Joseph is not asking for the transport of their physical bones. Joseph is asking the Children of Israel – asking us – to raise up, to honor, to carry forward with us, their complex and multiple qualities. Their fullness. Their selves. And that is what we are about to do. Even if it has taken 4000 years and 7000 miles to make good on Joseph’s request.
Read moreJoseph's Womb: Gender Complexity in the Story of Joseph
Most striking to me are what seem to be bold hints in the text of Torah regarding an atypicality not only in Joseph’s lived gender, but in his (or their) body. The way that the language of “womb” and “knee” gravitate to Joseph in Torah in ways that they do not toward any other men speaks loudly of Joseph’s difference.
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