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After living in Egypt for seventeen years, Jacob senses that he will soon die. He makes Joseph swear to bury his body in the cave of Macheplah, the family’s burial plot back in the land of Canaan. Then Jacob essentially ‘adopts’ the two sons of Joseph to ensure that they will each inherit a portion equal to that of Jacob’s other sons. (Thus, through them, Joseph receives the double portion that was traditionally given to the firstborn). Jacob then repeats the pattern of previous generations by blessing Joseph’s younger child, Ephraim, over the elder, Menashe.

What follows is Jacob’s deathbed scene, where he speaks of each of his sons in turn. This poetic passage speaks sometimes of the individual and sometimes of the future of that son’s tribe. Its tone and content mark it out as a possible later interpolation. Plaut speculates, “the testament is a collection of old tribal songs and memories woven into a poem and then incorporated into the life story of Jacob” (The Torah: A Modern Commentary, revised edition, p. 304).

Jacob dies and is given full Egyptian funeral honours, including embalming. His sons carry out his wish to bury him in Canaan, but return en masse to Egypt – even though the famine is now long over. The brothers fear that Joseph will exact his revenge now that Jacob is no longer with them, but Joseph reassures them that they can all live in peace. The book of Genesis ends with Joseph’s death, embalming and being laid to rest in a coffin in Egypt – despite the fact that he had echoed his father’s request to be taken from there.

commentary by Rabbi Janet Burden, Minister of West Central Liberal Synagogue and Ealing Liberal Synagogue

As part of my rabbinic training, I spent a year as a volunteer in a local hospice. I met some wonderful people there – both among the staff and the patients. I learned a great deal from all those I met: about life, about death, and also about myself. It was a challenging experience, but one for which I remain extremely grateful.

Perhaps the biggest surprise to me as the months passed was witnessing the degree of control some people retain as death approaches. Although the fact of death is something we cannot change, how - and even to a certain extent when - we die is might be more under our control that you might imagine. Some of our patients waited for news of a birth or of a wedding that was due to take place. Others wanted to see in another new year. I remember one deeply Christian patient who waited to die on Christmas morning, as for him, this was the most fitting end to his life. Most commonly, however, people simply waited until they had the chance to speak one last time with loved ones.

To the best of my knowledge, this closing section of Genesis provides us with the earliest account of what hospice workers have come to call a “good death.” In Jewish terms, that might seem at first to be an oxymoron: two words that just don’t go together. After all, our tradition affirms life as the greatest good. But, as this Jacob’s deathbed scene shows, part of living is dying. Just as it is important to live well, it is important, if we can, to die well. Jacob truly dies well – for three basic reasons.

1. He is given time to prepare for his death: first through his premonition of it and secondly through his period of sickness. In this sense, his illness can be paradoxically understood as a blessing. It gives him time to gather his loved ones around him and to say goodbye.
2. Having done this, he has the opportunity to review with them the events of his own life, events that have also shaped the fate of those he lives behind. Being able to tell one’s story at the end of life can also be a great blessing, an important step in letting go.
3. Finally, he seizes the chance to resolve, or at least address, a great regret he has had in his life. Jacob had always mourned Rachel deeply and with her, the additional children they might have had. Whatever we may feel about his favouritism, this regret coloured his perspective on his life. When he first came to Egypt, he spoke like a man who had been cursed by God, not blessed: “Few and evil have been the days and years of my life,” he tells Pharaoh. Yet on his deathbed, he restores his own sense of having been blessed in life by adopting Joseph’s two sons as his own.

Having done this, Jacob becomes the channel of blessing he was intended to be, from his sons, to theirs, right up to us in the present day. And if that’s not a good death, what is?

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