Sermon: Shabbat Vayeshev (Rabbi Maurice Michaels)

Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 21 March 2015

The sidrah today opened with the words, “Jacob was settled in the land where his father had sojourned”. Jacob, like his father before him, is living with his family in the Land of Canaan.  And, like Isaac before him, Jacob has problems with his children.  But is this any wonder?

Jacob was raised in a home in which each parent favoured one of the children.  This favouritism deeply damaged Jacob and Esau’s relationship, eventually forcing Jacob to flee his home.  Yet Jacob is repeating the same dangerous behaviour with his sons.  Jacob “loved Joseph best of all his children,” and every member of the family knows it.  Joseph is conscious of his position and constantly reminds his brothers of it.  His brothers in turn are deeply resentful of Joseph’s status and the dreams that indicate his future is as bright as his present.  How can Jacob be oblivious to these tensions, especially having experienced a similar situation himself? Jacob’s behavior demonstrates how much easier it is to repeat known patterns, even destructive ones, than to create new ones.  Jacob may recognize that his parents’ favouritism adversely affected their children, but he knows no other model for relationships.  He repeats his parents’ behaviour with both his wives and his children, and thus lives in a household full of resentment and jealousy.  What’s more, Jacob never learns; years later we see him favouring Benjamin and still later preferring one grandson over another. Yet Jacob clearly has learned.  He has learned from his parents and, indeed, from his grandfather, Abraham who listened to Sarah and put Isaac before Ishmael.  And, if we think back to the story, it was actually God who told Abraham to listen to Sarah.  So Jacob has learned from God.  Indeed, we can even refer to the fact that God selected Abraham, rather than any other, to understand the Divine word, that God chose Jacob, himself, to become Israel, the ancestor of the Jewish people.  So why should we be surprised that Jacob should also have his favourite.  After all, Joseph was the firstborn son of Rachel, the wife for whom he served his Uncle Laban for fourteen years.  And, in addition, the Torah text that Marni read, tells us that Jacob loved Joseph  כי בן זקונים הוא לו, because he was the son of his old age.

The Rishonim, the early commentators, provide several opinions about the key phrase, בן זקונים הוא לו. Rashi understands it as our translation indicates – since Joseph was born to Jacob when he was old, his father felt a special affection for him. Ramban, however, challenges this interpretation on two points; firstly, Joseph was apparently born not much later than Yissachar and Zevulun and secondly, the verse states that Jacob loved Joseph more than any of his other children; the implication is that Jacob loved him more than Benjamin, who was born much later and when Jacob was much older.

Onkelos, the translator of the Torah into Aramaic, translates בן זקונים as wise child. Once again, Ramban points out the difficulty with this translation: The verse states בן זקונים הוא לו – he was a בן זקונים to him, that is to Jacob. If בן זקונים means wise child, then there is no need for the possessive לו afterwards. Clearly, the position of בן זקונים was not just an objective description, rather it was relational to Jacob.

Ramban then offers his own explanation.  ‘The custom of elders was to take one of their younger sons as a servant, and he would lean on him at all times, never separating from him. He would be called “the son of his old age, בן זקוניו ” since he would serve him in his old age’.  Ramban continues, ‘this is what the Rabbis intended when they stated in the midrash, B’reshit Rabbah, “Everything that Jacob learned from Shem and Ever he passed on to Joseph”, that is, he transmitted to him the wisdom and secret teachings’

If we accept Ramban’s explanation, then Joseph had every reason to see himself as the heir of the Abraham-Isaac-Jacob tradition. As the closest and most favoured recipient of Jacob’s wisdom and tradition, Joseph understood that he was destined to experience some of the same events that befell his father – and to have a similar relationship with God.  But if that were actually the case, if Ramban is correct, then shouldn’t we expect that Joseph would also have been regarded as one of the patriarchs, that we would pray to the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph?

While Ramban’s explanation is appealing, I think it’s primary purpose is to whitewash Jacob, to put a less than honest appreciation of his actions and emotions.  And if we do that, we lose the message that D’vora Weisberg, a contemporary biblical scholar takes from the story.  She writes, ‘The Torah teaches us that changing one’s behavior is never easy.  Jacob has become Israel, but he remains in many ways the same.  Change requires more than rejecting old ways; it requires us to actively search out new ways to behave, ways that create positive relationships with those around us.’

I’m not sure that Torah does teach us that, but it is nevertheless true.  Changing, not just our behaviour, but also our attitudes, isn’t easy.  We are usually comfortable with where we are, with our views, with the familiar.  But there are also great opportunities offered by the challenge of change.  Apart from our own self-growth, self-development, we can help open the eyes of others.  And, of course, we can enjoy a challenge for its own sake.  Change is all around us.  Why wait for it to force itself upon us?  Why not go out and meet it half way?  It’s an attitude of mind more than anything else.  Children and young people regard it as the norm.  It’s only when we get older that we find it a problem.  It’s as though we’ve run out of energy, or perhaps, more importantly, we’ve lost the necessary imagination.  Change can be frightening, upsetting the sheltered, narrow confines that we’ve created for ourselves.  But it can also be exciting, liberating, opening up whole new horizons.  It all depends on how we approach it.  Psalm 71 includes the phrase, don’t cast me off in old age.  A chasidic interpretation is ‘don’t let my world grow old’.  May we be fortunate enough to face the future with a zest for life that makes the challenge of change exhilarating and something to be welcomed.