Shabbat Replay: As In Life, So In Death

We can't escape death, which doesn't stop us from spending our whole lives trying. Yet in the back of our minds we have this idea that when it's our time to go, we'll be at peace with ourselves and our loved ones, even if we didn't spend our life preparing for the inevitable.

Jacob's deathbed blessings shows us that's not how it works. He died as he lived — pitting brothers against each other over blessings. How can we have faith like Joseph to let go of grudges?

This sermon was from the Friday night service on December 10th. For full Friday services, click here. For upcoming Shabbat services and programs, check our event calendar.

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Produced by Mishkan Chicago. Music composed, produced, and performed by Kalman Strauss.

Transcript here

Transcript

Jacob the patriarch knows his days are drawing to an end, and calls his children to him, to tell them what will happen to them after he dies, actually he says “let me tell you what is to befall you in the days to come.”

It’s a powerful instinct — the recognition that the end is near and so wanting suddenly to be direct, to speak your mind, to be honest, to finally say what you couldn’t say before. Also, apparently death gives a person psychic powers? Jacob is about to tell his kids not what’s already happened but what’s going to happen? I’d lean in for that…

Turns out what Jacob offers his kids one by one, is a little like what my Grandma Harriet offered me when she lay dying: 

I flew to Long Beach Ca to have what I knew would be our last conversation. Our relationship had been strained ever since I developed an interest in Judaism, when I was about 18. She thought that Judaism was a waste of my education and talent and no amount of arguing or passion could persuade her otherwise. We had our good moments, but generally I had given up the hope that she would express pride in who I became. I enjoyed her anyway. She was about 4 feet tall, had bleached blond hair, wore embroidered Mexican dresses every day and was a feminist and a rule breaker way back in the 40s when she, at age 16 married my grandfather who was 32. I think everyone lied about their age, and they were happily married for over 50 years. She was a character. 

Now you may have heard me talk about her before: she always seemed more interested in the outfit I chose to be a rabbi in, or whether this rabbi looked skinnier than the last time she saw me… than the fact that I became a rabbi.  But she was my grandma, and she was dying, and so as I got to the hospital I thought to myself, maybe now is going to be when she offers that kind word. Surely now, in her last moments, she would bring that blessing that I so desperately yearned for but had given up hope of ever getting. I got close to her bed, said, Hi Grandma, it’s me Lizzi. I love you so much. 

She said, “I’m gonna die, and you’re still not married.”

I smile because, as in life, so too in death. We think that death or the prospect of death should somehow move people closer to the better version of themselves, but actually very often, it is simply the end of a life, that same life, lived that way right up til the very end. So unless a person makes improvements in life early enough to practice being the person you’d like to be … there’s no reason to expect that the prospect of death should somehow change us. 

Jacob was like my grandma Harriet. Carried grudges in life, and brought them right up to the moment of his death. No sense of lessons learned for the deceased, no catharsis for the survivors. It’s hard when this happens. 

But it’s not the only way for this to go. Joseph provides a counter example. Joseph, also dies this week, and his version of death is what I want to suggest we figure out how to practice in life. 

Just for context, remember that Joseph was the youngest brother of the children of Jacob. He had these dreams of grandeur and he annoyed his brothers, and they decided to kill him. In a last minute softening of heart, they decide instead only to sell him into slavery and make a few shekles to permanently disappear their brother. He is sold into the house of Potiphar in Egypt, where he serves with integrity, so much integrity that he refuses to have sex with the woman of the house, she therefore accuses him of rape and he is thrown in prison. In prison he interprets dreams, so successfully that he eventually is brought out to interpret the dreams of pharaoh, which he does so successfully that he is made what is effectively prime minister, of Egypt and it is against the backdrop of this power that his brothers come down to Egypt begging for food, he is able to feed them, and eventually to bring all of their families down to Egypt so that they do not starve. 

That said, the brothers cannot imagine that Joseph has forgiven them. There is just no way given what they have done that he could not be holding a grudge. They assume that he has not taken revenge while their father Jacob was alive, but now that Jacob is dead, they fear that Joseph will take revenge on them.

