You Have Reached Your Destination

Chassidic sources, based on the teachings of the Zohar, there is some indication that Moshiach ben Yoseph and Moshiach ben Dovid may actually be one and the same person. The different titles he is given represent different phases in the process of the Redemption. The Moshiach ben Yoseph phase is the one that involves Moshiach’s need to fight the battles, spiritual and perhaps even physical, to remove the impediments to the building of the Holy Temple. Moshiach ben Dovid is the appellation given to Moshiach in his role as the builder of the Temple and the one who will usher in an age of permanent goodness, peace, and heightened awareness of G-d.

Jacob’s Request and “Defense”

Jacob is getting ready to depart from this world and summons his son Joseph to his bedside. Jacob makes a request of Joseph to bury him with his parents and grandparents in his ancestral burial plot in the Cave of Machpelah in the Land of Canaan.

A while later, Joseph was told that his father was ill, and he came with his two sons Menasheh and Ephraim to Jacob who then blessed them and made them equal to Jacob’s sons. As a result of this blessing they would be counted as two separate tribes.

The Torah then follows this part of the narrative with Jacob’s recounting the passing and burial of Rachel, “When I was coming from Padan Rachel died on me, while traveling through the land of Canaan, when there was still a stretch of land to reach Efras, and I buried her on the way to Efras, in Beis Lechem.”

According to Rashi, Jacob was providing a “defense” of his burial of Rachel, Joseph’s mother, while still on the road and not in the Cave of Machpelah where he had buried his wife Leah and where the other Patriarchs and Matriarchs were buried.

As Rashi explains, Jacob was concerned that Joseph might harbor some ill feelings towards him for asking to be buried in the Cave of Machpelah, which he did not do for his wife Rachel. Jacob therefore intimated to Joseph that it was not intended as a slight to Rachel; rather it was Divinely ordained that she be buried on the road so that in the future when the Jews were exiled by the Babylonians they would stop at her gravesite to pray for their return and that G-d had promised her that her “children will be returned to their boundary.”

Commentators raise the question about why Jacob did not mention this matter before when he made the original request of Joseph to bury him in Canaan. And what connection is there between Jacob’s promotion of Ephraim and Menasheh to the status of Tribes with his need to allay Joseph’s misgiving about his father’s request to be buried in Canaan?

The simple answer is that Jacob did not suspect that Joseph would, G-d forbid, harbor any negative feelings against him for not burying his mother in the Cave of Machpelah. In Joseph’s mind, it was a sign that although Rachel was initially Jacob’s preferred wife, Leah ultimately inherited that position after Leah bore him six of the twelve tribes. Her preeminent role in establishing a Jewish nation conferred to her a status superior to that of Rachel. And since there was room for only one wife to be buried in the Cave of Machpelah, he had no choice but to bury Rachel on the road.

However, now that Jacob had indicated that Joseph’s children were to be promoted to a position that equaled Reuvein and Shimon, the two eldest sons of Jacob and Leah, it served a sign that, on the contrary, Rachel was still the preferred wife of Jacob. Joseph would thus have been justified in wondering why Rachel was not treated as a Matriarch to be buried in the Cave of Machpelah with the other Matriarchs. Why was that place reserved for Leah who died much later?

Jacob, anticipating Joseph’s question, addressed this issue precisely at this time when he indicated that Joseph actually occupied a higher position than that of the other tribes and that Rachel’s burial on the road was not a sign of her inferior position.

The Two Kingdoms

One can understand that Joseph’s concern about where his mother Rachel was buried on another level.

Joseph knew that the Jewish people were to go through two phases; a temporary phase of exile and a permanent phase of peace and Redemption. These two phases are represented by the division of the Jewish nation into two: Joseph’s descendants were to occupy positions of leadership in their own portion of the Land of Israel. Jeroboam, the first king of the breakaway kingdom of Israel was a descendent of Ephraim. He and his successors—until their exile at the hands of the Assyrians—would rival the kings from the tribe of Judah, the dominant son of Leah.

What was the most salient difference between these two Kingdoms?

Rambam explains that although the Malchei Yisrael, the Kings of Israel, as they were called, were divinely ordained to be kings, nevertheless their power and dominion was intended, by G-d’s design, to be only of a temporary nature. Kingship was given to them provisionally whereas the Davidic dynasty that descended from Judah, was to remain forever.

