Concluding Genesis: Two Burials, One Journey To solve a problem, you cannot be above the problem; you have to feel it, you have to empathize with it. On the other hand, to solve a problem, you cannot be trapped within the problem. "A prisoner cannot free himself from prison," says the Talmud, because in order to solve the problem, you have to be above the problem. To solve a problem, you have to be both within and above it at the same time. You have to understand it, you have to feel it, but it cannot define you. You have to be able to put yourself in a space that transcends the problem. The final portion of the book of Genesis ends with the question of burial. Jacob makes his son Joseph promise that Joseph would bring him back to the land of Israel and bury him in the land, in the cave of Machpelah: When the time drew near for Israel to die, he called his son Joseph and said to him, "If I have now found favor in your eyes, now place your hand beneath my thigh, and you shall deal with me with lovingkindness and truth; do not bury me now in Egypt. (47:29) And indeed, toward the end of the portion, we read about the funeral procession at great length. By contrast, the final verses of the book of Genesis describe how Joseph makes his brothers promise that they will eventually take him out of Egypt, yet for as long as the Jewish people would remain in Egypt, Joseph would remain there as well. As we read in the final verse of the book of Genesis: And Joseph died at the age of one hundred ten years, and they embalmed him and he was placed into the coffin in Egypt. (Genesis 49:26) For a Jewish person living in Egypt, these two stories taken together gave him the power to make it through the slavery of Egypt and ultimately emerge empowered and with great wealth. On one hand, a Jewish person knows that he is a descendant of Jacob, whose natural place is in the land of Israel. The calamities and suffering of Egypt do not define his identity. On the other hand, a Jew would look toward Joseph. Joseph was very much within Egypt, he understood its culture, and was part of the fabric of its leadership. And Joseph's ark remained within Egypt together with his enslaved brethren. Maintaining both of these perspectives, being both within as well as above the exile, allowed the Jewish people to fulfill their purpose within Egypt. The same is true for the soul's descent into the confining straights, the metaphorical Egypt, this physical world. The soul's calling is to be within the world, to sanctify the world on its own terms, yet, to do so, the soul must tap into its true identity. The person must remember that he is really above the world, he is from the "Holy Land". He is a spiritual being operating within his physical world. In the beginning of the book of Genesis we read how “In the beginning G-d created the heavens and the earth”, and how the human being, a combination of body and soul, a hybrid of heaven and earth, is called upon to bridge the divide, heal the dichotomy, and bring heaven down to earth. The end of the book tells us how the Jewish people as a nation, and each person as an individual, has the ability to approach any challenge, to bring dignity and sanctity to any situation, by being fully invested within the world but at the same time also truly above it. To be, at one and the same time, rooted in heaven but also planted down here on Earth.
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