Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan - Parashat Vayechi

[Music] good evening today we are learning parashat we're using art school homage and we're on page 269. this is the final parsha in cepherberry sheet so today we're gonna finish the the safe is that hashem the parsha starts with yaakov lives in the land of egypt for 17 years in last week's parasha yakov came to egypt and when paro asked him how old are you he said i am 130 years old and we know that yaakov lived all together 147 years so he lived in egypt for 17 years so now we are in the final uh days of yaakov's life and the days of yaakov the years of his life were 147 years pasuk 29 the time approached for israel to die so he called his son joseph and said to him please if i have found favor in your eyes please place your hand under my thigh which is a sign of uh commitment to do whatever the person is asking you to do it's you put your your hand under person's thigh as he's sitting it's a sign that i'm under you i'm subservient i'm willing to carry out any request that you make and do kindness and truth with me please do not bury me in egypt for i will lie down with my fathers and you shall transport me out of egypt and bury me in their tomb so yaakov is telling yourself i'm soon going to die and i don't want to be buried in egypt please i have a request of you it's a very difficult request and we'll see why please take me out of this cursed country and take me to the land of israel and by the way from here comes the custom that many jews follow that they bring the deceased to eretz israel and uh many jews who die outside of the land of israel try to be buried in the land of israel we learn it from yaakov and rashi says a few reasons why number one he says in the plague of lice all the dust all the the the dirt in um in egypt will turn into lice and yaakov says i don't want my body to lie in the ground and be surrounded with lice as we know sadiq do not decompose in the ground after they die and so yaakov was saying um this is going to be in another couple hundred years 100 250 years let's say that this is going to happen and jakob is still concerned my body is going to be intact and i don't want lies to be crawling all over my body the second reason yaakov doesn't want to be buried in egypt is she says that he doesn't want egyptians to make him into another idol because um egyptians are only looking for more idols to serve and if they see a great man who dies and uh his tomb his uh burial plot is in egypt they will worship him just like they thought that all the pharaohs were um idols were gods and that's one of the reasons they built these huge pyramids to serve as a tomb for these gods from uh with a lower g and then they would serve them and they felt that uh service to the dead kings would um bring blessing to the land so yaakov said i don't want that egyptians should treat me as an idol and somebody is asking a um question what does it mean that that the body of its siding doesn't decompose so that's a that's a big discussion but just briefly it says that uh the reason why the body has to die is because of our sins uh originally we were supposed to live forever and later when death was decreed upon the the world even sadiq had to die even those that lived their whole life without sinning have to die because of the original decree however that sadik who really on his own merit would would would be able to live forever he doesn't deserve to die and he's dying just because that's the way of the world so when when his body is put into the ground it doesn't need that it does not need to decompose because the body did not commit any sins the body has to separate from the soul that's the decree but the body does not need to go through additional purification and punishment that war worms should be eating the body so since the body doesn't need that natural normal uh processes of of the of the of the world do not do not um affect a body of exotic and furthermore it says only someone who had jealousy in his lifetime his body will decompose and um that's that's briefly about decomposition and i haven't seen it myself but many reports um are available of people who actually had to dig up sadiq for example if they were buried in a place where the government wanted to build something so people the jewish people knew it and they would go and they would um take the body out and transport it to a jewish cemetery or to the land of israel and uh so many times it was reported that they saw the body of asadi who died 100 years ago 300 years ago 500 years ago and the body was still intact as if the the sadiq died just a day earlier uh someone is asking a different question if the body does not decompose how can there be uh reincarnation i don't think it's a problem for reincarnation reincarnation can happen even if the original body is still is still there yes so once the the body die the body dies the soul leaves and it's free to re incarnate into another body so the body is lying there lifeless and it's possible that the the the the soul will will um have some contact with that body but not necessarily and the body is just out of respect for the body for such holy body that did not sin did not submit to its uh bodily desires so hashem does not decompose it but it doesn't have to be that the soul is still attached and one of the reasons why we bury the body is so that the soul leaves freely even if the body is still there we still want the soul to leave that's why we bury the body immediately on the same day because when the soul sees the body on the surface of the earth uh unburied the soul is suffering because it wants to re-enter and it's not allowed but once the body is buried that's not the problem the soul is free to leave so um so yaakov is asking joseph