Genesis 49: In Writing

To entangle

hold together

the still calm on the face of the deeps

while predators prowl within

between world mountains

gape the cracks

spewing wrath

too sharp to swallow

The more the is

the more escapes

open your arms

is anything left?

Wavering water

reflecting the looming dark above

the lurking deeps

the flick of the dove wing

brooding, prey in beak

if only we could merge,

mingle in my waters

without breaking forth

to drown the earth

Genesis: Chapter 49

To gather
and be gathered in


bless
and stream out
the simmering tensions

spreading above
lurking below
















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The focus on the future introduced in the last chapter gains prominence here, as we move to eschatological poetry about "the end of days." Yet s the focus on the past, on "gathering in" the threads of a life,, is heightened as well. Erich Auerbach's characterization of the biblical text as "fraught with background" is particularly apt here, where years worth of tension suddenly emerge from hiding. Reuben's sin with Bilha was presented baldly and passed over without commentary. Yet it simmered in the background, in Reuben's desperate need to atone, his offer of his two children in place of Benjamin. Now, nearly four decades later, Jacob finallyspeaks: "Reuben, you were my firstborn; my strength, the beginning of my might... wavering as water, you shall exceed no longer." There is no true forgiveness. Likewise, comes the response to the massacre of Shechem, fraught with implicit accusations regarding the attack on Joseph. "Let my soul not come in their council," Jacob declares, "scattering" Levi and Simeon throughout Israel.
Yet the leitword remains the opposite: "to gather" (asaf, yosef): "gather together" "group, oh Sons of Jacob" "gathered to his father" "gathered his feet" "gathered to his people" and of course, the beloved Yosef, the "gatherer."  This final address is an attempt to weave the family together. The blessing intrelink not only by animal imagery, and the relation to food and drink,and repetitive words (teref, rovetz), but also by their order. Jacob does not bless his sons by order of their birth . Rather there is a nested chiastic structure, framed by Leah/ Rachel, with Bilha (Rachel's surrogate) and Zilpa (Leah's surrogate) nestled between. The liminal surrogate children, not quite Rachel's, not quite Leah's, serve as the binder for the two sides of the family. Jacob interweaves  them: Bilhal's Dan is paired with Zilpa's Gad, interlinked by the imagery of the akev, the heel, and a focus on public life; Zilpah's Asher is paired to Bilha's Naphtali,  united by the key-word "giving" (latet), and a focus on  the mouth, with Asher providing food to balance Naftali's "sweet words."
The centerpiece is the gatherer, Yosef, who acts here as an almost cosmic force, reuniting Creation's primordial divisions. He is given "The blessings of the heaven's above, the blessings of the tehom lurking under," reconnecting the split "waters above, and the waters below" that have not merged since the Deluge. Male and female also reunite, as he is given the phallic bow and arrows, and the blessing of "breasts and womb" (a crystallization of Joesph's leitmotif of androgyny). The book closes by returning to its primordial openings]

Genesis 48: In Writing

At the end of long, twisted road

from the place it began

the dreams that fell

heavy in my palm

slip-slid between my fingers

to the ground

The prayers I prayed

oaths I oathed

doors I closed

naked nights spread on the earth

sights seen and unseen

The unexpected that sprang to greet me

on the lone plane of between

she died on me

earth spreading before, below and after

I had no faith to see your face

now I find you budding beneath me

round, heavy, sprouting

springing through my fingers

To see your face

I found no faith

Now I see your future

Flittering through the deeps

In flashes of flame 

***

All the visions

beginnings

lonely dreams

beneath  bare skies

all the fell into my hand

and trickled from it

What was born,

and bears

birthed in pain and shame

I call by name

Bury the loss

in the weeping moss

along the littered road

with darkening eyes

that can no longer see day

Shepherding the dark

she comes with the sheep

I throw my clenched blessing

into the fish-haunted deeps

Genesis: Chapter 48

Giving over
what was given



past, present, future



Blessing, loss
reversals
redemption












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A return to the past, and an investment in the future. Jacob, who "took the blessing with cunning," now becomes the one who gives blessing, his eyes "heavy" as were his father's, "unable to see." In a recreation of that pivotal scene, the younger once again is give precedence over the firstborn--but this time through a conscious, insistent choice.
Jacob reiterates the primal turning points of his life: the leave-taking from  his parents, where he slept in Luz, and the death of Rachel after his return to Luz, "As for me, when I came from Padan, Rachel died on me, on the road...and I buried her along the road." There are splits that are eternal, that cannot be undone. But there is also hope: "To see your face I did not believe, and now God has shown me your seed as well." The focus is on what is born (nolad, molad, ashe yalad), on dreams of the future. The "blessing" given in the past, is given to Joseph in the present, and  given over to his children in the future: "by you will Israel bless." Death encroaches--"Behold, I die"--but the future intimates redemption: the root "gaal", redemption, is introduced for  the first time]

Genesis 47: In Writing

Sojourner, stranger
seated, encased

The living earth
the breathing dust
bought by belonging

Take me home
root me in the deeps
seeds climbing to the sun

merged with my fathers
cradled by my mother
to germinate
when the rains come

Genesis: Chapter 47

Bonds of belonging
let us live and not die!






We are the land
ingested
ingesting





Do not bury me here!






