The Courage to Keep Walking in Uncertainty

Written By Benjamin Russell

Parashat Vay’chi

The death of Jacob does not bring closure. It brings uncertainty. For the first time, the brothers stand without their father—no mediator, no buffer, no shared center of gravity. They are still together, but something essential is gone. The Torah lingers here, letting us feel how exposed they suddenly are: a family in a foreign land, living on borrowed stability.

Almost immediately, fear resurfaces. The brothers worry that Joseph’s forgiveness was only for their father’s sake. Now that Jacob is gone, they assume the past may return with force. This moment is not only about guilt—it is about what happens when the structures that once held us steady fall away. Forgiveness, like faith, becomes something that must be trusted without proof.

Joseph responds not with anger or dominance, but with reassurance. He reminds them that the story has already moved beyond vengeance. What they intended for harm has been woven into something larger than any one moment or mistake. His words ask the brothers to do something profoundly difficult: to live as if forgiveness is real, even when the future feels fragile.

This is shaky ground. The brothers are parentless. They are not home. And Rashi teaches that this is where the descent truly begins—not with chains or cruelty, but with vulnerability.א Nothing has changed outwardly, yet everything has shifted. The protection they once knew is gone, and they must learn how to stand on their own.

And this is where Bereshit ends. Not with resolution, but with tension. A family learning how to live without its patriarch. A people poised between promise and peril. Faith here is not certainty—it is the willingness to keep walking forward anyway.

As we enter a new civil year, we recognize this moment well. Like the brothers, we step forward without certainty. But we do not step forward without hope. Hope is the courage to trust that the path will hold us, even when we cannot yet see where it leads.

חזק חזק ונתחזק בשנה החדשה
May we be strengthened in the new year,

Ben

Benjamin Russell
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