to bring him to eretz israel again one reason is he doesn't want lice to surround his body number two he doesn't want uh that egyptians should use his uh burial plot as place of avodah zara of idol worship and the third reason yaakov rashi says is that a body that is buried outside of israel when mashiach comes before the body can be can can be resurrected it has to roll underground until it gets to the land of israel and only then it can rise up so yaakov said why should my body suffer in times of mashiach and roll underground if you have ability to bring my body to the land of israel already bring it now don't make me suffer later so that's that's the main reason why jewish people nowadays want to be buried in the land of israel because sun mashiach is going to come bazat hashem and all the bodies will rise up but before they rise up they'll have to roll to the land of israel how they're gonna roll we don't know it says there's gonna be a tunnel through which they will be transported um so it's better for the body to be already in israel and rise up as soon as the time comes and not have to travel underground okay now and joseph answered i personally will do as you have said so joseph um agrees and yaakov says swear to me and joseph swore to him then israel prostrated himself towards the head of the bed so yaakov called joseph specifically because joseph was the president of egypt and he was the only one who had power to fulfill this request and the reason why it was difficult was specifically for this reason since yaakov is the father of the president of egypt it it would be disrespectful to the egyptian nation to take the body out it's gonna look like what you don't um you don't like us you don't like our country for the last 17 years you lived here and you feel that our country was good enough for you to live here when you were alive but it's not good enough to be buried here you think egypt is worse than the country you came from this is disrespectful to egyptian uh nation egyptian culture to to to egypt as a as a as a country so joseph had to work very hard to convince paro to allow him to transport yaakov out and by the way we'll speak about it in parashat shemot egyptians were very much into their image they wanted very much to be the best in the world and paro uh tried as much as he could to preserve that image that egypt is the greatest country in the world the best country uh the richest and the most powerful and the the uh the people there are the happiest to so much so that they did not allow anyone to leave egypt it was very similar to soviet union they made the rule that nobody is allowed to leave egypt because if anybody leaves egypt it looks bad for egypt just like in soviet union they did not allow citizens to relocate to another country because if anybody wants to to um leave soviet union must be there are countries that are better than soviet union and they couldn't handle that and they said um only one person out of a family can leave so that the other people are are guarantors that he's gonna come back a whole family was not allowed to travel outside of the country or a person who is not married was not allowed to travel outside of the country and anyone who had a higher risk of of leaving they were not allowed to travel outside the country that's why jewish people were not allowed to travel outside of the soviet union for example my father um worked for the soviet airlines he was the engineer on a team fixing airplanes of the of the the the prime minister of uzbekistan and uh he would fly with him uh within soviet union but if there was an international flight they would not allow my father to go on it because they said you're a jew if you travel outside of soviet union you might escape so they did not allow him to go on international flights um so egypt was the same thing they did not allow regular citizens to to move out and certainly they did not allow slaves it says that in whole in the whole history of egypt no slave ever left the country that's how powerful their border patrol was and there was like a spiritual uh invisible wall all around egypt that no slave was able to penetrate why because they knew a slave is a member of society that is more likely to want to escape and if a slave runs away from egypt it's going to look bad even a slave is going to look bad because people will say look somebody even though he's a slave is running out of egypt into other country must be and other countries better than egypt so that's why it was very hard for joseph to take yaakov's body out of egypt and that will explain later when the jewish people want to leave egypt para says no way if you leave egypt it's going to look bad on us we would rather die over here together with you and not let you out and he suffered through ten plagues and only then finally he decided to let them go why so stubborn because his image was on the line he could not allow jewish people especially a whole nation so many people to exit the country okay so we continue chapter 48 verse one and it came to pass after these things that someone said to joseph behold your father is ill which means he is now on his deathbed he is deathly ill so he took his two sons minashi and ephraim with him yaakov was told behold your son yosef has come to you so israel exerted himself and set up on the ban so we will see that that the reason why yaakov called joseph second time was in order to bless his children and to ask joseph again to be buried in the land of kanan not to be buried in in egypt and um he will explain to him why he wants to be buried in the land of canaan in hebron and he will also apologize for not burying um joseph's wife or joseph's mother in israel in in maratha because jaako feels that how is it proper that i'm asking joseph to