In a vehicle, the powertrain is the subsystem responsible for generating and delivering motion. It includes the engine or electric motor, the transmission, driveshafts, differentials, and related components that convert stored energy into torque at the wheels. The powertrain answers a focused but essential question: how force is produced and transferred. Its performance is typically evaluated through output measures such as horsepower, torque delivery, efficiency, and durability under load. A powertrain can be highly advanced and extremely powerful, yet still be insufficient to create a functional vehicle on its own.

Vehicle systems, by contrast, describe the broader architecture that governs how that power is used, constrained, and directed. These systems include steering, braking, suspension, thermal management, electronic control units, software, and safety mechanisms. Vehicle systems determine stability, direction, coordination, and predictability. They decide when power is applied, where it is applied, and under what conditions it is allowed. While the powertrain creates raw capability, vehicle systems translate that capability into controlled and repeatable behavior.

The essential difference is that powertrains create capacity, while vehicle systems create coherence. A strong powertrain without effective vehicle systems leads to instability, loss of control, overheating, and unsafe operation. Conversely, sophisticated vehicle systems cannot fully compensate for an underpowered or poorly matched powertrain, as control without sufficient capacity results in limitation and inefficiency. In modern automotive design, true performance increasingly emerges from the integration of these two domains, where force is not only generated, but governed with discipline and intent.

Using the above as an analogy, Joseph can be seen as the powertrain, the source of surplus capacity through execution and foresight, while Judah is the vehicle system, providing direction and control that determines how that power is applied.

The other brothers, who together form the Tribes of Israel, contribute distinct strengths and characteristics to the whole. Joseph supplies capacity, Judah supplies direction, and together with the others they form an integrated system in which power, guidance, and collective presence combine to produce purposeful movement.

And we see that to a certain extent in the blessings Jacob gives his children on his deathbed.

The Torah reading for this week, Vayechi (Genesis 47-50) and the final reading in the Book of Genesis, tells us how Jacob, at 147 years old, is close to death. Jacob makes Joseph swear that after his death in Egypt, Joseph will bury Jacob in their ancestral burial plot in Hebron, where grandparents Abraham and Sarah, parents Isaac and Rebecca and wife Leah are buried.

When Joseph is informed that Jacob has fallen ill, Joseph brings his sons, Ephraim and Menashe to be blessed by Jacob. Not only does Jacob bless them, but he elevates their status to that of his sons, making each of them full-fledged Tribes.

Jacob then convenes all of his sons and gives each son a particular blessing (or reprimand, as was the case with the three oldest sons, Ruben, Simon and Levi). Jacob describes the unique traits of his children and/or visualizes what their future might look like:

• Ruben is hasty.
• Simon and Levi are aggressive.
• Judah is a leader, compared to a lion.
• Zebulun is a seafarer.
• Yissachar is compared to a donkey, steadily and sturdily carrying its load.
• Dan is compared to a snake attacking a horse’s heel, and a judge.
• Gad is described as a raider.
• Asher will have rich bread and royal food.
• Naftali is compared to a fast deer.
• Joseph is compared to a bull and receives the richest and most abundant blessings.
• Finally, Benjamin is compared to a wolf, who attacks his foe in the morning and splits the spoils in the evening.

After the blessings, Jacob “gathers his feet on to the bed” and passes away at the age of 147 years old.

After a long period of national mourning for Jacob, Joseph requests and gets permission from Pharaoh to travel from Egypt to Canaan to bury Jacob in Hebron, as he promised. A large delegation, including Egyptian elders accompany the burial procession to Canaan with another period of mourning when they reach the Jordan River.

After Jacob’s burial and the family’s return to Egypt, Joseph’s brothers fear that Joseph will finally take his revenge for them having sold him into slavery. They send a message to Joseph saying their father gave instructions to forgive them, then they come to him and bow down to him offering themselves as slaves.

Joseph calms them down, restating how he doesn’t hold it against them and sees it as the hand of God that allowed him to support their large family.

The narrative then goes on to tell us that Joseph lived to the age of 110 years old (apparently, he was the earliest of the brothers to die – all of them lived to older ages). Joseph lived to see his great-grandchildren.

At the end of Joseph’s life, he tells his brothers that God will take them out of Egypt and return them to the land that God promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He then makes them promise that they will return his remains to the land.

He dies and is placed in a coffin in Egypt.

That is how the Book of Genesis ends. It started with the creation of the world, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, then the stories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and his brothers. It starts as a universal story, but very quickly focuses on one family, the family of Jacob/Israel. It is the story of the birth of the Jewish people. It is a story of our patriarchs and matriarchs, their relationship with God and the peoples around them. It is the embryo of the Jewish nation, which we will see in the next book, the Book of Exodus.