Thought of the Week- Parshas Vayechi

B''H

Parhsas Vayechi

This weeks portion talks about how the last of the Patriarchs passed away. It coincidently was the last portion of the first book of the 5 Torah books. It is also called Vayechi which means, "and he still lives!"

It is related in Talmud Taanit, that once Rabbi Yitzchak and his student, Rabbi Nachman were seated at a meal. The student asked his teacher for a Halachic insight. The Rabbi replied, one must never convers during a meal, for heaven forbid the food might enter the windpipe instead of the esophygus. This would cause the person to choke. After the meal the student once again asked for an insight, however the Rabbi replied that he wasn't feeling too well. Finally the student asked for a small little thought so the Rabbi replied "Jacob never died."
Bewildered the student asked him. "But doesn't it say in the Torah that the people cried for him, they embalmed, and mourned for him. It even says that they buried him!?"
"True," replied the Rabbi, "but when ones decendants are alive it gives the decesed life."

(Rashi comments that it only seemed as though he was dead, for there was another story. All of Egypt's great and powerful people went on the trip to bury Jacob. Pharoh had his crown on top of Jacob's coffin in order to show the other kings that this was no war, but a respectufl event. When the other kings saw a huge army comeing towards them, they rushed to war. Upon seeing Pharoh's crown on top of a coffin they enquired as to who it is. After finding out, they too placed their crown's on top of the coffin, and joined along.
However Esav came to wage war none-the-less. Dan's son Chushim became very enraged, and with that he smacked Esav on the head so hard that it rolled right off of his body, and rolled all the way to the cave of Machpelah, where only his head is buried. (This is in merit forhonoring his father with buriel.) Jacob then opened up his eyes, sat up and smiled, only to lie back down right afterwards!)

We see from here that even though it seemed to us that Jacob has left us, however if we still live up to his expectations, he truly lives through our deeds.

Another thing that can be learnt from here is that when an old person is lying on his bed, before his death he starts tocontemplate all his doings in his life. He starts to feel bad for every foolish act he has done realizing what a waste of time it was. We must learn from this an important lesson. We mustn't wait until we are old and wrinkled on our death bed's to repent, and start brooding on our past, but we must do only good now and when the time comes and we are on our death bed instead of crying gone how we were so foolish. We'll be proud and tell our children around our bed, at how proud we are of our past how proud we are of them, and how we've raised them. Just as Jacob that was so proud of his 12 righteous children not even one was wicked!

Remember you can have an impact on the world! You can make a difference!

Derived from, Me'am Loez - Sefer Hayashar - Talmud (Sota and Taanit 5b) - Maharsha - Teaching of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
©Yermi Kurkus - Thought of the week