Another manifestation of this difference can be seen in the two leaders who will be responsible for the future Redemption: The Talmud (Sukkah 52b) tells us that there are two Moshiach’s: Moshiach ben Yoseph, the descendent of Joseph, and Moshiach ben Dovid, the descendent of David. The role of Moshiach from the tribe of Joseph is to pave the way for the ultimate Moshiach. One of his responsibilities according to Midrashic sources is to wage war against the enemies of Israel. According to some sources he will be killed in this war. Thus his role is of a temporary nature. Indeed, according to Rabbi Saadia Gaon the very appearance of Moshiach ben Yoseph is tentative. There might not be a need for his coming if the Jewish people are already sufficiently prepared for Moshiach ben Dovid.

In Chassidic sources based on the teachings of the Zohar there is some indication that Moshiach ben Yoseph and Moshiach ben Dovid may actually be one and the same person. The different titles he is given represent different phases in the process of the Redemption. The Moshiach ben Yoseph phase is the one that involves Moshiach’s need to fight the battles, spiritual and perhaps even physical, to remove the impediments to the building of the Holy Temple. Moshiach ben Dovid is the appellation given to Moshiach in his role as the builder of the Temple and the one who will usher in an age of permanent goodness, peace, and heightened awareness of G-d.

In short, the kings that have arisen from Joseph will be intended to play a provisional and tentative role, while the leaders from Judah and King David will be intended to be the ultimate and permanent leaders of the Jewish people. The former is the leader and inspiration for the journey; the latter is the one who greets us at the gates of our destination and ushers us in.

Thus Joseph’s knowledge that his mother Rachel was buried on the road did not initially disturb him. He realized that Rachel’s, and thus Joseph’s own role, was an “on the road” role, and intended to keep us going even when we were/are in a holding pattern. Rachel was the Matriarch who would beseech the Al-mighty when the Jews would be on their way out of Israel into the Babylonian exile. Rachel epitomizes the loving mother who cares for her children particularly when they are not in their home and are in distress. Rachel is the mother of the Jewish nation in their state of temporary displacement as they wander through the highways and byways of exile.

Joseph Baffled

However after Jacob had made it clear that Joseph would enjoy the status of the first born in that he would receive a double portion of the Land of Israel by making his two sons Ephraim and Menasheh equal to the tribes of Reuvein and Shimon, Joseph was baffled. If his role was to be as permanent and solid as his brothers, the sons of Leah, why then was his mother Rachel relegated to the “on the road” resting place?

The answer is that, in truth, nothing changed in terms of Rachel’s and Joseph’s role. They were the ones whose function it was to pave the way for the coming of Moshiach and of the ultimate Redemption. And indeed, in terms of preserving us in exile and preparing us for the future Redemption, most of the credit goes to Rachel and Joseph. However, when it comes to the actual process of Redemption it is Judah and his descendant Moshiach who plays the more prominent role.

And while it was true that Joseph’s sons would be equal to Reuvein and Shimon, they were not equal to the tribe of Judah, whose descendants would include King David and the Moshiach ben Dovid.

Jacob therefore wanted Joseph to know that his role, and that of Rachel, would be to empower us to make the journey in and out of exile, but that ultimately this journey will come to an end at which time the Moshiach who descends from David and from Leah will assume the permanent leadership role.

The Journey has an End

The message to us is that as long as we are in exile we need to derive inspiration and empowerment to persevere and even thrive from the Joseph model of leadership. However, we must also realize that the journey does have an end. In the distant past we had to place greater emphasis on the journey itself. As we get closer to the end the focus has to gradually turn from the journey to the destination. How much more so, in the present day and age—the one that the Rebbe has designated as the “last generation of exile and the first generation of Redemption,” and particularly after the Rebbe’s declaration that “the time of your Redemption has arrived”—our focus has to turn from the Rachel-Joseph “on the road” dynamic to the “we have arrived” and the “now it is time for us to greet Moshiach” mindset and approach to life.

To be sure, nothing has changed in terms of our observance of the Torah and its commandments. The difference lies in the focus. Whereas in the past we were supposed to concentrate on getting closer to our destination by virtue of our Mitzvah observance, now the objective is to study Torah and perform the Mitzvos as a way of greeting and welcoming Moshiach and the Redemption into our midst.

From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Vayechi by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.