{"id":52705,"date":"2019-03-31T22:11:13","date_gmt":"2019-03-31T19:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=52705"},"modified":"2019-03-31T22:11:13","modified_gmt":"2019-03-31T19:11:13","slug":"the-sacred-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/the-sacred-work\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sacred Work"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[281],"tags":[],"acf":{"old_id":"52705","type":"no","iframe":"","writer":34255,"related_cahpter":"2005","type_929":"2","show_author_image":false,"old_create_date":"","old_url":"","post_main_content":{"description":"Genesis 50:25 - \u201cSo Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, \u2018When God has taken notice of you, you shall carry up my bones from here.\u2019\u201d","content":"

The book of Genesis ends, in chapter 50, with the death, not only of Jacob but of his favorite son Joseph. After living 110 years, the Egyptian ideal of the long life, the last 93 of which were in Egypt, Joseph passes away, bringing to a close the entire book of Genesis. In the second to last verse, we read:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSo Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, \u201cWhen God has taken notice of you, you shall carry up my bones from here.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

We learn, as we turn to the beginning of Exodus, that not only did Joseph die, but all of his siblings passed away as well. And immediately \u2013 textually at least \u00a0\u2013 things take a terrible turn for the worse, and soon the Jews are enslaved, building cities and storehouses for a Pharaoh who treats them with a mixture of fear and contempt.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is, of course, because of Joseph that the Jews are enslaved to begin with. It is not his fault: he saves his family from famine in Canaan by bringing them to Egypt. But his protection can only extend as far as his personal reach extends, and when he dies, there is nothing left to protect the children of Israel. A \u201cnew king\u201d who did not know, or chose not to know Joseph, has nothing to prevent him from enslaving the foreigners in his midst. <\/span><\/p>\n

Joseph cannot do more, at the end, than ask to be brought out of Egypt with the rest of the family when the day comes that they leave.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is a humbling move. Before he dies, Joseph does the only thing one can do: he turns \u2013 as a parent and grandparent – to those who will continue on after his own time, and asks them to pick up the mantle and take care of the future. <\/span><\/p>\n

He enjoins his family to take care of him, and the family heritage, after his death.<\/span><\/p>\n

The message here is a powerful one, for me personally, as an individual and as a parent. We try to do the best we can, to make the best decisions for our families, our communities, where to live, how to spend our time, how to balance personal and professional achievements, how to divide up limited resources to enrich everyone\u2019s lives. We can try to be conscious of the decisions we are making, and yet despite it all, there are hard limits on what we can do. We can protect ourselves and our children and provide for them, to a point. We can embrace those we bring into the world and engulf them with love and devotion, but to a point. <\/span><\/p>\n

Beyond that point, which sneaks up quickly, we have to turn to them and ask them to continue the work. We have to ask them to take care of themselves and each other, and hope that our children have become people we can rely on to carry on the sacred work.<\/span><\/p>\n","image":false,"embedded_video":"","video_duration":"","show_fb_comments":true,"credit_media":""},"tile":{"top_caption":"Jews\/Verses\/Tanakh","main_caption":"The Sacred Work","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"Genesis 50:25 - \u201cSo Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, \u2018When God has taken notice of you, you shall carry up my bones from here.\u2019\u201d","preview_embedded":"","preview_image":false,"preview_video":"","external_link":"","link_for_pay":false,"tile_gallery_items":false,"credits":""},"alternate_tile":{"top_caption":"","main_caption":"","main_caption_size":"1","sub_caption":"","hide_media":false},"tile_group":{"preview_image_url":false,"main_caption":"","sub_caption":"","":null,"popup_package_extra_content":"","read_time":""},"home_color":"","home_gallery_top":"","home_gallery_middle":"","home_gallery_book":"","home_gallery_bottom":"","seo":{"seo_title":"","seo_description":"","seo_default_title":"","seo_default_description":""},"links":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52705"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52706,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52705\/revisions\/52706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}