Parashat Vayehi - Rabbi David Baum, Congregation Shaarei Kodesh
What if you were the last Jew on earth? What if you were the last one left, the only one who knew our language, our history, our culture? What would you do? Would you let Judaism die with you, or do something about it?
In 2017, I learned about a man named Amadeo García García who lived in Peru, who was the last of his people called the Taushiro, an indigenous people in South America. There was a quote from an article about Amadeo that I still remember: “At any moment I might disappear, my life will end, we don’t know how soon. The Taushiro don’t think about death. We just move on.”
Well, Jews don’t really talk about the afterlife, but we do talk about death, a lot, and we have that same fear that Amadeo has: if our lives end, will Judaism end with it?
The 20th-century Jewish thinker and writer Simon Rawidowicz coined an interesting phrase describing the Jewish people – he called us, the ever-dying people. Rawidowicz’s point was simple: virtually every generation of Jews has feared that it was the last. As early as the Mishna and as late as early-modern Europe, he found numerous examples of Jews who were convinced that, as Chicken Little put it, “the sky was falling.” And today, even though times are tougher for us than in the recent past, there is still a Jewish richness that surrounds us, but we are still as scared for the Jewish future as we ever have been.
In this week’s parashah, Vayechi, we are faced with this very scenario. Our father Jacob thinks he is the last Jew on earth.
As we complete the book of Genesis, we also face the end of the lives of our main characters, Jacob, and his twelve sons, including Joseph. Rabbi Bloch is going to teach us about these final words that Jacob gives to his sons which is the basis for the ethical will practice, but the Midrash takes a different approach. In the Midrash’s version of this story, Jacob’s children are sitting at his death bed, and Jacob admits something he doesn’t admit in the Torah – he has doubts about the future. He remembers that his father Isaac had a brother named Ishmael – and Ishmael went on a different path and becomes the father of the Arabs. He remembers that he had a brother named Esau, and Esau becomes the father of the Edomites. So what’s going to happen to his 12 sons? So he asks them one simple but profound request – my children, will you follow the one true God?
He was right to feel anxious. Jacob is dying outside of the Promised Land, away from their way of life, their culture, their language. They were safe, but they were strangers in a strange land. What would happen if they were fully accepted into Egyptian society? What would happen to the future that God promised not just him, but his father Isaac, and his grandfather Abraham?
It’s a story that we know all too well as Jews in America. Jacob’s concern is not unlike our own today—how do we ensure that Judaism thrives when we are surrounded by a dominant culture that accepts us?
To give us some insight the angst we feel as Jewish Americans, I wanted to share a short story called the Last Jew On Earth by Rabbi Leo Michel Abrami.
As time went by, Jews came to resent the discrimination the Jews had been subjected for centuries and they resolved to immerse themselves in the melting pot of universality. Wanting to be like everyone else and not bear the stigma of their ancestry anymore, they changed their names and their religion.
Synagogues and community centers were deserted; Hebrew schools and summer camps were left empty of children. The many fine books they had published on their history and culture, found a new place in libraries, in the section of ancient civilizations.
There remained in America but one faithful Jew who staunchly held on to his religion. He refused to follow the way of his peers who had forsaken the tradition of their ancestors. In a gesture of defiance, he kept open the Great Manhattan Synagogue where he had attended High Holidays services and many life-cycle ceremonies with his family. On Friday nights, he went on welcoming the Sabbath with traditional hymns and prayers, whether there were visitors in the sanctuary or not. He would pray in front of the ark, in the presence of God.
In truth, he still held on to the hope that one day, his family, his childhood friends and members of the community would return to the synagogue and join him in the celebration of the Sabbath and the holidays. He believed with a perfect faith that this day would come when the synagogue would welcome the many worshippers who used to attend services in generations past.
Recognizing the uniqueness of his situation, the curator of the National Museum of Anthropology invited him to be a docent, a living testimony to a people who had once shaped the world. And so, day after day, he stood before audiences, recounting the history of his people—their triumphs, their struggles, their contributions to science, literature, politics, and justice. He told of the faith that had sustained them, the laws that had guided them, and the love that had bound them together for millennia.
At the end of his lectures, people often asked him, “Why? Why did you hold on when everyone else let go?”
He would answer simply: “I decided to remain faithful to the religion of my ancestors because it teaches me to be a good person, to love God and my fellow human beings. After I considered the alternatives, I came to the conclusion that the faith which eventually produced Christianity and Islam still offers us a most sublime way of life.” The secularists challenged him as well, and he kept his Judaism. The last Jew on earth remained steadfast in his faith despite pressure from those seeking to claim victory over him.
One day, as he began his lecture, he noticed a young man in the audience—his son, who had left with his mother years ago to follow a new religious cult. Believing he would never see him again, the docent was overcome with emotion, speaking with unparalleled eloquence, directing his words to his son though no one else knew it.
As the audience listened in awe, tragedy struck—he collapsed and died before anyone could help him. A profound silence filled the room. The last remnant of the Jewish people had faded away.
But even though the story seems like it’s come to an end; it isn’t over yet.
Before I finish the story of the last Jew on earth, I want to return to our Midrash, and the deathbed scene with Jacob, when he thought he could have been the last Jew on earth. The Midrash says he asks his children one thing: “my children, will you follow the one true God?"
