"Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years; they embalmed him and he was placed in a coffin in Egypt." In these very uninspiring words, one may sense profound inspiration.
The Jewish people are about to become enslaved and subjugated to a tyrannical government that will attempt to destroy them one by one, physically and mentally (as recorded at the beginning of Exodus). This new Egyptian genocide program will drown children, subject all Jewish men to slave labor and crush a new nation.
What will give the people of Israel the resolve they will desperately need? What will preserve a broken and devastated people from falling into the abyss? The knowledge that one day they would be liberated? Certainly. The knowledge that evil will not reign forever? Absolutely. Indeed, this is what Joseph told the Jewish people before his passing, recorded in the second-to-the-last verse of Genesis: "Joseph told his brothers: 'I am about to die, but G-d will indeed remember you and bring you up out of this land to the land that He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob... You will bring my bones up out of here."
But, then, when Genesis seeks to choose its final words, it provides us with a message that perhaps served as the greatest source of strength for an orphaned and broken Jewish family. "Joseph died at the age of one hundred and ten years; they embalmed him and he was placed in a coffin in Egypt." Joseph's sacred body is not taken back to the Holy Land to be interred among the spiritual giants of human history: Abraham and Sarah; Isaac and Rebecca; his father Jacob, or his mother Rachel. Joseph's spiritual and physical presence does not "escape" to the heavenly paradise of a land saturated with holiness.
Rather, Joseph remains in the grit and gravel of depraved Egypt, he remains etched deeply in the earthiness of Egypt, together with his beloved people.
This is based on the ancient Jewish idea that has its roots in the Bible itself:
The burial place of a virtuous and saintly human being contains profound holiness and spiritual energy and constitutes a place conducive for prayer to G-d. Since the soul and the body retain a relationship even after they depart from each other, the space where the physical body of a holy man is interred is a space conducive for spiritual growth, meditation, reflection, and inspiration.
Contemporary Josephs
This idea transcribed above I had the privilege to hear from the Lubavitcher Rebbe 35 years ago, on the Sabbath of the portion of Vayechi 5747, January 1987.
I will never forget the emotion the Rebbe displayed while giving this talk. At its conclusion, he noted that the name of his father-in-law, the sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe (1880-1950), was Yosef (Joseph) and that his father-in-law was interred not in the Holy Land but in New York, and continues to provide energy, inspiration, and blessings to our generation.
Indeed, the Rebbe would visit his father-in-law's resting place frequently to pray on behalf of Jews and non-Jews the world over. The Rebbe would spend hours standing at his father-in-law’s resting place, immersed in prayer, reading letters that he has received from people all over the world requesting him to pray for them.
I personally observed many times the Rebbe returning from his father-in-law's graveside sometimes close to midnight, his eyes swollen from tears and his back bent over from the extraordinary effort.
Rabbi YY Jacobson
