Bat Kol International, Weekly Torah Nuggets
Parashat Vayechi. Genesis 47:28-50:26
Jacob’s sons harbored deep resentment toward Joseph—favored by their father and resented for speaking against them. In their anger, they cast him into a pit, a pit of vengeance (Gen. 37:24). Yet Joseph later dares to read his trauma through faith, saying: “Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves… God sent me before you to preserve life… it was not you who sent me here, but God” (Gen.45:5, 8). Through suffering, Joseph learns to turn a traumatic act of human malice upside down, opening it—through God—to the preservation of life.
Reflection:
The LORD God sends Moses, accompanied by Aaron, to the Israelites in slavery under this ‘mighty’ Pharaoh to tell them that the LORD God has sent them. The Israelites do not believe Moses and Aaron and, of course, Pharaoh wants to know who this God is demanding of him to “let my people go”.
Prepared by Prof. Sr. Maureena Fritz
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“Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great, this sacred synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies.”
Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions: Nostra Aetate, No. 4