing my homework in the morning hours, cleaning my house, preparing a meal to share with friends later, and finally, dressing up before heading to shul. I have rarely spent a Shabbat in Jerusalem where I wasn’t surrounded by friends, eating challah, drinking wine, and putting aside the worries of the week. The rhythm of Saturday in Jerusalem is calm and quiet and slow. There are few cars on the streets. There are families picnicking in the parks. In Brooklyn, making Shabbat becomes more of a choice. The rhythm of the secular world continues here in a way that it doesn’t in Jerusalem. I don’t want to change Brooklyn into Jerusalem. But I think it’s important, like Joseph’s preserving his Jewishness even in Egypt, to carry back to Brooklyn the crucial values of a Jerusalem shabbas.

Even just last year, my Shabbat only began when Cantor Leuchter began a nigun. Holding on to the cares of the week until the absolute last moment, I was carried into Shabbat. Rather than actively welcoming, through my own preparations, I was almost surprised by this weekly opportunity to rest. Our Shabbat observance at Beth Elohim has changed over the 4 years that I’ve been a member of this community, from including more of the psalms for kabbalat Shabbat, incorporating new melodies, and changing the Friday night service time. We have been seeking ways both to make Shabbat more personally meaningful and also to remain firmly rooted in Jewish tradition. For how many of us does Shabbat only begin in this room? Learning from my Shabbat preparation ritual, a personally new tradition that I have adopted in Jerusalem, I want to encourage each of us to consider how we make Shabbat. What tasks and concerns do we leave aside? What family traditions have we preserved or should we establish? When Shabbat truly means a rest from all labor, one is forced to pay closer attention to the moments before its arrival— after all, it’s impossible to pick something up at the Jerusalem equivalent of Union Market on Saturday afternoon. When Shabbat truly differs from the rest of the week, we welcome the Shabbat bride, not only into our synagogue, but into our homes. For me, home is now both Jerusalem and Park Slope. Home is singing in a community on erev Shabbat and hurrying to complete the mundane tasks on Friday mornings. I will strive to live my Brooklyn self in Jerusalem and my Jerusalem self in Brooklyn.

This week’s paresha, ויחי, deals mostly with death, but it begins "and he lived." Let this serve as a reminder that we ought to truly live in the places we find ourselves, carrying with us always the bones of our ancestors, the places we call home, the customs that link us to Jewish tradition, and the stories that reveal who we truly are.