Joseph's Bones

by Drew Kopf

Parshas B'Shalach Exodus:13:17 to 15:26

Back in VahYechee (Genesis 40: 24-26) And Joseph said unto his brethren, “I die; but G-d will surely remember you and bring you up out of this land and unto the land which He swore to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. And Joseph took an oath of the Children of Israel saying, “G-d will surely remember you and you shall carry up my bones from hence.”  So, Joseph died being a hundred and ten years old. And they embalmed him and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

In our Parsha Be’Shalach: We are initially informed how G-d had decided to take the Children of Israel on a circuitous route to avoid their exposure to an armed conflict reasoning that they might not be up to such an exercise so early in the freedom experience and that they might bolt and run back to the relative comfort of Egyptian slavery as compared to having to fight for their lives against the Philistines. We are then informed that (in spite of this protective reasoning) the Children of Israel were armed (just in case you might think that they were unarmed) when they went up from Egypt.

Before we go further towards our topic of the Bones of Joseph, there may be an interesting point for us to learn right here. Melsa Agavorcha Kawmasmalan, “a thing along the way we learn”: At Passover time we inevitably deal with the issue of “Freedom of Will” with relation to whether Pharaoh’s will was compromised by G-d who is often described as “hardening Pharaoh’s heart.” 

When G-d expresses concern about the Children of Israel, that they might shy away from a battle so soon after being freed from bondage and thereby ruin His plan to develop them as a people who would worship and love Him, He may be revealing an element of His style of working with mankind in general.  He could very well have chosen to have the people take the more direct route and, when and if they were confronted by the Philistines, He could have “Hardened their resolve” as we most often understand Him to have “Hardened Pharaoh’s heart.”  The fact that he does not proactively alter His peoples’ personalities but rather alters their path to avoid inopportune confrontations may well be an indication that He did not want to bring about His goals for them through direct intervention with or manipulation of their minds and hearts. 

So, with regard to Pharaoh, G-d’s hardening of his heart may have been meant to mean that Pharaoh was somehow lead down a certain path by the Almighty where he, Pharaoh would have most probably opted by himself to choose to resist releasing the Jewish People from bondage.

Now let’s return to our topic, the Bones of Joseph.  The Jews are being taken on a circuitous route even though they are armed.  At this juncture, the Torah informs us that “Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had made the Children of Israel swear, saying G-d will surely remember you, and you shall bring my bones up from here with you.”

Then the journey begins and the pillar of fire and the pillar of smoke, and Pharaoh’s pursuit and the famous crossing of the Red Sea, the Egyptians die, the Jews sing “the Song”, they resume their journey, but start to lose faith when faced with a water shortage, which G-d rectifies. The Sedra ends with a conditional admonition from Moses to the people that “If you will listen diligently to the voice of Hashem, our G-d, and you will do what is just in His eyes, and you will give ear to His commandments and observe all His statutes, then any of the diseases that I placed upon Egypt, I will not bring upon you, for I am Hashem your Healer.”

The first question that comes to mind with regard to Joseph’s Bones was asked by Rashi back in Braishes when he compares the way Jacob and Joseph had their respective children swear to return their bones to Israel.  Jacob had his children swear to take his bones back to Israel right away. Joseph had his brethren swear to return his bones to Israel some time in the future when G-d will remember his children and take them back to the Land of Israel. Why was Jacob so definitive and immediate and his son so much less so? The answer given is that Jacob could expect an immediate response to his desires since his son Joseph was such a high-ranking authority in Egypt that his requests would not be denied.  Joseph, on the other hand, could not make such a request of his brethren since they would have no such standing or power available to them after his own death.

But there are other questions that might be asked about Joseph eliciting a commitment from his brethren to return his bones to Israel at all. After all, it’s not like Joseph was one of the “Avot” (forefathers) because, though he was one of the fourth generation Jews, he was not at the level of his father Jacob nor his grandfather Isaac, nor his great-grandfather Abraham. They had each been seminal figures in launching Judaism in both form and function.  Joseph did other things, but he was not an “Av”; a forefather.

By the same token, he was a “big shot” in Egypt. For him to be buried in Egypt would have made a certain amount of sense. After all, he had done some wonderful and important things for Egypt.

