A Glimpse of the Future

Parshas Vayechi

Posted on December 14, 2021 (5782) By Rabbi Naftali Reich | Series: Legacy | Level: Beginner

 

If we could look into the future and discover when the major events in our lives will take place, would we do it? If we could ascertain the exact dates on which we will marry, have children and pass away from this world, would we want to know? Most people would rather live with the uncertainty than face the possibility of an unpleasant certainty.

 

In this week’s portion, however, we seem to find an opposite view. As the final minutes of his life draw near, the old patriarch Jacob summons his sons to his bedside. With his great powers of divine inspiration, he sees the long exile of the Jewish people stretching far into the future, but as he continues to look, he also sees the arrival of the End of Days when the exile will come to an end.

 

“Gather around,” he says to his family, “and I will tell you about the End of Days.” But then he goes on to speak of other matters. What happened? The Sages tell us that Jacob attempted to reveal the end of history to his family. But the Divine Spirit departed from him, and his vision faded away.

 

The questions immediately arise: Why did Jacob want to tell them when the exile would come to an end? Especially in light of what we now know, that it would take thousands of years, wouldn’t it only have disheartened and discouraged them? Furthermore, if Jacob felt there was a purpose in telling them, why indeed didn’t Hashem allow him to do so?

 

The commentators explain that Jacob had no intention of revealing the date of the End of Days to his children. There certainly would have been no point in doing so. Rather, he wanted to give them a glimpse of what awaits them in the End of Days. He wanted them to see the idyllic future world suffused with the unrestricted emanations of the Divine Presence, a world of perfect harmony and peace in which all humankind will be blessed with unlimited knowledge and transcendent insight. This was the image he wanted to impress on their minds so that they would not succumb to despair during the tribulations of the dark years of exile.

 

But Hashem did not allow him to do so. The kindness of a father’s heart had motivated Jacob to reveal this image to his children, but as is often the case, this well-intentioned kindness would ultimately deprive them of immeasurable reward. If the Jewish people had seen a clear prophetic image of the rewards in store for them in the future, they would naturally be motivated to persevere and struggle against all odds to fulfill the Torah and achieve those rewards. In that case, though, they would be doing it for their own benefit rather than out of love for Hashem. But as long as they have no such images in their minds, their continued loyalty to the Creator through the worst of times remains an expression of incredibly powerful faith and love for Him, and their reward will be proportionately bountiful.

 

A mother gave her two sons jigsaw puzzles and sent them off to play.

 

A long while later, she went to check on the them. Both boys had completed their puzzles.

One of them jumped up and ran to her. “Look, it’s all done,” he said proudly. “Could you frame it and hang it on the wall?”

 

“Certainly,” she said. Then she turned to her other son and asked, “Do you want me to frame yours as well?”

 

The boy shrugged and shook his head. “Nah. It was no big deal. You don’t have to.”

 

The mother was perplexed. “But your brother wants his framed. Why don’t you want the same for yours?”

 

“Well, I’ll tell you,” said the boy. “He didn’t look at the picture before he did the puzzle, so I guess it was a pretty big deal for him. But I looked at the picture first, so it wasn’t such a big deal.”

 

In our own lives, we are all faced with periods of discouragement and even hopelessness during which we would be much relieved if we could steal a glimpse of Hashem’s hidden hand at work.

 

How much easier it would be to deal with the vicissitudes of fortune if we understood how everything leads to the ultimate good. But it is in this very darkness, when we stand on the verge of despair, that we must discern Hashem’s closeness by our faith alone and feel ourselves enveloped in His loving embrace.

 

Text Copyright © 2009 by Rabbi Naftali Reich and Torah.org.

 

Joseph’s Message

Parshas Vayechi

Posted on January 8, 2020 (5780) By Rabbi Berel Wein | Series: Rabbi Wein | Level: Beginner

 

The conclusion of the book of Bereshith sets the stage for all of the remaining history of the Jewish people. Jacob and his family have settled in the land of Egypt, and live under the most favorable of circumstances. Their son and brother, Joseph, is the de facto ruler of the country that has provided them with prosperity. However, Joseph himself warns them that the situation is only temporary and that there are troubled days ahead.

 

He tells them that they will leave the land of Egypt, whether they wish to or not, and that when they leave they should remember him and take his bones with them, to be buried in the land of Israel, the home from which he was so brutally taken when he was about 17 years old.

 

I would imagine that the family of Jacob, when hearing these predictions of Joseph, were amazed, and probably were unable to fathom how their situation could change so drastically from greatness and wealth to slavery and persecution.

 

The Jewish people are by nature an optimistic people. We always believe that somehow things will turn out well, no matter how bleak the present circumstances may appear to be. Yet, only by remembering Joseph’s words would the eventual redemption from Egyptian bondage be realized. Joseph’s warnings would accompany them with his remains through the 40-year sojourn in the desert of Sinai. It would remind them to be aware of the historical dangers they would always have to face.

