Parashat Vayeḥi

While this Parashah’s name is literally about life, the narrative is about Jacob and Joseph’s deaths. Jacob lives at the end of his life in Egypt, after being able to reunite with his son Joseph, whom he assumed was dead, and is able to bless his children and grandchildren. On his deathbed, we read: 

When Jacob finished his instructions to his sons, he drew his feet into the bed and, breathing his last, he was gathered to his kin. (Gen 49:33) 

I love this image of being “gathered into [one’s] kin,” both physically (by exhuming bones and storing them in an ossuary) and symbolically (being greeted by my ancestors’ souls on the other side).  

Per Egyptian custom, Jacob is embalmed and mourned for seventy days, but Pharoah permits his family to travel to Canaan for an Israelite burial and seven days of mourning, as was Jacob’s dying wish. It’s striking that our Jewish forefather’s death is marked with such cultural hybridity. 

At the end of the Parashah, Joseph is about to die. Joseph is so significant in Egyptian society, he knows he can’t be buried outside of Egypt. Joseph states:  

I am about to die. God will surely take notice of you and bring you up from this land to the land promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob…When God has taken notice of you, you shall carry up my bones from here. (Gen 50:24-25) 

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