Shabbat Parashat Vayechi - 5786

Shabbat Parashat Vayechi - 5786

Rabbi Hal Miller

  Yosef then removed them from his knees and he prostrated himself with

  his face toward the ground. [Bereishit 48:12]

Did Yaakov actually have his grandsons sitting on his lap? What does the Torah mean that "Yosef then removed them from his knees"?

We know from Bereishit [41:45] that Pharaoh gave Yosef a wife at the time Yosef interpreted the king's dreams. Yosef had interpreted that God was ready to implement the famine plan immediately, so we will assume for the moment that the seven years beginning from that point were the years of abundance. We see in 41:50 that Yosef's two sons were born at some point during those seven years. Then the famine began. In chapter 42 Yaakov asks his sons why they did not go buy food in Egypt. Midrash Rabbah explains that Yaakov's family had food at the time thus the sending to Egypt could have been in either the first or second year of the famine. Yosef spoke to his brothers on that first trip through an interpreter, who was Menashe according to Midrash Rabbah [91:8]. In chapter 43 the Torah tells us that Yaakov's family ate all the food they had brought back on their first trip and needed to return to Egypt. This was likely in the second year of the famine, if not the third. Following that trip, Yaakov goes to Egypt. In 47:28 the Torah tells us that Yaakov lived in Egypt seventeen years. Ignoring details such as travel time, the incident of our verse took place somewhere between eighteen and twenty-one years after the beginning of the famine.

Menashe then would have been at a minimum of twenty and a maximum of twenty-seven years old at the time of our verse. Ephraim also was born before the famine, so Menashe had to have been born during the first six years of plenty, plus he was old enough to be an interpreter in the first or second year of famine. Ephraim then would have been between nineteen and twenty-six at the time of our verse. Would these "children" have sat on the knees of their aged and infirm grandfather?

Rashi seems to think that the sons were merely standing next to Yaakov's knees as he kissed them, and that Yosef in our verse pulls them back away to reposition them for the upcoming blessing. Radak translates it as "from between his knees", with the word 'me'am' stemming from 'am', which he shows from elsewhere to mean something like alongside. But Onkelos is worried about the implication of saying that the sons were between Yaakov's spread legs, so he translates it as "Yosef removed them from before him and he bowed down on his face on the ground." Although differing slightly, these commentators give us a plausible reading of the verse that does not include two twenty-something men sitting on Yaakov's knees.

But perhaps we can read something more into the verses. We see in 48:10 that Yosef "brought them near him" and Yaakov celebrates that even though he thought he would never see Yosef again, now "God has shown me even your offspring". The plain meaning is that Yosef positioned his sons physically next to Yaakov. But given the circumstances plus Yaakov's comment, we can understand Yosef to be bringing them close spiritually as well. This fits with the scenario of the blessings. But we would have to ask, if so, why did Yosef then remove his sons from Yaakov? The simple answer is physical, that Yosef was about to prostrate himself before his father. But there is something more here than the physical. Was he removing his sons from his father in a spiritual sense? Not exactly, but more like teaching a lesson in halachah and middot regarding blessings and respect for one's elders and family members. This fits the possible reading of vayotzei otam that Yosef "took them out", meaning from the ways of the Egyptians to have them enter into the covenantal family of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. Thus the verse could be translated "Yosef took them out from Egypt in front of Yaakov".

Yaakov had just told Yosef that Menashe and Ephraim would from now on belong to Yaakov as his own sons. Yosef knew that this meant his own future tribe was to be split into two, in effect making Yosef the firstborn with a double portion of the inheritance. Yosef knew that this would be depriving Reuven and did not want that outcome. He also realized that this would separate him from his brothers in that the list of twelve tribes would not include himself (or Levi), and he was doing what he could at that point to reunite the family rather than to separate it.