In our modern lives, we take it for granted that things will ebb and flow. I have often described events in my life as analogous to movements in stock prices – in the moment, things go up and down, but we only really know how things are going when we look at the trend line with the benefit of hindsight. Living in the moment certainly can block our view of the Bigger Picture.
Relationships are very much like this. Marriages have good and bad days, or seasons, or years. Different characteristics in the dynamics of a marriage rise or ebb, but we really only get to see how we did when we look back. And the same thing is true with our relationships with G-d. There are times in which we are able to fill our souls with the knowledge that G-d is there for us. And there are other times when we distance ourselves, sometimes as a result of trauma or anger or fear.
In reading Genesis carefully, I think that the Torah is telling us that Jacob went through a period like this. We know that after Jacob returned to Canaan and before the birth of Benjamin, he went to Bet El and offered sacrifices and communicated with G-d (Gen. 35).
So Jacob came back to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan; that is Bet-El, he and all the people that were with him. There he built an altar and called the place: Bet El, For there had the power-of-God been revealed to him, when he fled from his brother. G-d was seen by Jacob again, when he came back from Paddan Aram, and he gave him blessing: G-d said to him: “Jacob is your name. Jacob shall your name be called no more, for Israel shall be your name!” And he called his name: Israel. G-d said further to him: “I am G-d Shaddai.
Bear fruit and be many! Nation, yes, a host of nations shall come from you; kings shall go out from your loins! And the land that I gave to Avraham and to Isaac, to you I give it, and to your seed after you I give the land.”
What is striking is that the Torah does not tell us that Jacob and G-d speak again until decades later! And it is not that hard to understand why. After all, immediately after this episode, Jacob’s beloved wife Rachel dies.
Her death is followed, some time later, with Joseph’s disappearance, presumably eaten by animals. Jacob mourns, and locks himself into his grief. He is clearly suffering, and it is shown by Jacob’s almost-complete lack of initiative from then on. He goes from the most proactive man in the world, to one who is only capable of reacting.
Jacob may well have been angry at G-d, feeling that the promises G-d had made were unraveling with the loss of his wife, the end of bearing children, and the presumed death of Joseph.
Or Jacob may have been mad at himself for the events leading up to, and including, Joseph’s disappearance. Blaming himself, Jacob may not have felt that he even deserved to be talking with G-d.
There is definitely bitterness there. In all those years, the only mention of G-d out of Jacob’s mouth was concerning the risk of losing Benjamin: “And as for your brother, take [him]! Arise, return to the man, and may G-d Shaddai give you mercy before the man, so that he releases your other brother to you, and Benjamin as well. And as for me—if I must be bereaved, I must be bereaved!” Jacob was preparing himself for even more bad news.
The rest of the family was not much better. The rest of Joseph’s brothers hardly mention G-d, except as the source of their perceived misfortune: And as one of them opened his sack to give his ass provender in the lodging place, he saw his money; for, behold, it was in the mouth of his sack. And he said to his brethren, “My money is returned; and, lo, it is in my sack: and their heart failed them, and they were afraid, saying one to another, “What is this that G-d has done to us?”
The irony is that the family was almost entirely in Canaan – but they felt that G-d was mad at them. On the other side of the coin, Joseph was in Egypt, and he felt (and told everyone) that G-d was blessing him, and was the source of all good things. In this period G-d was, perversely, more present outside the Promised Land, than inside it. It is Joseph who keeps telling the brothers, who must have been quite confused by hearing it from a perfect stranger, that G-d is involved in their lives. When they return the money that Joseph put in their sacks, Joseph tells them:
“And [Joseph] said, Peace be to you, fear not: your God, and the God of your father, has given you treasure in your sacks: I had your money.”
It is as if Joseph is proselytizing his own brothers! They are certainly disoriented, especially as they keep calling Joseph “Lord” – a name also found in the Torah for G-d Himself.
So the Torah has set up this dichotomy: G-d is with Joseph, but not Jacob. G-d is more present in Egypt than in Israel. Joseph chides his brothers for not sharing his own faith in G-d.
But, as is the benefit of seeing things from hindsight, we know that Jacob once again resumes living, and seeks out G-d once again. So even though the Torah tells us of no communications between Jacob and G-d for the entire time from Rachel’s death until Jacob learns that Joseph is alive, once Joseph is seen to be alive, then Jacob comes back from his self-imposed isolation from the divine.
Israel said: … “Joseph my son is still alive; I must go and see him before I die!” Israel traveled with all that was his and came to Be’er-Sheva, and he sacrificed sacrifices to the G-d of his father Isaac. And G-d said to Israel in visions of the night, he said: “Jacob! Jacob!” He said: “Here I am.” Now he said: “I am G-d, the G-d of your father. Do not be afraid of going down to Egypt, for a great nation will I make of you there. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I myself will bring you up, yes, up again. And Joseph will lay his hand on your eyes.”
Jacob comes back to life, connecting with hopes for the future, a future in which G-d’s promises might just come true after all. And, knowing how the story ends, we hardly even notice that there were several decades in which there was not only no guarantee of a happy ending for Jacob, but that those decades seem to have been a deep nadir in the relationship between the father of all the Jewish people, and G-d Himself.
For my part, understanding the text in this way can help connect our own lives to that of our forefathers: we all suffer trials and tribulations. We all have to work through them, and how to maintain and grow healthy and holy relationships with each other and with G-d. And knowing how it worked out for Jacob and his family can help us find our own light at the end of the tunnel.
[an @iwe and @blessedblacksmith work]