Joseph says to his brothers, “don’t worry about what you did to me when you were younger. I know that you intended me harm, but God intended it for good, because of what you did I ended up in Egypt so I could be in a position to save your lives. So really, guys, no hard feelings. Just promise me you will arrange to have my bones brought back up to the land of Israel, the land promised to our ancestors”

What on earth could allow Joseph to be so forgiving of his brothers? One thing is that he actually has witnessed their transformation. He watched as they negotiated how to care for their new youngest brother Benjamin when he was in danger, some thing they did not do for Joseph. Joseph saw in watching how they treated Benjamin, that they had learned an important lesson the hard way when they had tortured and sold him decades earlier. Their sense of guilt had led them to be transformed. They had made teshuvah.

But more important than that… Joseph has been practicing this way of living for decades. 

When pharaoh tries to give Joseph credit for his brilliance in dream interpretation and social policy making, Joseph says no no, it’s not me, it’s God that is directing me. I’m just a vessel. God is leading the way. 

Could you imagine being sold into slavery by your brothers, being falsely accused and thrown into jail, and every day saying to yourself this is what God has planned for me for reasons I don’t understand but I have faith in. I don’t know how, but I will trust that good will come from this. I will make good come from this. That’s what Joseph did in life day after day year after year- such that on his deathbed he could forgive his brothers and say “you did what you did for your reasons, but God had a plan,” i see that you've changed, so i forgive you. Now forgive yourselves and move on. Make this moment good.

It was hard sometimes to make higher meaning of all the years of being single. I did and do actually believe that I was part of a plan unfolding, but it’s frustrating to be in the middle of the plan and not know what its outcome is supposed to be. I wanted to say to my grandma, I forgive you for guilt on me. Maybe you don’t know but I do, I believe… everything is going to work out fine and there is a bigger schedule and work here… But it’s hard to believe that when you’re going through it.  Even harder when the pain we are feeling  is because we are missing something that we see other people come by so easily, finding a partner, having a child, finding a job you love, having good mental and physical health… It can be so hard to hold what Joseph models holding this week, feeling, not negating but feeling the experience of pain, at the same time as a holding a sense of faith that that pain will one day be redeemed, that there will be something learned or gained through this pain. It’s actually not up to God so much as it’s up to each one of us to ask ourselves that question. Not to put pressure on ourselves to discover a lesson prematurely, or before the process has come to us end… But it is up to us to have faith in life and in ourselves to discover our own answers, And to honor the answers other people have about their pain and their lives, and not to read our own stories onto their schedules. This is the reason why, when someone is trying to get pregnant, we say, bshah ah Tovah, which means make everything happen on the right schedule in good time. I don’t know what that time is, but I will pray that things unfold on their proper schedule and then when I look backwards I will understand why things happen the way they did

We do not know what 2022 holds in store. Even the last week has changed much and it feels like we’re on the verge of going backwards. Between covid, climate change, street and school shootings, and just the realities of having mortal human bodies that break and don’t work right all the time and get sick… all are living with the constant prospect of death before us. Most of us shelve it, move it to the side, it’s easier to think about putting one foot in front of the other to make it through today. I’m surviving, most people say at this point. The cumulative stress of all the decisions, the isolation, the anxiety– has made it so that everyone is just scraping by, it seems, waiting for the nightmare to be over.

But this- all of it-  is life. If we have learned anything from the end of the book of Genesis, and as we come to the close of 2021, we can’t wait to become the people we want to be, even if the circumstances around us and within us are not what we were expecting. We’re going to need the spaces and places and people who help us live the lives we want to be remembered for, and do it not because of death, but because we are blessed to live, right now. We need spaces to sing, to dance, to cry, to laugh, to fall in love, and to fall out of love and to be held in all our messiness. I’m so grateful that you’re all here– it’s not just nice at the end of a long week, it’s life affirming. I’m so grateful for this space and for all of you as we go into the unchartered waters of 2022, not knowing what the future will bring, but knowing and believing that we will each do our part to create the good we can in the space where we are- and affirm and love up everybody doing their best to do the same.

Shabbat shalom.