Memory and redemption

At the very end of the book of Genesis, Joseph makes a striking request of his family, whom he has established securely in Egypt following the famine that drove them from the land of Canaan. Seemingly anticipating the calamities that will befall the Israelites after his death, Joseph entreats them: “God will surely take notice of you, and then you must take my bones up from this place” (Gen. 50:25). Immediately afterward, Joseph dies, setting in motion the chain of events that will lead to the Israelites’ enslavement and their ultimate deliverance, which Joseph foretells.

Now is the moment. At the very beginning of this week’s portion, Beshalach, the people finally set out from Egypt, and the Torah informs us that Joseph’s directive has been carried out: “And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, as he had made the children of Israel promise” (Ex. 13:19). It is striking that in the midst of the relief, anxiety, and frenetic preparations preceding their departure, the Torah takes the opportunity to relate this particular detail and notes that the task was personally overseen by Moses. For one thing, the text shows us Moses once again as the leader who acts with compassion and determination on behalf of the powerless, as he had when he stood up for the Israelite being beaten by his Egyptian taskmaster, or for Tzipporah and her sisters when they were being harassed in Midian. But our verse does much more than calling attention to Moses’ role in bringing out Joseph’s bones. The remembered promise highlights the importance of memory in the whole enterprise of redemption.

Memory first appears in the Exodus narrative with God remembering the covenant when the Israelites cry out from their bondage (Ex. 2:24), then with God’s command ahead of the departure for the Israelites to remember the day of their redemption (Ex. 12:14), and now with the particular attention the Torah pays to Joseph’s bones, which demonstrates that both the place of their interment and the promise to take them up have been preserved.

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Regarding the location, a midrash tells us that the bones had been cast into the Nile in a lead coffin at the time of Joseph’s death, where they remain until Moses calls them to rise. This midrash powerfully echoes the fate of Pharaoh’s armies, who “sank as lead in the mighty waters” of the Sea of Reeds (Ex. 15:10): The Israelites’ memory of Joseph raises him from the waters, while the Egyptians’ failure to remember him (Ex. 1:8) leads to their being cast into the waters. Memory, the Torah suggests, is critical for redemption; forgetting leads to destruction.

The Israelites, of course, remember not only the place of Joseph’s bones but also the promise to bring them out, a point the Torah makes explicit: “And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, as he had made the children of Israel promise.” By reminding us on the verge of liberation that bringing out Joseph’s bones represents the fulfillment of a promise, the Torah makes a connection between the Israelites’ faithfulness to Joseph on the one hand and God’s faithfulness to the Israelites on the other. God’s concern for us, the Torah suggests, is linked to our concern for others.

This connection between God’s redemptive action and our own is underscored in a final midrash about Joseph’s bones, which notes that they are carried in an aron (Gen. 50:26), the Hebrew word for coffin. Aron is also the word for the Ark of the Covenant that the Israelites will build at God’s command (Ex. 25:10) and carry with them in the desert throughout their travels. The midrash says that for 40 years the Ark of the Covenant and Joseph’s coffin are carried alongside one another, until the Israelites finally enter the land of Israel, in ultimate fulfillment of God’s promise to them and their promise to Joseph. The midrash affirms that concern for God, represented by the Ark, and concern for humankind, represented by Joseph’s coffin, literally go side by side in our journey toward redemption, and that neither can be truly achieved without the other.

Throughout the Torah, we are constantly commanded to remember: to remember Shabbat, remember the mitzvot, remember the treachery of Amalek, remember the liberation from Egypt. But the story of Joseph’s bones suggests that contrary to what we might otherwise think, memory does not merely look backward, but forward as well. Memory is not an invitation to passive contemplation but rather a call to action, faithfulness, and compassion — to act for others in this world as we would want God to act for us. Memory binds us to the covenant, to God, and to our highest selves, and, the Torah tells us, sets us on the path to redemption.