For that matter, returning their bones to Israel is never mentioned concerning any of his brothers, not even the favorite of Jacob, Benjamin. Beyond that, there are millions of Jews buried all over the planet with no kind of imperative to relocate their bones to Israel.  So, why the establishment of this oath by Joseph to have his bones returned to Israel at all? 

We know, because he tells us, that Joseph believed that all that had happened to him at the hands of his brothers, being thrown in the pit, being sold into slavery, and being cut off from his father and the rest of his family for so long was all part of G-d’s master plan.  A key element in the Jewish religion is belief or faith in G-d such as this faith demonstrated by Joseph. 

Joseph’s faith evolved from his close connection to the Avot, but it is not clear whether he himself experienced G-d at the level of any of his predecessors. And, unlike those who came after him following Yetstat Mitrayem, he did not have the Ten Commandments, the Torah, the 613 Mitzvot, the holidays, not even Passover with matzah to eat, nor any other Jews with whom to relate except perhaps for his wife and children. So, Joseph was a really special individual. He was not an Av nor was he like any one who came after him. He was a “stand-alone” Jew on the frontier of emerging Judaism. His mission was an impossible one: To establish what amounted to a clandestine base camp of Judaism in the midst of what was the antithesis of Judaism and to eventually serve as a springboard from which the religion as we know it would evolve.

Joseph must have realized that for several generations of Jews to survive as a people without the benefit of the structure that would eventually be provided by the Torah and its Mitzvot and to be expected to do so within the confines of slavery, they would need some kind of concretization of their faith. For us today, that might be the Torah scrolls we work so hard to preserve and to generate with such fidelity to the past. To the descendents of Joseph and his brothers there was no such symbol.  All those symbols were yet to come. So, Joseph as his death approached, extended the role he had played so well during his life, that of the singular representation of Judaism in a foreign land.

By getting his brethren to swear to return his bones back to Israel when G-d would remember them and G-d’s promise to their forefathers, Joseph established his bones as a kind of icon around which the Jews of slavery could and would rally; to which they could relate in terms of preserving their identity as Jews when there was frankly not much beyond the core belief of Judaism to which they might relate.

He offered himself up as the one tangible and historic link between the Avot and their descendents; between the covenant that G-d had made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and those who were destined to witness and be part of the fulfillment of that covenant.

If we were to relate in some way to Joseph and where he seems to have fit into the timeline of Jewish History, we might see ourselves, each in our own way, as pioneers on the frontier of Judaism today where assimilation and disassociation with “clal yisroael” threatens at all times. To whatever extent any of us can and do continue to relate to the core faith issues of our religion and how-so-ever one lives his or her life that much more meaningfully because of such connections to things Jewish, will ultimately determine the future of our people and the realization of Hashem’s promise.

Joseph’s Bones were finally set to rest somewhere in the Land of Israel.  But, they will always be a symbol of Jewish continuity and how each of us can affect the rest of us. We can see it each year as we have this week. Passover, is, without doubt, the most observed of all our Jewish Holidays; even more widely observed than the High Holidays.  Perhaps this is because it is a home-based holiday where gathering around a table for a sumptuous meal is in itself a major part of the observance. It is a time when the most disconnected of our Jewish brethren get invited if not “commanded” (in a nice way of course) to attend a Seder.

On the eve of this Passover Holiday, I asked an acquaintance of mine who I know is Jewish but who leads a life style that almost entirely excludes things Jewish, if he was “all set” with regards to attending a Seder.  My intention was to invite him to ours if he was disconnected. But, he said, “I’ll be stopping in for a drink at my parents’; I always do.”

Having a drink at a Passover Seder; that’s kind of what it’s all about.

And, I know that there are many people who go through the year with an occasional wink at the Kosher laws, but who, during Passover, will not eat Chamatz and either ask for Matzah or even carry their own for the entire eight days. And they do so, religiously.

To that extent, they are acting like Joseph did. They are acting out, in whatever way they can, the part of the Jew as a stranger in a strange land; as a Jew on the frontier of emerging Judaism.

May the bones of Joseph rest in peace and may they continue to serve as an inspiration to Jews through out the ages.