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Tensions of belonging.
Are you a sojourner /stranger (ger) or are you settled (yoshev)?
Joseph continues his battle to redefine possession. As in the case of his brothers, the tension between money, and the food needed for life. "Why should we die before you?" demand the Egyptians. First Joseph "gathers" (a play on his name Yosef--"God has gathered my shame") all the money  to Pharaoh, yet the word used, "liket," is a cognate with "leket"--the leftover wheat over which one has no ownership. "Money becomes worthless" (afes ha-kesef) "the money was gone" (va-yitam ha-kesef). We move into more intimate possessions: from non-specific money, to the mikneh, the belongings and animals to which one has a relation. Finally possession is reduced to the most basic bond of belonging: the very earth (adama) from which humanity (adam) "was taken." Humanity and humous become one: "Nothing is left but our bodies our lands"; "why should we collapse, us and our land?" "Buy us and our land" "give us seed, that we may live and not die, and the land will not be desolate".
Joseph recreates his own sale, as all of Egypt become "servant/slaves" (avadim) to Pharaoh. But it is not an exchange of commodities, but of lives. The bonds of exchange have become existential and relational: "You have given us life (he-heyetanu). Let us find favor in your eyes..." 
In the context of this recreated relation of man to the "earth from which you were taken," Jacob begs: Do not bury me here. Let my dust indeed return to the earth from which I came. Bury me with my fathers]

Chapter 46: In Writing

I will not fear night-terror

the gaping pit of dark

will close my eyes

and lay me down

in the tender shelter of your palm

knowing day-break

when the sun climbs its steep incline

gathering the winds

I am here

recalled by name

To send forth

and know return

see the ladder

build its rungs

To come, and find you coming

over the edge of the hill

flowing with the sheep

familiar taste of tears and loss

your pulse pulsing mine

On its beat

I die

ready to be

with you

now that I see your living face

Genesis: Chapter 46

A return to dreams

Once again, I am here

what goes down
will come up


hands and eyes
grow tender














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Jacob's return to life, is a return to dreams. After the protracted mourning, he suddenly has "visions in the night." The alienation and dissolution of the missing years begin to heal. Jacob is once again "hineni", fully present. God is once again the God "of your father", and Jacob's sons are once again his sons, the dead and lost included in the total, gone,but not forgotten. The dead Rachel is resurrected, at last acknowledged as "the wife of Jacob."
Yet the hints of darkness in the last chapter become here explicit. The "going down" to Egypt is fearful. God must promise that there will be a rise, and ability to escape this pit (e'ale, gam ale). Reverberating is the covenant: "You will know, surely know, that your children will be strangers in a land not their own, and they will be enslaved and afflicted (ya-anu)..."
Here, God makes Joseph's redefinition of the narrative in the previous chapter definitive: the darkness of the "going down" will be the source of life: "I will make you there into a great nation." Or, in Joseph's words: "God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction (oni)" The continuity between generations offers comfort. God promises Jacob that Joseph will be there at his death to "lay his hands over your eyes". Instead of an agonizing decent into the Pit mourning his son, a peaceful sleep, and an eventual "rise." Death--an exile--are  no longer fearful: "I will die now, after I see you face, for you are still alive."
In a final knitting together of the shattered family, Jacob "sends" Judah forth forth to Joseph, as he had once "sent" Joseph to look for his brothers, in a chiastic closing that gives Judah a place in his father's trust.)

Genesis 45: In Writing

To make the night soft

loose my hands

and let the cavernous cry free

to roar outside

reverberate

and come home

To clasp you

neck on neck

lip to lip

feel my skin by yours

tears meeting in a murmur

that fills the silence

shadows solidify

to the shape of your heart

Turn the depths 

to rest

save the remnant,

what  survives the searing winds of life

For life God has send me hither

Do you hear me

make the world with my voice?

present in your gaze?

Speak to me

And in the vibrating voices

The fallen begin  to breath

Genesis: Chapter 45

A return to life
before death




To be seen
to be heard




The reverberating cry











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The denouement, and another closure.
The chapter once again continues seamlessly from the previous one, with no break in the Masoretic text. The leitwords are the same, with a focus on the gaze, seeing, eyes, and the face (panim). 
Yet if Joseph had previously controlled himself (ve-yitapek) and the situation, here he can no longer be restrained (lo yakhol le-hitapek).  In recreating--and reversing--his sale into slavery through the confrontation regarding Benjamin, Joseph breaks something loose. His cries, which were ignored and silenced by his brothers at the time of the sale, echo throughout Egypt, shaking Pharaoh's house. Once unheard, he is now heard; unseen, he is now seen.
Emotions are now pushed to their outer limits. If Joseph cannot control himself, his brothers also "cannot" (lo yokhlu) respond to him--an echo of their initial inability (lo yokhlu) to speak "peace to him". Yet even if the relationship is not fully resolved the brothers have at least discovered one thing they care about in common: Jacob.
Joseph regains control be redefining the narrative, turning what was bad to good. If Joseph was "dead" he is now "alive" (another key word in the chapter). The sale was  not a breakdown, but rather a continuation, of Jacob "sending" him to seek the peace of his brothers.God Himself "send me here to bring life (lemihya shelahani)." Following this reversal, the verb "to go down" (laredet) which previously indicated imprisonment, slavery, and  the Pit, now becomes a source of hope and peace: "quickly bring my father down."
The chapter closes with a final undoing of the sale: First Joseph was let out of the pit, and now Jacob at last emerges from his living hell, as his spirit "revives".
Yet this reversal of evil  to good, of death to life, is fragile: " I will go and see him before I die" says Jacob, indicating a temporary resurrection,  and indeed, the chapter is rife with hints of the enslavement to come. "Going down" might have come to mean reconciliation and peace, but  it retains the threat of "we will all remain here as slaves.")