The Life of Jacob
“Life is what you do while you’re waiting to die, Life is how the time goes by!”
Perhaps these deflating words from the musical Zorba are surprising to find opening a reflection on the Torah portion beginning "[Jacob] lived" graced by blessings and a look back from the final days of the last of the Patriarchs. Certainly if there is to be a lyric here about life lifted from a raucous bar scene in a late sixties musical, it should be Fiddler on the Roof! But it turns out that the robust joie de vivre of the impoverished Jews of Anatevka is less suited to Jacob than the world-weary declarations that there isn’t anything to do other than grab what you can while you still can.
Yet this is the Jacob we have gotten to know over the last half of the Book of Genesis. The younger child who resorted to subterfuge to supplant his older brother only to be exiled to his uncle’s farm where he was tricked into marrying the older sister of Rachel, perhaps the only person in his life that he ever loved. Now, he finds himself in Egypt reunited with his favorite son Joseph and even given an audience with the Pharaoh to whom he laments “Few and hard have been the years of my life, nor do they measured up to the lives of my ancestors* A far cry from L’Chaim!
His life however, despite his pessimism, is in fact graced with G*d’s presence. His words to Joseph’s Egyptian born children Ephraim and Menashe that he declares to be his, echo among the most beautiful words of blessing: hamalakh hagoel oti mkol ra yivarech et hanaarim vikarei bahem shemi… the angel who saved me from every evil, bless these youths and let them be called by my name, in the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac let them multiply in their greatness across the Earth” These words are animated with the promise first given to Abraham and differ greatly from the more cryptic and mixed blessings he bestows upon his 12 sons describing them in turns as triumphant, violent, successful or doomed to pay for past transgressions.
Jacob teaches us lessons that are very human that it is not always easy to dance for joy in the middle of hard circumstances. Yet he is not a nihilist either. He knows that while he always felt out of sync with his destiny there is a purpose and one for which he has built the foundation. He promises his children to bring him back to the ancestral place of burial and makes clear that the current success they are enjoying in Egypt is not the endgame promised for his children.
When we put our own hands on the heads of our children we evoke the moment Jacob blessed Joseph’s children by praying that the Ephraim and Menashe be the model for our children as sons before turning to the threefold benediction that begins Yivarechca adonai vyishmerecha that is loosely translated in Anatevka’s Shabbat Prayer as “May the Lord protect and defend you”
As the narrative shifts from the story of a family coming down to Egypt to the saga of a people enslaved there, it is fitting that this final portion is called “Jacob lived.” Jacob did not live as a paragon of pious acceptance but as one who loved and lost, failed and overcame, struggled and in the end saw a glimpse of a bigger purpose. Though we never see Jacob raise a glass to the joy of life, he is the model for knowing that life is more precious when lived fully in all dimensions
.