bury me in the in hebron in the land of canaan and i myself didn't bury his mother there so let's see um page 271 verse 3 yaakov said to joseph el shaddai god almighty had appeared to me in luz in the land of kanan and he blessed me he said to me behold i will make you fruitful and numerous i will make you a congregation of nations so here um the the commentators learned that that hashem gave promise to yaakov that he is going to have more children it says um first of all he says i will make you fruitful and numerous which means you will have more children and how many more children it says a congregation of nations so that means there's going to be a congregation that means binyamin will be born and nations plural another two nations so now he says was already born but i didn't have any more children must be your children are the nations that hashem promised me so he says the promise the the blessing continues and i will give this land to your offspring after you as an eternal possession and now because i didn't have any more sons your two sons who were born to you in the land of egypt before my coming to you in egypt shall be mine ephraim and menashe shall be mine like reuven and shimon so interestingly um two tribes appear from yosef does it mean that now we have 13 tribes and the answer is that we have 12 tribes and depending what we're counting them for we will either count joseph's two sons as one tribe of joseph or if necessary we will count them as two tribes for example if we're counting the sons of yaakov and we say there are 12 sons of yaakov then we will count ephraim in menasha as one tribe of yosef and we will include levy as as one of the twelve however if we count tribes to see who is going to get land in the in the land of israel so there we count menachem efraim as two separate tribes instead of yourself and we skip levy we don't count levi because levites did not receive land in the in the land of israel so we always have 12 tribes but if we take out levy we substitute instead of levi and instead of yourself menacing but if we need to count levi then we count menacing iframe as one tribe so another example is when we count who is going out to war usually these were people who received land so they're fighting for their land and therefore in the census minash and ephraim accounted separately and levy is counted outside of the 12 tribes okay now um that's why yaakov says ephraim in minnesota shall be mine like reuven and shimon why specifically joseph uh gets two tribes and that is because originally reuven was supposed to get two tribes because he is the firstborn we know according to the laws of first born um laws of inheritance the first born gets double portion so joseph as the firstborn of rahel gets double portion ruben was supposed to get double portion but because he messed with yaakov's bed in the story of bilhah the the the right of the firstborn was taken away from him and given to joseph so now joseph's two children uh get inheritance in the land but verse 6 says progeny born to you after them shall be yours they will be included under the name of their brothers with regard to their inheritance so here yaakov again points out that the tribes of uh minas and ephraim are separate only as far as inheritance goes and also wars that are fought for that inheritance but but as children of yaakov levy is included and therefore iframinash is counted with yosef now yaakov is um explaining why he didn't bury rakhel in hevron he says in verse 7 but as for me when i came from padang from lavan rahel died on me in the land of kanan on the road while there was still a stretch of land to go to efrat and i buried her there on the road to efrat which is beit leche jakob says i buried her there on the road i did not even bring her into the town of efrat or another name of a fraud is bethlehem she already died in the land of israel because beit lechem efrad is the land of israel the proof is the yakov says rahul died on me in the land of kanan so they already entered the land of kanan and she was buried in the land of kanan but he buried her on the road without even bringing her into the town and certainly not carrying her all the way to hevron and rashi says that yaakov explained to joseph why he did so and he said because i had a prophecy that in the many more centuries in about 12 more centuries the jewish people will sin and there will be conquered by new zealand the general of um [Music] and he will lead the jewish people into exile and they will pass by this road near bethlehem and i buried rahul specifically there so that when her children when the jewish people pass by her graveside she will come out and she will pray for them to god and because of her the jewish people will come back so he said the reason why i buried her there was for the sake of the jewish people then israel saw joseph's sons and he said who are these and joseph said to his father they are my sons who whom god has given me here now the question is asked why joseph is uh yaakov is asking doesn't he know that these are josephs sons hasn't he met him before of course he has he knows them well in the last 17 years he saw them many times in fact it says that ephraim used to learn by yaakov for all these years however the sages say that the reason why yaakov is asking is because we as we're gonna see uh soon yaakov didn't see well his eyes were not so clear and the second reason is because he had prophecy and he foresaw that some bad people are gonna come from these children um from ephraim yeravan and from menasha yehu and their children who are going to be evil uh kings of the northern kingdom of israel so you couldn't understand who are these uh people from from whom evil evil men are gonna arise he could believe that these are children of