The Twelve Tribes of Kavana

In this week of endings, we say goodbye to both the first book of the Torah and to calendar year 2023.  

As Bereishit/Genesis draws to a close in this week's Torah portion, Vayechi, Jacob knows that he is nearing the end of his life. He clarifies his wishes for his own burial (“If I have found favor in your eyes, then swear to me that you will not bury me in Egypt, but with my fathers in Canaan”), and draws his grandchildren -- Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manassah -- near to offer them blessings. But then, Jacob does something unexpected.

Up to this point, we've seen a regular pattern emerge in Genesis: sibling rivalry and parental favoritism feature repeatedly, after which the narrative only follows a single branch of the family tree from one generation to the next. This pattern held true for Abraham's sons (following Isaac over Ishmael) and for Isaac's sons (following Jacob over Esau). But now, in the wake of a complicated family drama about Jacob's twelve sons, he gathers all twelve of them around him to share his final blessings/prophecies with them all:

"And Jacob called his sons and said, “Come together that I may tell you what is to befall you in days to come. Assemble and hearken, O sons of Jacob; Hearken to Israel your father." (Genesis 49:1-2).

The two verbs I've bolded in the quote above are the key to what's happening here: he'asfu (come together, root: alef-samech-pey, meaning to gather), and hi'kavtzu (assemble, root: kuf-bet-tzadee, meaning to assemble as in k'vutzah/group or kibbutz). We know that these twelve sons are different as can be and they haven't exactly gotten along... in fact, jealousy and resentment have led to near-death and abandonment. Jacob's "blessings" to each of them focus on both the brother's past behavior and the future of the tribe-to-be, leaning into negative prophecies as much as positive ones. 

The core point, though, is that Jacob draws his motley crew together as he speaks, telling them that they must hearken/listen ("shema") as a unit. By the end of his speech (Genesis 49:28), he is able to declare, "kol eileh shivtei yisrael shneim asar" "All these were the tribes of Israel, twelve in number." From here on out, they will be viewed as a collective unit, and the Torah's narrative will follow all twelve of these brothers/tribes together. Together, they will experience the bitterness of slavery, emerge to freedom, stand at Sinai, and strive to build a holy community.

Jacob's strategy -- of trying to actively forge a new collective unit by assembling the brothers -- feels helpful and relevant to me as we try to make sense of the world around us now and understand what the year 2023 has meant for our community, for the Jewish people, and for the world.  

Although we're still very much inside an unfolding story, we can already see that we are living through a watershed moment in Jewish history, and that 2023 will be a year cited by historians as a turning point. That said, October 7th and every day since have been so complex and multi-faceted -- there are so many aspects to what's happening -- that it can be hard to grasp the whole. Trying to make sense of the big picture while living through the day-to-day, each with our own perspective and our own sources of information, reminds me of poem by Rumi, a 13th century Sufi (Islamic mystic) philosopher and poet:

Elephant in the Dark

Some Hindus have an elephant to show.

No one here has ever seen an elephant. 

They bring it at night to a dark room.

One by one, we go in the dark and come out

saying how we experience the animal.

One of us happens to touch the trunk.

"A water-pipe kind of creature."

Another, the ear. "A very strong, always moving

back and forth, fan-animal."

Another, the leg. "I find it still,

like a column on a temple."

Another touches the curved back.

"A leathery throne."

Another, the cleverest, feels the tusk.

"A rounded sword made of porcelain."

He's proud of his description.

Each of us touches one place

and understands the whole in that way.

The palm and the fingers feeling in the dark are

how the senses explore the reality of the elephant.

If each of us held a candle there, 

and if we went in together,

we could see it."

As with Jacob’s sons, Rumi describes that a big picture -- a complete picture -- can only emerge when we "go in together" and "hold a candle there." This is exactly what our Kavana community will strive to do as we move forward together into the new year of 2024. 

Kavana was created, way back in 2006, by a small group of individuals who believed that we could live more meaningful lives and better make sense of the world around us by choosing, intentionally, to be in community with one another. Kavana has always welcomed individuals and households with a wide range of Jewish beliefs and practices, with spiritual yearning and with intellectual curiosity. Over the years, our community has grown: we have become increasingly multi-generational, we now live across broader geography, and we certainly encompass a wider spectrum of beliefs and perspectives on politics, particularly where Israel is concerned. As with the b'nai yisrael, sameness isn't an option and tensions and differences must be acknowledged as our community grows, and yet, we are still in it together. 

As we move into the secular new year of 2024, the Kavana community will actively seek out more opportunities for real conversations about what it means to be Jewish and to be human at this challenging moment in history. We will welcome a multiplicity of voices, and try to make Kavana the kind of model place where people can consciously come to be enriched and stretched by one another, a place where together, we can assemble our perspectives in order to see a whole picture emerge. 

Doing so may be no simpler for us today than it was when Jacob assembled his twelve sons; however, it is possible. The endings we encounter this week each represent a new beginning as well, as we embark on a new book of the Torah and a new calendar year. It is holy work, to "come together" and "assemble" in this way, to create a holistic tapestry out of our multiplicity of voices, experiences, perspectives, personalities, interests and skills. 

With gratitude to be part of this collective project with each and every one of you, and wishing you a smooth entry into 2024,

Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum