BESHALACH_EXODUS XIII:17-XVII:16
Before he died, Patriarch Yaakov expressed his desire to be buried in the Promised Land: Israel. The Torah relates that Yosef commissioned the Egyptian doctors who were experts to embalm the patriarch, a task that lasted 40 days. Then all of Egypt wept over the passing of Yaacov for 70 days. After this period of weeping, Yosef went to Pharaoh’s court and asked that they intercede with the monarch and request the necessary permission to execute the burial of the patriarch in the Promised Land, as Yosef had sworn to do.
Pharaoh approved the request and a large delegation of Egyptian notables, along with the patriarch’s sons, undertook the journey to Israel. Once they crossed the YardenRiver and reached a place called Goren Ha’atad, they completed 7 days of mourning. The very honorable Egyptian delegation did not go unnoticed by the inhabitants of the region, who concluded that the deceased must have been a very important person, since he was mourned by all of Egypt.
It should be noted that Yosef, who held a position subordinate only to Pharaoh, had to ask the monarch for permission to bury his father. Yosef’s decision-making power was quite limited if he needed Pharaoh’s consent to leave the country. Perhaps the reason for the permit was due to the nature for the trip.
By expressing that he wished his mortal remains to rest in Israel, Yaacov was stating that he did not consider himself an Egyptian: he thereby manifests his refusal to assimilate into local customs and traditions, preferring to be faithful to the teachings of his ancestors. Considering that the Egyptian cult of the dead emphasized that the afterlife was the permanent residence of the person, Yaacov’s will clearly manifested where his loyalty was as well as his cultural and spiritual.
My late father, who had been born in Poland, where he served as rabbi for 7 years and then as Chief Rabbi of Peru for 3 decades, never visited the State of Israel. He died in New York City in early 1968. However, he had acquired two posts in a cemetery in Jerusalem, where he was buried. The second place would be occupied years later by my late mother. Although my father never set foot in the land of Israel, he knew its geography and history. He knew the name of every place where the Hebrews had camped during the years of their journey through the desert after the departure from Egypt. Where they had found water and where they had to use weapons to defend themselves.
Theodore Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, buried in the city of Vienna, had included in his will the request that his remains be transferred to the land of Israel after the creation of an independent Jewish state. Centuries earlier, many rabbis had expressed their willingness to be buried in Israel. According to an ancient tradition, in messianic times all corpses would be moved to the Promised Land and these scholars wanted to prevent their bodies from having to make a long and painful journey. Considering life to be temporary and death lasting, many people desired to rest in the land of their ancestors: their true home.
We point out that Yosef did not have excessive power in Egypt and that he never lost his Hebrew identity. It is possible that, for some time, the idea of an integration into Egyptian culture popped through his mind, especially during the years of difficulty that was followed by the success in Pharaoh’s court. But the presence of the brothers who came to look for food in Egypt produced the desire to return to the roots: he would not hide who he really was.
Just as Patriarch Yaakov had done, Yosef also insisted to be buried in Israel. He made them take an oath that his remains would accompany the people in the exodus from Egypt. While the Hebrews received loans from all sorts of goods from the Egyptians before the exodus (a kind of compensation for the free forced labor they had rendered), Moses took care of collecting Yosef’s “bones” that were to accompany the people during their journey through the desert.
The Hebrew people walked the wilderness with two arks: one of them contained the Two Tablets of the Law and, the second, the mortal remains of Yosef. When the relationship between the Tablets of the Law, which contained the rules for a constructive life in this world, as compared to the second ark contained the remains of a dead man, the people answered: whoever rests on this ark, referring to Yosef, complied with the instructions represented by the Tablets of the Law, the second ark. In this way, Yosef participated in the exodus from Egypt along with his people, an exodus that is the central theme of these chapters of the Bible and that is remembered in the fundamental celebrations of Jewish tradition.
MITSVAH: TORAH ORDINANCE IN THIS PARASHAH
CONTAINS 1 PROHIBITION
24. Exodus 16:29 Do not go beyond the limit allowed on Shabbat