of joseph and joseph said yes these are my sons whom god has given to me it's not my fault not their fault that's that's the destiny god gave for them so yaakov said bring them to me if you please and i will bless them now israel's eyes were heavy with age he couldn't see now here you may ask a question just uh two verse one verse before it says actually two verses before in verse eight it says then israel saw joseph's sons that means he did see now it says israel's eyes were heavy with age he could not see and uh in verse 11 it says and here god has shown me even your offspring which means yaakov is able to see so it's really not not a problem all we are saying is that um yaakov cannot see so well he sees um general general form of of a human being he knows there is a person standing in front of him but his eyes are too weak to see the the the exact features so he does not recognize who the person is so he saw that there were two men standing next to yourself and he said who are they and then the past success he couldn't he couldn't see them meaning he couldn't see their features and then it says hashem showed me even your children which means i was able to see them previously he is thanking hashem and right now also i see their the general um form okay so yaakov kissed them and hugged them israel said to yourself i dared not accept the thought that i would see your face and here god has shown me even your offspring that's a good question someone is asking was jakob cautious that perhaps there's going to be a trickery and that's why he's asking who are these children that very well may be now we're on page 273 joseph then removed them from his knees and he prostrated himself with his face toward the ground so yaakov hugged his two grandchildren then joseph moves them out joseph bows down in front of his father and now joseph sets them up prepares them for the blessing joseph took the two of them ephraim with his right hand efraim is the younger one so he is on the right side of joseph in order to be on israel's left and menasha with his left to israel's right he wants the oldest son menasha to be on the right side of his father and his younger son ephraim to be on the left side of his father and he drew close to him and he he brought them close to yaakov but israel extended his right hand and laid it on a frying's head though he was the younger one and his left hand on menasha's head he maneuvered his hands fumination was the firstborn funny thing yaakov did when he asked his father for the blessing he also went instead of his older brother and now he is again putting the younger brother ahead of the older brother very interesting and he blessed yourself and he said o god before whom my forefathers avraham and yitzhak walked god who shepherds me from my inception from my youth until this day and now comes the famous song the famous song that children learn in school may the angel who redeems me from all evil bless the lads the young boys and may my name be declared upon them and the names of my forefathers avraham and yitzhak and may they proliferate abundantly like fish within the land he compares uh them to fish just like fish have a lot of offspring but because they're in water majority of their offspring is eaten by other fish so he says you should be like fish i have a lot of children but on the land where you have no predators the second reason why he compares them to fish is because joseph is compared to fish because uh i in hara the evil eye does not have power over fish and a blessing that soon he is going to give to joseph is that yosef is above ayn haram now verse 17 yosef saw that his father was placing his right hand on the frame's head and it displeased him and he supported his father's hand to remove it from upon ephraim's head to menashe's head he resisted he didn't want his father to switch his hands because he remember what happened when yaakov did it acer hated him for the rest of history and joseph said to his father not so father for this is the firstborn place your right hand on his hand on his head but his father refused saying i know my son i know he too will become a people and he too will become great yet his brother shall become greater than he and his offsprings fame will feel will fill the nations so here i'll say just say when yaakov says that menash is going to become great he is referring to gidon gidon who became the leader of the jewish people and save them from oppressors yet his brother shall become greater because from ephraim will come yahushua who is going to lead the jewish people after moshe so he blessed them that day saying by you shall israel bless saying may god make you like a fry and like me this is the famous blessing that we give our boys when we say yes by you shall the jewish people bless their children saying and the commentators say why specifically were chosen as the ideal for jewish children and the answer that ephraim and minashe were raised in a country like egypt outside of the main jewish community which at that time was in the land of canaan they were raised among non-jews and they remained strong and loyal committed to jewish ideals so yaakov says you are worthy to be used as a blessing because in the future jewish people will be exiled that there will be often far away from the jewish community and even those jews that are far away from jewish community should be strong as strong as you were in egypt and he put a fry before me hashem he told yousef i have a prophecy that a friend is going to be greater that's why i'm putting my right hand on him and again yaakov asks joseph to bury him in the land of kanab and israel said to yosef behold i'm about to die god will be with you and will bring you back to the land of your four of your fathers so he's telling joseph