Our experiences change us – as well they should. The “old me” dies when I experience a major change. So for example, I no longer identify any more with the person I was before I met my wife. That “old me” is no longer in this world.
This may sound fuzzy or symbolic, but it is a classic story: G-d tells Adam, “On the day you eat [the fruit], you will surely die.” But Adam and Eve, despite eating the fruit, did NOT die! Instead, they changed irrevocably. Their old selves, the way they saw the world, each other, their nakedness, etc. all perished. They became entirely different, thanks to changed knowledge. There was no going back to who they were beforehand.
This understanding of “die” in the text is mirrored elsewhere. So, for example, when Moses is on his way back to Canaan, the Torah tells us that “G-d encountered him, and sought (vakesh) to make him dead.” The obvious explanation is that G-d sought to transform Moses, just as He had transformed Adam and Eve. If this is right, then what G-d is doing, when he comes to Moshe that night, is seeking a transformation. The old Moshe has to go. The new Moshe has to arrive.
What was wrong with the “old” Moshe? He was a family man, working for his father-in-law, supporting his wife and children. That man could not simultaneously serve as G-d’s very mouthpiece to the world. Unlike every Jew before and after, who are called to use marriage as their template for the challenges of relating to G-d, Moshe could no longer be in a mundane marriage.
Moshe’s experience of “death” mirrors that of Adam and Eve. The older versions of all three of them no longer existed. This kind of change is, arguably, the entire point and purpose of meaningful connections with others (including G-d).
Interestingly, there is a single word in the Torah that speaks to investing in relationships. That word is vakesh, and it is used to describe all the ways in which relationships can grow and change over time.
The first time vakesh is used, it is purely transactional. Jacob tells Lavan: That which was torn by beasts I never brought to you; I myself made good the loss; you exacted (vakesh) it of me, whether snatched by day or snatched by night.
Lavan did not expect the devotion or love of his son-in-law: he merely wanted to be made whole for any economic loss, regardless of fault. And so Lavan and Yaakov illustrate the most immature and surface-level type of relationship: materialistic and free of emotion. It was essentially static: a relationship that never grew in any meaningful way.
This is such a contrast to the use of this word much later in the text:
Whoever sought (vakesh) G-d would go out to the Tent of Meeting that was outside the camp.
Jacob and Lavan contracted about sheep, but a person who looked for a spiritual connection with G-d was interested in a much more abstract and spiritual/emotional connection. Nevertheless, the common strain of vakesh between these two situations is that both verses refer to the expectations within a relationship!
So this is what vakesh means: the subjective desire to seek a certain outcome in a relationship.
Note that not all outcomes are healthy or positive! Pharoah, for example, uses vakesh to express his desire to end the relationship with Moses!
When Pharaoh learned of the matter, he sought (vakesh) to kill Moses; but Moses fled from Pharaoh. … G-d said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all those who sought (vakesh) to kill you are dead.”[1]
This word is used to describe all the ways in which relationships can grow and change over time. So, for example, we know that Joseph sought to connect with his brothers, before they threw him into a pit.
A man came upon [Joseph wandering in the fields. The man asked him, “What are you looking for (vakesh)?” [Joseph] answered, “I am looking for (vakesh) my brothers.
So Joseph seeks to connect with his brothers. We know it does not work out, and so it is quite intriguing that the next time this word is used in connection with Joseph, it is when Joseph is about to reveal himself, to finally achieve the vakesh that he had sought all those years ago!
With that, Joseph hurried out, for he was overcome with feeling toward his brother and sought (vakesh) to cry; he went into a room and wept there.
This word, vakesh, bookends the entire story! Joseph’s initial desire to connect with his brothers (at least in physical proximity) becomes fulfilled emotionally! The desire he had all those years ago was finally fulfilled, but in an entirely different (and much more meaningful) way – it is a roundabout completion of Joseph’s initial quest (commanded by his father) to find his brothers. Vakesh thus summarizes Joseph’s growth as a person.
This in turn is echoed by the use of vakesh late in the text: But if you vakesh there, you will find your G-d, if you seek with all your heart and soul. “Heart and soul” represent the combination of physicality and spirituality. Unification of the opposite elements of each person (embodied by tefillin, worn daily during prayer) is the ultimate manner through which we seek to invest and grow our relationship with G-d – arguably the central purpose of the entire Torah!
To save space, here are the rest of the uses of vakesh in the text, with quick analysis of each:
| Context | Verse | Analysis |
| Judah pledging to take care of Benjamin in Egypt | I myself will be surety for him; you may hold me responsible (vakesh): if I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, I shall stand guilty before you forever. | Similar to the Jacob/Lavan arrangement: a personal guarantee. |
| Pharoah, temporarily allowing the Jews to leave | No! You gentlemen go and worship G-d, since that is what you vakesh.” | Pharoah is right: the Jews seek to invest in a relationship with G-d. |
| Leviticus, 19:31 | Do not turn to ghosts and do not vakesh of familiar spirits | Seeking to connect with other spirits is an adulterous betrayal of our marriage to G-d. |
| Moshe, reproving the Korach rebellion | Now that [God] has advanced you and all your fellow Levites with you, do you vakesh the priesthood too? | Why are you seeking to alter the state of your existing relationship? |
| Civil code – manslaughter versus murder | or inadvertently dropped upon [the victim] any deadly object of stone, and death resulted—though not being an enemy and not vakesh to harm— | Vakesh is about intentions, not merely objectively knowable actions. In order for this to not be murder, the killer must not even have a latent (“I wouldn’t mind so much if…”) desire to harm the other person. |
| Deut., 13:11. For anyone who tries to lead you to other gods. | Stone that person to death for having vakesh to make you stray from your G-d, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. | After all that G-d has invested in us, we must reject those who seek to undermine that invested relationship. |
- Egypt, of course, was a land obsessed with death, so there is some irony in the idea that what Egyptians sought from a relationship was death – and that is what they got! Death came first to those people who sought to kill others! ↑