 

The conditions under which Jews have lived in exile and in the diaspora for millennia have always varied and fluctuated. But the basic message was that we were not really at home. We continually ignored warning signs and somehow believed that things would get better. Ignoring the warnings of Joseph, many times in our history we doomed ourselves to tragedy and disaster.

 

If Joseph, the viceroy of Egypt, warned us that Egypt is not our home, then that message could not have been clearer to Jews in the coming millennia. But as the story of Egypt and the Jews unfolds in the book of Shemot, the majority of Jews forgot Joseph’s message. And it remained only for Moshe himself to bring Joseph’s bones out if Egypt for eventual burial in the Land of Israel.

 

The Torah will record for us that later Egyptian pharaohs and the Egyptian nation forgot about Joseph and his great accomplishments. The ironic tragedy is that much of the Jewish people as well forgot about Joseph and his message to them. In the annals of Jewish history, this forgetfulness on the part of Jews has often been repeated – and always with dire consequences. The story of Joseph and of the Jewish settlement in Egypt provides the prototype for all future Jewish history. We always need to ask ourselves what Joseph would have to say about our current Jewish world. This is worthy of contemplation.

 

Shabbat shalom

Rabbi Berel Wein

 

A Strong Dose of Truth

Parshas Vayechi

Posted on December 17, 2021 (5782) By Rabbi Label Lam | Series: Dvar Torah| Level: Beginner

 

Shimon and Levi are brothers; stolen instruments are their weapons. Let my soul not enter their counsel; my honor, you shall not join their assembly, for in their wrath they killed a man, and with their will they hamstrung a bull. Cursed be their wrath for it is mighty, and their anger because it is harsh. I will separate them throughout Yaakov, and I will scatter them throughout Israel. (Breishis 49:5-7)

 

Shimon and Levi did not seem to get what we would call a compliment from their father Yaakov. Yet these parting words were his blessing. How can such a brutally honest analysis be considered a blessing?

 

One of my great teachers once told us about a very traumatic episode that occurred to him when he was but a young boy. He was in the country – upstate for the summer and one day he was strolling with his father, who was a wealthy businessman and another man that he described as a German Jew. His father was also a European Jew from Switzerland and the two men were walking and talking together as he tagged along. The conversation was dominated by this German Jew telling of the great opportunity there was to be found in Wisconsin. Wisconsin has this and that. It was clear he was making a pitch to invest in some business venture in Wisconsin.

 

Now my Rebbe told us that he was a young precocious boy, and he had devoured the encyclopedia and he knew a little bit about a lot and so he asserted himself into the conversation, “What’s the big deal about Wisconsin!? There are only so many people in the whole state. There are more cows than people etc.” Now the European expectation was that children should be seen but not heard from, but this was an American kid, and he had clearly broken ranks and violated that protocol.

 

At that moment this German Jew turned to him with fury and berated him repeatedly, “What you don’t know, don’t talk about! What you don’t know, don’t talk about!” My Rebbe told us that he was shaken by the event. It shook him to his core. That moment of what felt like verbal abuse scared his psyche and left him upset for the rest of the summer. That’s what happened!

 

65 years later, my Rebbe tells us, his father had already left this world but his elderly mother, now in her mid – 90’s was living nearby in relatively good health with a fulltime aid and a nurse.

 

One Erev Shabbos he gets an urgent call from the nurse that his mother has a fever, and her blood pressure is weak. He tells them to run to the emergency room and he will meet them there.

 

The doctor on call steps out from behind the curtain after examining his mother and tells my Rebbe, “You mother has an infection but we can easily treat it with penicillin. Do you know whether or not your mother is allergic to penicillin?” My Rebbe said that he started to think to himself, “I’m not allergic. My sisters are not allergic. My brother is not allergic to penicillin. So, my mother is probably not allergic either.” He is about to declare with confidence that his mother is not allergic to penicillin, when suddenly a voice from 65 years earlier charged into the present moment and arrested him in mid-sentence, “What you don’t know, don’t talk about!

 

What you don’t know don’t talk about!” He looks up at the doctor and honestly admits that he does not know whether or not his mother is allergic to penicillin. The doctor said that he can easily check it out on her medical records. He comes back moments later and declares, “Well, it turns out that your mother is allergic to penicillin.”

 

Had he spoken what he assumed to be true and had he not been revisited by that brutish and furious voice at that very moment then, based on his word, the doctor would have administered penicillin and given her already weakened state, he would have brought about the early demise of his beloved mother.

 

The Mishne in Brochos tells us, “One is obligated to recite a blessing for the bad just as he recites a blessing for the good, as it is stated: “And you shall love HASHEM your G-d with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might”” (Devarim 6:5). We see that what seems bad in a given moment is also worthy of a blessing. A negative experience might prove to be a blessing in disguise. So, Shimon and Levi were blessed with a strong dose of truth.