A Parent-Shaped Hole
Parashat Vayechi, Genesis 47:28–50:26
Matt Absolon, Beth T’filah, Miramar, FL
When Jacob finished commanding his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed and breathed his last and was gathered to his people. Then Joseph fell on his father's face and wept over him and kissed him. And Joseph commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father. So the physicians embalmed Israel. (Genesis 49:33–50:2)
Among the many lessons to digest from the story of Jacob’s life is the critical importance of the relationship between parents and their children. More pointedly between a father and his son; and in Jacob‘s case between a father and his sons, plural. Nothing, it seems, is unidimensional in Jacob‘s life.
At Jacob‘s death, we see the text uniquely focus on Joseph’s emotional response as he weeps over the loss of his father. Curiously, the Torah only records Joseph weeping at Jacob’s death. The brothers' responses are omitted.
This passage and the curious omission regarding the brother’s responses is addressed in both the Jerusalem and Jonathan Targums. The former includes the whole gathered assembly weeping for Israel; the latter following the text more closely, only mentions Joseph weeping over his father. The 11th century commentator Radak (Rabbi David Kimhi) also suggests the eleven brothers were weeping, Joseph being the stand-in for the collective.
In this reflection, I’d like to follow Targum Jonathan’s approach and explore the plain sense of the text in its omission of the eleven brothers and why, in this setting, the Torah draws our attention to Joseph.
Deep in the heart of every person is a parent-shaped hole, a void that can only be filled by one's father and mother. Joseph, in rather rapid succession, loses both of his parents as a young man. We estimate Joseph to be ten to thirteen when he loses his mother Rachel at Benjamin’s birth; and he was seventeen when he was sold as a slave to Midianite slave traders (Gen 37:2). He would not see his father again until his 39th year.
It takes little imagination to empathize with the emotional trauma this must have been to Joseph.
Torn from home, torn from family, torn from that paternal guidance of his father Jacob; Joseph was thrust into a strange land, with strange gods and even stranger customs. That vital chain of l’dor v’dor was in danger of being severed, endangering the birthright promise from Abraham to his great-grandson, Joseph.
But, somehow, some way, Joseph was able to hold fast to the God of his father Jacob, such that his first words to Pharaoh were to witness of the power of God to interpret dreams (Gen 41:16). In the absence of his father Jacob, Joseph was able to develop the character of his Heavenly Father, and (if I may be anachronistic for just a moment), embody the spirit of the Lord’s Prayer “Our Father in Heaven…”.
As essential as it may be for us to know God as our Father, that relationship is not meant to replace our natural maternal and paternal relationships. In its most optimal expression, our relationship with our Heavenly Father is meant to deepen and strengthen our relationship with our earthly parents.
Returning to Joseph and his brothers, the text outlines two vastly different relationships between Jacob and Joseph vs Jacob and the rest of the brothers. Judah's monologue in Gen 44 outlines twenty-two years of pain, bitterness, and regret between Jacob and his sons—the fruit of their ghastly treachery towards both Joseph and Jacob. Joseph, however, carried a very different kind of pain in his heart.
Dragged across the sands of the desert, standing on the auction block and sold as chattel, locked in the bowels of Pharaoh's prison, Joseph yearned for the embrace of his father. The one man who had the physical and spiritual means to ransom him, the one man who could stop the pain and guide him to safety, who could end the nightmare.
Joseph had a father-shaped hole in his heart.
As for the rest of the brothers, the Torah does not let us in on the whys and wherefores of their “coming clean” moment to Jacob. We do not get to see Jacob’s reaction upon discovering their barbarity towards Joseph and the subsequent cover-up. But what we do have is this curious silence in the text at the moment of Jacob’s death. Silence regarding the brothers.
But Joseph wept.
And in that weeping I see the years of brokenness, of loneliness, of yearning to be embraced once again by the one person who had Joseph’s best interests at heart, his father. The years of life lived without the steady voice of wisdom and reason, the years of wishing that he could consult with his abba, the years of pining for the opportunity to be a son once again.
The relationship between parent and child is so pivotal to healthy spiritual development that it is enshrined in the fifth of the Ten Commandments. Nothing can fill that father- or mother-shaped hole in each of our hearts. In turn, when we become parents, we honor God as our father, by accepting just how important we are to the spiritual stability of our children.
Joseph’s life, in both his grief and his virtuous example, offers a pathway forward for those among us who live with the parent-shaped hole in their hearts. To honor God as our father, to strive to embody the spirit of fatherhood in all its gentleness and care, and to find moments of redemption to turn that which is meant for evil into good.
Joseph, himself knowing the pain of being fatherless, tells his brothers that God has made him a father to Pharaoh (45:8). In this way, Joseph embraces the path of redemption, as he embodies the character of his Heavenly Father and becomes a father to the fatherless.
Like Joseph, we often have little say over the circumstances that can rob us of these important relationships; but like Joseph we can also strive to heal the breach by being a loving mother or father to those whom God has placed in our care.