Unscrolled Vayigash: Ascents and Descents

Why isn’t Joseph one of the patriarchs? When we recite the Amidah prayer, why isn’t his name listed with those illustrious ancients – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Stylistically, the Torah seems to deal with him as though he were simply the next in their line. Morally, he is as much of a Tzadik – a righteous person – as his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. So why isn’t he honored as one of our progenitors?

To answer this, we must skip back to the very beginning of the Joseph story cycle. “This is the history of Jacob – Joseph was seventeen years old and was a shepherd with his brothers.” (Genesis 37:2). The commentators were puzzled by this phrasing. The sentence sets out as if it is about to tell us something about Jacob’s life, but then digresses into the story of Joseph.

Indeed, Joseph’s tale is a sort of digression. A parenthetical has opened up in which his entire life will unfold. Only in this week’s reading from Parashat Vayigash will the parentheses close, reminding us that this was Jacob’s story all along.

Much happens in Parashat Vayigash. Joseph, viceroy of Egypt, reveals his true identity to his assembled brothers. He then sends them back to Canaan to retrieve their father in order to resettle the entire clan in Egypt in the land of Goshen. Jacob reunites with his beloved son, the one whom he had for so long assumed to be dead.

Here we can begin to understand what separates Joseph from the other patriarchs. He is the mechanism by which Jacob will be brought down into Egypt and then lifted back into Canaan. As for himself, however, he will have no “lifting up” in the book of Genesis.

This movement in and out of Egypt seems to be what defines a patriarch. Abraham was the first to descend into Egypt and rise up into Canaan. Isaac followed in his footsteps. And now Jacob, who will, in next week’s portion, be carried back into Canaan as a corpse and buried with his kin at Machpelah.

It’s unclear why this narrative of descent and ascent is so crucial for the patriarchs. Perhaps only those individuals who had experienced both exile and redemption can be the progenitors of a people whose destiny will consist of both of these experiences. If we look at it through the lens of the mystics, we might say that those who are constantly engaged with ascending and descending are those who are dynamically gathering the holy sparks of this broken world and returning them to their Creator on high.

Perhaps only those individuals who had experienced both exile and redemption can be the progenitors of a people whose destiny will consist of both of these experiences.

The importance of descent and ascent is alluded to earlier in the Jacob narrative. Traveling to Haran to find his uncle, Jacob dreams of a ladder upon which angels are scurrying up and down.

This idea returns in Parashat Vayigash when he is about to go to Egypt to reunite with Joseph, and God comes to him in a vision:

“‘Jacob! Jacob!’

He answered, ‘Here.’

And He said, ‘I am God, the God of your father. Fear not to go down to Egypt, for I will make you there into a great nation.’” (46:2-3)

The importance of descent and ascent is also alluded to in one of our most primary religious symbols – the Magen David, or Star of David, which consists of two triangles. The upper triangle is pointing from heaven to earth, the lower from earth to heaven. The lower triangle recalls Mount Sinai, upon which man ascends to unite with God and learn His teachings and laws. The upper triangle recalls the cloud of glory which descended upon Sinai from above, in which God unites with man and makes His will manifest and physical in the world.

Joseph, like us, was an inheritor of this tradition rather than a progenitor. In this, he has perhaps more to teach us than the patriarchs.

Each of the patriarchs, through their descents and ascents, did the holy work of stitching together heaven and earth. It was, as we have seen throughout Genesis, an often thankless and painful job. As Jews, we attempt to carry on that legacy. In our descents, we attempt to draw heaven after us. In our ascents, we bring with us the holy sparks of our earthly home.

Joseph, like us, was an inheritor of this tradition rather than a progenitor. In this, he has perhaps more to teach us than the patriarchs. After all, few of us Jews will be the parent of a great nation, creators of something utterly new under the son. Much more likely, we will spend our lives trying to navigate what it means to be the inheritor of a tradition that is ancient and alluring, formidable and strange. We will seek to find ourselves within it, adapting it to our surroundings and the changing times. We will pray to do so with carefulness, with gratitude, and with integrity. In all of this, we can look to Joseph as our teacher.

Matthew Schultz is the author of the essay collection “What Came Before” (2020). He is a rabbinical student at Hebrew College in Newton, Massachusetts.