And here’s how they answer, 'Listen, Israel,' our father, just as there is no dispute/doubt in your heart regarding the Holy One of Blessing, there is no dispute/doubt in our hearts, rather, 'Hashem is our God, Hashem is One.' Let me say it in Hebrew - Shema Israel, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad. Here we see something that perhaps we haven’t noticed before - the Shema is an answer to an unasked question. And with that reassurance, Jacob says, Baruch Shem Kevod Malchuto L’Olam Va’ed – Blessed is God's glorious majesty forever and ever, and as he says the final word, his soul departs from the earth.
In the Torah, Jacob gives his children a charge, but in the Midrash, he ends his life by asking them a question and his children make the statement. He dies knowing that he won’t be the last Jew.
My grandfather of blessed memory survived the Mauthausen concentration camp, and lived for 98 years. In 2002, when I was a Rosh Eidah (unit head of an age group of campers and staff) at Camp Ramah Darom, my grandfather visited us during the summer. The very nature of a Jewish sleep away camp was completely foreign to him. When he came the camp, he could not believe his eyes. Six hundred Jewish children, and let’s face it, even the staff were children to him, praying and laughing, and speaking Hebrew, albeit with a Southern accent.
When he was around the age of the staff of this camp, he was in a concentration camp. We know the end of the story, the Nazis were defeated, the Holocaust ended – but what if it didn’t? For those years in captivity, they thought that there was a good chance that they could be the last Jews on earth.
Up until that point, my grandfather rarely spoke about his wartime experience – we knew very few actual details, and never spoke about it publicly. He asked me, in his thick Czech accent: Can I tell my story to these kids? I was stunned, but I agreed to his request immediately and we set up an impromptu program. I was nervous – would 10th graders really want to here a depressing story of the worst tragedy in Jewish history?
That evening, he told his story – he told them of the town he was from, how they learned Torah, who his teachers were, who his father was, how rich Jewish life was – and I realized that at that moment, we were all his children and grandchildren. He didn’t tell us how to be Jewish for the future, but each person walked away with their own questions: What do we do with this story? What does it mean for us? What are we going to do when we get back to school? How are we going to be the Jews that we need to be today? That day, I felt we received a special gift from my grandfather, but now I realize it was he who received a gift.
Unfortunately, the last Jew on earth in Rabbi Abrami’s story did not have that same gift as Jacob or my grandfather, but, something else happened.
Amid the grief of the moment, of seeing the death of the last Jew on earth, a visitor stood and spoke: “We cannot let this rich spiritual tradition vanish. The wisdom and ideals of the Jewish people must not be relegated to museum shelves. We must revive their legacy and strive for the peace and justice their prophets envisioned.”
The audience, moved by his words, resolved to act. A revival began, drawing back those who had drifted away from Judaism and inspiring seekers from all backgrounds. Abandoned synagogues and schools were restored, sacred texts studied anew, and a movement of holiness and kindness flourished.
What seemed lost was reborn. The docent’s quiet hope became a powerful reality, as faith that had nearly vanished was revived in the most unexpected way—like the miraculous rebirth of the land of Israel. A new community, committed to peace and goodwill, emerged, proving that the Jewish spirit endures against all odds.
And so, what seemed lost was reborn. The last Jew on earth was not truly the last, for his hope had taken root in those who listened. His story, his unwavering faith, became the seed for something new—just as Judaism has been reborn time and time again throughout history.
It is fitting, then, that our ancestors’ most enduring words, the Shema, were not just Jacob’s sons' answer to their father’s question, but our answer as well. Every time we say the Shema, we affirm that we are part of something unbroken, something eternal.
I used to say the Shema with the kids before they went to bed when they were little, but life got in the way, but maybe, at least once in a while, we can set some time for those intergenerational moments - like a Jewish story telling night where an older generation can share what life was like when they were kids, or it might be saying a prayer together, like the Shema, or just telling them why being Jewish is important to them.
Perhaps that is the lesson of Jacob’s final moment—not just that he was not the last Jew, but that no Jew ever truly is. As long as there is one voice, one whisper of Shema Yisrael, the story continues.
And so, we say, together:
Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad.
And let us say, Amen.
Glossary of Key Terms
Taushiro: An indigenous people of Peru, now believed to be extinct, with Amadeo García García being its last known speaker. Click here to read more.
Simon Rawidowicz: A 20th-century Jewish thinker who coined the phrase "ever-dying people" to describe the recurring fear of Jewish extinction.
Midrash: Jewish rabbinic literature that interprets and expands upon the narratives of the Torah, often adding new perspectives.
Vayechi: The final parasha (portion) of the Book of Genesis, which includes the death and final acts of Jacob.
Ethical Will: A written document, distinct from a legal will, used to pass on moral values and life lessons to future generations.
Promised Land: The land of Canaan, which God promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as described in the Hebrew Bible.
Melting Pot: A term used to describe a society where different cultures and people assimilate into a unified mainstream.
Synagogue: A Jewish house of worship and community gathering.
Shema: The central prayer of Judaism, declaring monotheism with the words, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One." (Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai Echad)
Baruch Shem Kevod Malchuto L’Olam Va’ed: A declaration praising God’s eternal glory, often said in response to hearing the Shema.
Rosh Eidah: (Hebrew) The head of a division, generally in reference to a Jewish summer camp.
Docent: A person who leads guided tours or lectures, typically in a museum or educational setting.
Holocaust: The genocide of European Jews during World War II by Nazi Germany and its allies.
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