joseph right now you're in a foreign country you cannot leave there's going to be hard times of of uh slavery but don't worry god will be with you and he will bring you back to the land of your fathers and as for me i have given you shechem the city of shechem one portion more than your brothers and eventually yourself was buried in shechem which i took from the hand of the amorite with my sword and with my bow i had to fight for that land and um now i'm giving it to you now what is the the fight that we're talking about and that is the fight for shechem remember shechem was the city that the leader of shechem um um kidnapped dina and defiled her and they didn't want to give her back so the children of yaakov fought against them and slaughtered all the males of the city and then midrash says that the the the towns and the villages and the countries around shechem rose up against the against the children of yaakov and yaakov had to take his sword and his bow and fight and eventually they won so now shechem became the possession of yakov and now yaakov gives shechem to joseph now chapter 49 on page 275 yaakov's blessings to the 12 tribes then jacob called for his sons and said assemble yourselves and i will tell you what will befall you in the end of days gather yourselves and listen all sons of yaakov and listen to israel your father now he promised them that he will tell them what's going to be at the end of days but we don't see openly that he tells them what's going to be so i would say just say that the the gates of prophecies of prophecy were closed and yaakov was worried why he thought that perhaps his children are not worthy so he questioned them and they said listen or israel our father god hashem is our god he is the only one we don't have any other thoughts we are all committed we're all sadly we're all good righteous and yakov when he heard it he said he said hashem that all my children are righteous and then he gave them the blessing he understood that the reason why the prophecy was taken away was not because it was their fault but rather because it was not time yet to reveal the end he understood that hashem took away the prophecy because he doesn't want yaakov to reveal it now reuven reuven you are my firstborn my strength and my initial vigor which means you are my behold my firstborn foremost in the rank which means he's telling him you were supposed to be the bihor the fourth firstborn and you were supposed to be cohen first most foremost in rank you were supposed to be a kohen the servant of hashem in bitter might and foremost in power you were supposed to be a king reuven was supposed to be all three he received double portion cohen and the king however page 277 water-like impetuosity which means you acted quickly without thinking without asking advice when you moved the bed you cannot be foremost anymore you lost all three you huda became the king you also became the four firstborn and levi became the kohen because you mounted your father's bed then you desecrated hashem him who ascended my couch so he rebuked reuven and he explained to him why he cannot get these three blessings then he called shimano levi shimon and levi are friends comrades their weaponry is a stolen craft they took their swords and they went to fight against shechem but that's not the jewish way that's the way of asav because asap's father said he's said you will live by your sword and you stole so to speak the sword from asap you behaved like asa fighting for your rights and then jaakov offers may my soul not enter which means i do not want to be counted as if i'm their father because i did not approve of their actions with their congregation do not join or my honor and now he is prophesizing about the future not only i didn't want to be with them in shechem but also in the future in the story of zimri where the tribe of shimon participated yaakov says please don't mention my name and if we see in that parsha yaakov's name is not mentioned in connection with uh with shimon's descendants and he also refers to the story of korach who was the levite and enlisting his genealogy it doesn't mention yaakov because jacob prayed and said please with their congregation do not join all my honor which refers to his soul or his name for in their rage they murdered people and at their whim they hemstrung an ox and this ox refers to joseph yaakov is prophesizing even though jacob doesn't know that shem and levi were the ones who wanted to murder joseph and later sold him but yaakov is prophesizing that the hamstrung ox referring to yosem and now yaakov curses their anger accursed is their rage for it is intense and their wrath should be also cursed for it is harsh i will separate them within yakov and i will disperse them in israel and that's what happened yaakov realized that if shimon and levi stay close to each other or even within their own tribe they will have so much anger that they will always go and fight so he decreed that levy should not get land rather they got cities all over the land of israel so they should be together and shimon also did not get land but rather they got cities within the tribe of yehuda and both shiman and levi their professions require them to travel when a person travels he's humble because people don't know him uh levites had to travel because from their cities they had to travel to yerushalayim to serve and also they were dependent since they didn't have their own land they were dependent on on trump the gifts of the jewish people so they had to travel from one granary to another greenery to collect their gifts and shiman also had to travel they were the teachers of the jewish people so they had to travel throughout villages to teach the children now comes the turn of yahudah yehudah you your brothers shall acknowledge