Vayigash - 4th Portion

Join me as we learn together for the fourth Torah reading Wednesday parishes chapter 45 verse 28. Yesterday we learned that Yakov was then notified by his children that Yseph is still alive. At first he didn't believe them, but when he saw the wagons, he knew that Yseph was alive. And he was requested by his son to come down to Egypt and see and survive the rest of the la last five years of the famine. Verse 28. And Israel said, I am blessed with much that now my son Yoseph is alive. I let me go before I die. What does it mean? Rashi tells us I have so much joy by the fact that I know that my son is now alive because my son Yseph is alive. Chapter 46 verse1 and set out to travel and everything that was with them and they came to be and he brought sacrifices to the god of his father. What does the mean? The fact that you have a hey at the end of a letter instead of in the beginning to the god of his father. Why does he say the father not of his father? Because a person is obligated in respecting his father more than his grandfather. Therefore when he says the god of my father and not the god of his father grandfather Abraham. Verse two. Israel and God said to Israel in the middle of the night in a vision by night and he said he said here I am Jacob. Why does he say his name twice? Rashi tells us this is a term of endearment to Yakov. Verse three says to I am the almighty God the God of your father. Do not be afraid of going down to Egypt going down to Egypt. because I will make you into a great nation. Sham there don't be afraid of going down to Egypt because Jacob was afraid and was concerned is that he was had to go and leave the land of Israel is to go outside of Israel and this is already his second time going outside the land of Israel and he was concerned about that. Verse four, I am going down with you. Hashem says to Egypt and I will all make sure that you come up from there as well and Yoseph will place his hand on your eyes. He promised him that he will be buried in the land of Israel. Verse five and Yakov now got up from after this vision that he had. He was ready now to go to the land of Israel. So he set out from Beerva and he took all the Jewish people all his sons with him as the sons of Jacob. The sons of Israel took Jacob their father their children and their wives. They use those wagons say the pharaoh sent to carry them carry him. Verse six and they took their livestock and their possession that they acquired in the land of they came to to the land of Egypt and all his family with him all his children with him. What is it telling us? Why does it specific specifically telling us that they acquired in the land of Cananan? But this that he acquired while he was in together with already he did not own. What happened to it? He gave it all to because he wanted to get acquire the plot in the cave of the patriarch that he gave. So he bought it off uh bought it off Asaf and gave that all to Asaf. Where do we see that? Because Omar said Jacob said I don't want to profit or benefit from anything I acquired outside the land of Israel. And this is what he says later on that I have acquired that you're going to bury me in the place that I acquired. What does he mean he acquired? That he put piles of gold that they were made like a big pile of wheat. The word said, "Take your portion. Take this money and allow me to take the portion in the world to come." Torah continues, "Banov, verse 7, his sons, Benov, his grandsons were with him. Ben of his daughters Banov and the daughters of his sons and all his children he brought with him to Egypt." Who were the daughters of his sons? His sons of his daughters. The daughters of his sons are Sarak the daughter of Asher and Yvid which was the daughter of Ley were the daughters of his sons that came into the land came with him to the land of Egypt. If you look over here Yakov is concerned about going down to Egypt. God tells him al don't be afraid of going down to Egypt. The Reb explains why was Jacob afraid was because he saw that he had this great he amassed his whole family while he was in padam. He has 70 members of his family as we'll see in tomorrow's Torah reading. So what's his concern? His concern is that now that I have such a family, I want to bring them up in the environment of holiness. I don't want to bring them up in an environment of exile being in the land of Egypt. So God tells them, don't worry, they will go down, but they will also come back up. I will assure that that while you go down to Egypt, yes, you have to go down to Egypt, you have to go into the exile to transform and to make it a dwelling place for God. With that guarantee, you know, you will also come out of it. So too, we have to remember that while we are in exile, we are here because God put us here. And while we're here, we have to transform it to make it an oasis for godliness. But by making it an oasis for godliness, we always have to remember and have that desire to leave the exile as comfortable and as wonderful as we're doing and transforming it. The ultimate goal is to transform it and to leave the exile to come up out of exile to the holy land with the coming of Mashiach. This concludes the fourth Torah reading of