This week’s parasha, Toldot, traces the story of our patriarch Isaac and is most famous for the rivalry between his two sons, Esau and Jacob.
But here, I want to explore how the approach of death can be experienced within families, and the important conversations that need to take place especially between parents and children, hopefully at the end of a long life. I want to focus on a somewhat peculiar declaration that Isaac makes in the middle of the parasha. In Genesis 27:1-2, we read:
And it came to pass, when Isaac was old and his eyes were too dim to see, he called his older son Esau and said to him, “My son.” He answered, “Here I am.” And he said, “I am old now, and I do not know how soon I may die.”
At first, this sounds perfectly reasonable. Here’s Isaac—blind, conscious of his aging, aware of his vulnerability—saying to his eldest son, “My time is coming sooner or later. I’m going to die. So right now, I want to give you my blessing.”
And that’s what he does. On the surface, there’s nothing unusual here. We often encounter scenes of “last words” in Genesis. Later, Jacob gathers his children, tells them he’s about to die, and blesses each of them. Joseph, too, at the end of his life, speaks directly with his brothers and asks that his bones be returned to the land of Canaan.
So in many ways, Isaac’s words seem like a typical deathbed moment. But there is one strange element here: Isaac doesn’t die!
If we keep reading the subsequent eight chapters of Genesis, we discover that the story continues: Rebecca arranges for Jacob to receive the blessing instead of Esau; Jacob dreams of the heavenly ladder, works for Laban, and marries first Leah and then Rachel; Jacob raises twelve sons; he wrestles with an angel; he buries Rachel on the road to Bethlehem; and he reunites with his estranged brother Esau. The story of Genesis unfolds replete with the usual medley of family drama—and only at the end of Genesis 35:28-29, in Parashat Vayishlach, do we finally read of Isaac’s death:
Isaac was a hundred and eighty years old when he breathed his last and died. He was gathered to his kin in ripe old age; and he was buried by his sons Esau and Jacob.
So, Isaac says, “I am old; I don’t know the day of my death”—and then he lives on at least another twenty-five years! How do we know it is twenty-five more years? According to Seder Olam Rabbah 2, Rachel was fourteen years old when she met Jacob and thirty-nine years old when she died, which adds at least twenty-five more years to Isaac’s life after his earlier end-of-life declaration. And his death is announced after the death of Rachel.
What do we make of this?
I believe that Isaac’s original statement in this week’s parasha isn’t really about dying. It’s about awareness. He’s not anxious or morbid; he’s honest. He doesn’t hide from mortality or sugarcoat it. He simply says, “I’m old. I don’t know how much time I have.” And then what does he do? He goes on living, doing what matters to him. From Isaac, we learn that when we accept death as part of life, we can actually live more fully.
I’m reminded of my Aunt Rose, of blessed memory. She was known as quite a character and would often say: “Everyone has their expiry date tattooed on their body. Mine’s on my tuchis—I can’t see it, and I don’t worry about it.”
This was a woman who had known loss: She lost a brother in World War II, a son at twenty-one, and she buried two husbands—one of whom died suddenly, leaving her a widow with five children between 5 and 16 years of age, and a second husband who suffered from Alzheimer’s for years. She certainly had learned something about life and death. Yet she always carried herself with humor, courage, and acceptance.
Pope John XXIII, who became pope at seventy-seven, once said, “Any day is a good day for being born; any day is a good day for dying.” I suppose, like Isaac, he might have said, “Behold, I am old; I do not know the day of my death.” And in the few short years he served as pope, he changed the course of the history of the Roman Catholic Church and the role of the Church in the world. Can we live with that kind of trust—that any day might be a good day for living, and any day might be a good day for dying?
Reb Simcha Bunam of Peshischa, one of the great Hasidic masters, was close to death. As he lay on his deathbed, his grief-stricken wife began to weep. He looked at her lovingly and said, “Why are you crying? My whole life was only that I might learn how to die.” With those words, he died peacefully.
“My whole life was only that I might learn how to die.” That’s not something we hear in our culture today. We live in a culture that denies death. It’s a downer. Even the bereaved are often told not to cry, to “move on.” We hide the dying and the elderly, as if not looking at death can keep it away.
But that’s not the Jewish way. When Isaac says, “I am old now, and I do not know how soon I may die,” he’s teaching us something different, something that, against the background of our contemporary world, is culturally radical. For Judaism, the reality of death is part of the holiness of life itself. It is not to be feared or denied. Joyful times don’t need to be kept apart from death. Even our wedding ceremony holds echoes of mortality. We break a glass to remember the destruction of the Temple, and traditionally, a groom wears a kittel—the same garment worn for burial. Our tradition offers great wisdom for embracing the fullness of the human experience—life and death together.
We are living in a time of shifting cultural values around dying. Just as Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams opened up conversations about human sexuality over 125 years ago, so too did Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s On Death and Dying begin a cultural transformation in how we face mortality. Today, there’s a growing openness. Death cafés, hospice care, home funerals and green burial, hevra kaddisha renewal, medical aid-in-dying, psychedelics on the deathbed are slowly infusing our culture with a new vision of end-of-life care. The death awareness movement, which seeks to normalize conversations about dying, grief, legacy, and what comes after is continuing to grow and have a wider cultural impact. People are starting to talk more openly about what it means to die well.
And Judaism—our tradition—has so much to offer in that conversation. Especially when it comes to parents and children.
At the end of Genesis, Jacob gathers his children and says openly, “I am about to be gathered to my people” (Gen. 49:2). He speaks about his death, about his burial place, about his wishes. He’s direct, clear, and unafraid. Joseph does the same at the end of his life.
We teach our children how to face death not by what we say, but by how we live—and by how we die. What are you teaching your children? Have you had those conversations—about living wills, burial wishes? Have you written an ethical will? Whether children, grandchildren, spouses, and beloved friends—there are always important conversations to be had about end-of-life requests.
At the end of his life, when Jacob says, “I am about to be gathered to my people,” that is a beautiful phrase. In early Hebrew society, families lived together, worked together, and were buried together. Death meant rejoining one’s people—being gathered back into the circle of family and ancestors. Perhaps, at some deep level, they understood what many near-death experiences describe today: that those who have died before us come to greet us at the threshold. Maybe our ancestors were less afraid of death because they sensed it wasn’t an ending, but a return.
So when Isaac says, “I am old now, and I do not know how soon I may die,” he’s expressing acceptance—not fear. Trust, not despair. He accepts his frailty, but he also affirms his connection to something larger. And he teaches that to his sons.
And that’s our challenge too. We may not know the day of our death, but that’s not really the point. The point is life.
Ultimately, life and death are woven together. In the end, our ancestors do not teach us how to die. They teach us how to live. Like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, may we live lives of meaning and purpose, following our destiny as they followed theirs.