Our Father Yaakov’s Legacy

Parshas Vayechi

Posted on January 2, 2015 (5775) By Rabbi Berel Wein | Series: Rabbi Wein | Level: Beginner

The last seventeen years of the lifetime of our father Yaakov are, so to speak, the best years of his long and eventful life. When appearing before the Pharaoh of Egypt, Yaakov freely admits that the first one hundred thirty years of his life were sparse and difficult. He experienced a lifetime of troubles and travails from the moment he was born holding on to the heel of his brother Eisav.

He and Eisav will contend for the blessings of their father and for the immortality of founding an eternal people that will live throughout history against all odds. Yaakov will struggle to save his family and possessions from the wiles of Lavan and his sons. Yaakov will wrestle with an angel, be sorely tested and wounded, and yet prevail. Eventually he will receive the blessings of that angel which are encapsulated in the name of Yisrael.

Yaakov will suffer the indignity and trauma of his daughter being raped by Shechem and yet he will disapprove of the bloody revenge that his sons visited upon the community that spawned the perpetrators of that outrage. His beloved wife Rachel dies in childbirth and Yaakov is hard-pressed to recover from that blow.

Yaakov seeks a modicum of peace of mind and body when the greatest tragedy of his life – the story of Yosef and his brothers – rests upon him. In despair, he is convinced that he will go to his grave mourning for his beloved lost son. All in all, Yaakov’s description of his life and its events when standing before the Pharaoh is unfortunately very accurate, if not even understated.

So it comes as no wonder that the final years of his life are called the years that he actually “lived.” He is reunited with his beloved son Yosef, the family is bound together, at peace with one another and is protected, secure and prosperous in their new home in the land of Goshen. Yet Yaakov is aware that this rosy picture of Jewish life in Egypt is a temporary mirage, an illusion that will soon fade and that the years of hardship and bondage are already on the horizon.

The Lord had revealed that future to Yaakov’s grandfather Avraham generations earlier and that bill was now coming due. G-d has promised Yaakov that these future troubles will not be seen by him in his lifetime. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that Yaakov is troubled by the darkened future of his people, a future that he is completely aware of.

Yet, we hear no note of pessimism in his final words to the Jewish people. Rather, both he and Yosef reassure the generations to come that the Lord is somehow with them, and that he will redeem them from all of their troubles and fashion them into the most eternal and influential people on the face of the globe.

It is this faith in the future, the belief that good will somehow prevail that is the most important legacy that our father Yaakov has left to us. It is this belief and attitude that is the unique hallmark of the people of Israel and guarantees to us our continuity and ultimate triumph and success.

Shabbat shalom

Rabbi Berel Wein

Seventeen Years of Serenity

Parshas Vayechi

Posted on December 12, 2013 (5774) By Rabbi Berel Wein | Series: Rabbi Wein | Level: Beginner

Our father Yaakov lived for seventeen years in the Goshen area of the land of Egypt. These were undoubtedly the most peaceful, serene and happiest years of his long and troubled life. He is reunited with his beloved son Yosef who has risen to power and greatness, albeit in a strange land. No Eisav, no Lavan, no Shechem, no Canaanite neighbors are present to disturb his peace and security. And, with his family in all of its many generations surrounding him, at peace with him and, superficially at least, with one another, Yaakov is content.

Yaakov is finally vindicated in his life’s work and can enjoy the last years of his life. In effect we can understand why the parsha begins -vayechi Yaakov – for it is in these seventeen years that Yaakov truly lived, finally achieving satisfaction and harmony.

The Talmud records for us that the great Rabi Yehuda HaNassi -Rabi – lived in the city of Zippori for seventeen years and the Talmud explicitly connects Rabi’s seventeen year sojourn in Zippori with Yaakov’s seventeen years of life in Egypt.

Aside from the apparently magic number of seventeen being involved in both instances, what connection is there if any between these two events, especially since they took place millennia apart? The seeming word games of the Talmud, linking like words that appear in the Torah, always have deeper meaning attached to them. There is an underlying motif and relevant message to all generations in this Talmudic assertion. It certainly should demand our attention and study.

Rabi was the editor and publisher of the Mishna, the one book that guaranteed the survival of the Jewish people throughout the long exile that stretched forth and that he saw in his mind’s eye. Rabi saw himself, as did his ancestor Yaakov, ensconced in a rare bubble of serenity and opportunity, freed temporarily from the constant persecution of Rome due to his personal friendship with the Roman emperor.

He grasped the moment and exploited the opportunity to codify the Oral Law of Sinai and preserve it for all eternity amongst the Jewish people. Those seventeen years of serenity in Zippori afforded him the opportunity to do so. Yaakov’s seventeen years of family harmony and spiritual strengthening in the land of Goshen enabled him to provide the necessary guidance and insights to his family that would enable them to weather the long night of Egyptian bondage and exile.

The last seventeen years of Yaakov’s life were the preparation for the centuries of hardship that would follow. Yaakov’s ability to shape and guide his family so that they would remain loyal and true to G-d’s covenant with them was matched by the seventeen years of the development of the Mishna by Rabi in Zippori many millennia later.

The actions of the forefathers became the instructional template for the later generations. Thus the lives and patterns of behavior and events of Yaakov and Rabi are bound together over the vast passage of time. Just as Yaakov lives so does Rabi live. And this living is not constricted by years or time but is endlessly eternal.

Shabat shalom