Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) may seem morbidly difficult in pronouncing that “it is better to go to a house of mourning than a house of feasting, for that is the end of every person and the living should take it to heart”. Why focus on death?

The ancient commentaries of Bereshit Rabba bring the above verse to the question, why does Jacob summon Joseph first when his end is near. Joseph may be the favourite but is this news to eagerly share with somebody you so love?

Rashi cites the ancient tradition that Jacob reaches out to Joseph first because Joseph has the positional power to carry out his father’s final wishes. So, we might learn to be brave enough to focus on the practicalities of our last wills when confronting death.

Yet, in bringing that line from Kohelet to Jacob’s act of addressing his death with his beloved son, Bereshit Rabba points to the power of living with an awareness of death and sharing this awareness with others. We are taught in this commentary that the righteous keep their death in mind.

We learn too that we beat our hearts gently during the confession (of Yom Kippur, or during the Amidah) to say that all our behaviour is shaped by the heart, understood as the seat of thought and feeling. We hear too that once Rabbi Zeira slipped to the floor while giving a eulogy, and when his colleagues went to lift him, they found he had fallen on purpose. “Why?” they ask. He responded, “To go to where we all go in the end, for a living person should take this to heart”.

Why does Jacob tell his beloved Joseph first about his death? Sharing this truth can be an act of love. An awareness of death, not abstract, but each knowing we will die, can enliven and soften our beings; and in sharing this awareness we build love and vulnerability with another.

Vayechi was my barmitzvah portion, and one of my enduring memories will always be how my father, Jack Stanley, said his blessing over the Torah slightly falteringly from too much care; may his memory be a dear blessing.