which means all the brothers will accept you as their king your hand will be at your enemy's nape nape is the the back of the neck which means you will be victorious over your enemies your enemies will turn around and run away from you so that you'll grab them by their neck by the back of their neck your father's sons will prostrate themselves to you which means all the jewish people will serve one king a lion cub is yehuda from the prey my son you elevated yourself we're now on page 279. he crouches lies down like a lion and like an awesome lion who dares rouse him the scepter which is the stick that the king holds shall not depart from yeruda forever children of yehuda from david were kings and leaders of the jewish people and it's going to come back with mashiach nor a scholar from among his descendants until shiloh arrives which is a reference to mashiach and his will the assemblage of nations which means all the nations will come to greet mashiach both all the tribes of the jewish people even the lost the ten lost tribes and all the nations of the world will recognize mashiach as the true king the heir of david and will come to to pay homage to mashiach he will tie his donkey to the vine to the vine branch his donkey's baby which means he's gonna have his land is gonna be so fertile so much uh vines and so much wine it will produce that he'll need one donkey for just single vine and he'll load the donkey full of grapes from just one vine he will launder his garments in wine he's going to have so much wine it's an expression as if he is going to be enough to launder all his clothing in wine like water and his robe in the blood of grapes red eyed from wine and white tooth from milk that's the blessing for you now blessing for the volume zevolon shall settle by seashores he's going to be a merchant he shall be at the ship's harbor and his last border will reach sidon so the children of the balloon were famous as merchants they were rich and they would travel the world for their business yi is a strong bond donkey he rests between the boundaries and here boundaries either means um the tent of torah that he's gonna sit in the in the bid midrash in a synagogue in yeshiva and he's gonna learn that's why he's called strong bone donkey because in order to learn torah you need to be very strong you have to be able to sit in one place for a long time another meaning for boundaries means literally boundaries that children of isahara are going to be very strong warriors and they will protect the bounty of the land of israel and they will fight in wars he saw tranquility that it was good and the land that it was pleasant saw all the comforts and he saw the land however yet he bent his shoulder to bear and he became an indentured laborer so according to the first shot it refers that that is even though he could have done business he could have went to work the land he decided to bend his shoulder and undertake the yoke of thor and he became an indentured laborer he said i would rather forgo riches but i will learn torah and according to the second shot he bent his shoulder to bear to fight to protect the bound the boundary of the land and he became an adventure laborer refers to the nations that he conquered and whoever wanted to attack israel the children of israel would attack them and would force them to pay taxes to the jewish people next comes don verse 16 don will avenge his people the tribes of israel will be united as one this refers to shimshon who avenged the jewish people against the palestinians the pleish team verse 17 god will be a serpent on the highway a viper by the path that bites a horse's heels so its rider falls backward he uh yaakov compares shimshon to a snake just like a snake bites the heel of a horse he doesn't even touch the person and the horse falls together with a rider and kills the rider so too happened with shimshon shimshon was captured by palestinians and they blinded him but then he prayed and that's the the next verse for your salvation do i long o hashem should ask hashem please give me salvation just one time allow me to avenge the jewish people against these uh uncircumcised ones and he he was standing by the palace where all the nobles assembled inside and out and on top of the roof thousands and thousands and um shimshan pushed on the pillars that supported the building and the building collapsed just like a snake bit the heel and the whole horse collapsed killing its rider now i'm gonna try to quickly go through the partial and then address your questions god in verse 19 page 281 god will recruit a regiment and will retreat on its heel which means children of god will be powerful warriors and after um next hashem from hashem his bread will have richness and he will provide kingly delicacies the land of asher was known that it produced a lot of olive oil verse 21 is a hind is a female deer let loose who they live delivers beautiful sayings children of naftali were fast like like a like a deer and they were good orators they were they knew how to speak beautifully and now comes the blessing for joseph a charming son is joseph a charming son to the eye or above the eye which means he is above ain't each of the girls climbed heights to gaze all the girls in egypt wanted to see joseph he was so beautiful they referring to the brothers embittered him and became his enemies the arrow-tongued man hated him yakov in a hint way describes the whole history of joseph's life but his bow was firmly emplaced he did not give up and his arms were gilded were covered with metal to protect him from the hands of the mighty power of yaakov from there he shepherded the stone of israel which means later jose became the shepherd of the jewish people the one that provided them with sustenance that was from the god