After giving his final words of wisdom to his children, Simon, full of years – one hundred and twenty to be exact – breathed his last and joined his ancestors. Now, you might think that’s the end of the story, right? Nope. That’s just the beginning of the after story.
His sons, showing incredible respect and devotion, prepared his body for a journey. They placed him in a coffin crafted from wood that wouldn’t decay, wood said to be imperishable. What was the destination? Hebron, the burial place of their fathers.
But here's the thing: they had to do it in secret. Why? Because a war was raging between the Egyptians and the Canaanites. Think about the logistics! Transporting a body across battle lines? Risky business. And as Ginzberg recounts in Legends of the Jews, this wasn’t unique to Simon. All the tribes did the same, each carrying the remains of their patriarch from Egypt to Hebron during that tumultuous time.
There was one exception, though. Just one. The bones of Joseph.
They remained in Egypt.
Why? The Egyptians guarded them fiercely, locked away in their royal treasure chambers. Sounds strange, right? Well, their magicians had warned them. A prophecy, of sorts. They believed that if Joseph's bones ever left Egypt, darkness – a deep, all-encompassing darkness – would fall upon the land. A misfortune so profound that people wouldn’t even be able to recognize each other, even with a lamp. Can you imagine that kind of fear? A darkness so thick it blinds you to the person standing right next to you?
So, Joseph stayed put. A silent, bony hostage against the potential doom prophesied by the Egyptian magicians. A potent symbol of both power and vulnerability. It makes you think: what stories do our relics hold? What fears, what prophecies do we cling to, even now?