Hand Signals

There were hands gesticulating all through the past week. A fraudulent sign language interpreter, and a handshake between President Obama and Raul Castro signaled from South Africa to all across the globe calling attention to hands as communicators.  

A very wise friend uses her sign language skills to communicate in perfect harmony with her words, so even I, unfamiliar with the basics of sign language, knew that something was off as the alleged interpreter distracted me from the spoken words; there was no harmony. There was no ambiguity in the President's hand delivered message to President Castro.

Hands continued to signal to me. I had the thrill and nachas to observe my son being sworn in to the Pennsylvania Bar, a ceremony that included raising his right hand to take an oath.  My right hand was also raised as I attempted to video the proceedings with my phone, so I was mulling over the idea of a raised hand in oath, and contrasted it to Jacob's request that Joseph confirm his oath by placing his hand on something holy. Before I had time to complete my thought, Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos, conducting the New York Philharmonic, distracted me with his baton wielding hands, and pulled me into Nineteenth century Berlin, through the musical poem of Strauss' Ein Heldenleben (A Hero's Life.)

We never read of Joseph using his hands in his oath, but we do read of a promise made about Joseph's hands when God said to Jacob, "Have no fear of descending to Egypt...Joseph shall - Yashit - place his hands on your eyes (Genesis 46:3-4)," when you die.

That hand movement  - Yashit - appears again when, "Joseph saw that his father - Yashet - was placing his right hand on Ephraim's head (48:17)," crossing his hands, placing his right hand on the younger son.  Jacob's crossing his hands rather than move the two boys was a signal.

We don't read a direct description of Joseph closing Jacob's eyes, so I suspect that when Joseph - Yashit - placed his hands over Jacob's eyes, he followed his father's Yashet, and crossed his hands, placing his left hand on Jacob's left eye. Joseph had a choice at the moment of Jacob's passing. He could stand over his father and close Jacob's eyes from his perspective looking at Jacob, or, he could cross his hands, as did his father, and close Jacob's eyes from Jacob's perspective. Joseph remembered Jacob's Yashet and realized that rather than focus on his loss, he, in his Yashit, could honor how his father viewed the world at his passing.  Joseph could accept Jacob's explanation for so many of his actions, such as burying Rachel, "on the way," rather than in the Cave of Machpeilah. Joseph chose to bid farewell to his father by viewing the past and the world as described by Jacob in their final meetings. His hand movements said it all.

I recalled numerous scenes of my son's childhood as he stepped into his new stage of life, and with a wistful, "Sunrise, Sunset," from Fiddler On The Roof, found my hands wiping away the tears. My hands were speaking from my perspective. I chose to refocus on my son's hands stepping up to conduct the symphony of his life, and the tears did not need to be wiped away; they were tears of joy.

Which hands will speak as we bid farewell to 2013? We can no longer conduct what happened in the past, and if we look back, our view will be in reverse. However, if we stand from the perspective of how we planned a year ago to conduct 2013, and see how well we conducted the past year, we will, hopefully, find the joy of accomplishment, mastering ourselves, growing, and achieving.

I am reviewing the 2013 of The Foundation Stone from the perspective of where we were a year ago, and I celebrate that we conducted ourselves well over the past year with more classes, workshops, programs, and projects than I believed possible. My hands are itching to conduct this coming year with even more success, so I turn to you to ask that you join your hands with mine, and make a generous, end-of-year tax deductible contribution so The Foundation Stone can accomplish more and even greater things.

Rabbi Simcha L. Weinberg 

President 
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