Vayechi: the Structure of Genesis

Vayechi: the Structure of Genesis

In the beginning of In the Beginning (  the first chapter of Genesis), Vyehi ( hey, not cheth) is used over and over again.  There, it seems to mean that Gd's will was manifest as a creation, something came into being. 

Those creations all had a continued existence for at least the duration of human history.  In Vayechi, this weeks parsha, the word with a cheth, we are told of lives  whose significance stretches to the present and beyond. The lives of Jacob and Joseph , etc.

Soon after the birth of the first  to sons of Adam and Eve, the mortal  competition between siblings begins: for Gds' recognition,  for  the parental blessing, for ascendancy.    The struggle is taken up by the sons of Noah, the sons of Terach, the sons of Abraham and Isaac. It  reaches one of its climaxes in the interaction of Joseph and his brothers, the sons of Jacob.  In the Joseph story, the brothers (almost) kill Joseph, and there is a resolution  in  their request for forgiveness and their  pledge of slavery to Joseph. This pledge of slavery to the viceroy of Egypt may have had some serious consequences.

The arrangements made for Jacob's burial , leaving the cattle and children in Egypt, was probably the paradigm that Pharoah had in mind when he offered the Israelites a Holiday outing instead of liberation during the ten plagues.  The significance of an act can far outlive the actors

Better a live slave than a dead hero?.... up to a point