of your father and he the god will help you and with shaddai with the almighty and he god will bless you with blessings of heaven from above blessings of the the deep crouching below blessings of the bosom and womb the blessings of your father surpass the blessings of my parents to the endless bounds of the world's hills let them be upon joseph's head and upon the head of the exile from his brothers he calls joseph the exile from his brothers because he was separated from his brothers for 22 years and now comes the blessing of binyamin where on page 283 verse 27 bin yaman is a predatory wolf yaakov compares uh to a wolf that he will also be a very strong warrior in the morning he will devour pray and in the evening he will distribute spoils so the warning refers to king saul the first king of israel who conquered a lot of enemies and protected the jewish people and the evening he will distribute spoils refers to mordechai and astaire who were from the tribe of binyamin who distributed spoils which means they took possession from of of the house of haman with this the the blessings finish all these are the tribes of israel 12 and this is what their father spoke to them and he blessed them he blessed each according to his appropriate blessing then he instructed them and he said to them i shall be gathered to my people bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of the frontier hittite and he explains um where exactly it is and that avraham bought it from the throne and that avraham and sarah buried there he is buried there and lays buried there when yaakov finished instructing his sons he drew his feet onto the bed and he expired and was gathered to his people now interestingly the torah doesn't say that jacob died it doesn't say it just says he expired and was gathered into his people doesn't say he died so from here the sages say yaakov never died which refers to the fact that as long as the jewish people are alive as long as the jewish people are loyal to torah to hashem yaakov's legacy is still there and it's considered that he is still alive that's on a simple level now answering one of the questions that came in uh didn't they embalm people maybe that's why they didn't decompose so in in chapter 50 on page 285 we read then joseph fell upon his father's face he wept over him and kissed him joseph ordered his servants the physicians to embalm his father surprisingly so the physicians involved is israel why did joseph say that yaakov should be emboldened isn't embalming against jewish tradition and the answer is joseph knew that yaakov being a sadiq being the the righteous leader of the generation he will not decompose and when egyptians will see that yaakov is not decomposing they will declare him a deity a god even their pharaohs who they claim are gods they need to embalm mummify because they know they're gonna rot like a pig but all of a sudden yaakov is not gonna rat must be yaku who is the true god so joseph said we must embalm yaakov so that they should attribute the fact that yaakov is not decomposing to embalming embalmement so the 40 days of involvement were completed and egyptians bewailed yankov for the total of 70 days the 40 days of embalming and another 30 days of mourning and after the 70 days joseph spoke to paro's household saying if you please if i found favor in your eyes speaking out in the ears of paro saying my father made me swear saying behold i'm about to die in my grave in which which i have carved for myself in the land of kanan there you are to bear me now i will go up if you please and bury my father then i will return so you also said i promise i cannot break my promise and midrash says that uh he specifically said to para that there was a promise because para also made joseph promise that that yes is not going to tell anyone that doesn't understand hebrew language and in the law of egypt it's it says that paro must know all languages of the world and if they would find out that doesn't know hebrew language they might depose him so joseph promised him and josem said um i will i will uh keep my promise and not reveal that you don't speak hebrew but allow me to keep my promise to my father as well and um let me bury him in in israel and paro said go up and bury your father as he made you promise the only reason why i'm allowing you is because of the promise because i want you to keep my promise as well so joseph went up to bury his father and with him went up all of potter's servants page 287 the elders of the household and the elders of the land of egypt and all the of joseph's household his brothers and his father's household only the young children and the flocks they left in goshen first nine and he brought up with him both chariots and horsemen and the camp was very imposing they came to the land of kanan to guard and they held a very great and imposing eulogy and he ordained a seven-day mourning period for his father so in addition to 70 day morning in egypt they had another seven day morning in the for the total of 77 days and um verse 13 his sons carried him to the land of canaan and they buried him in the cave of the machpelah field and they return to egypt afterwards now somebody is asking a good question when egyptians embalm don't they take out all the internal organs isn't that a problem yes it is a problem i don't know exactly if they did that with yaakov or not uh but again if we say that yosef just made it look like they are embalming him just to give an excuse why yakko is not decomposing it's possible that he put his own men there and they just pretended that they were involving him um why did yaakov give a rebuke instead of bracha to inspire the first three sons levi rooven and shimon so you know we're not talking about little children we're not talking about sensitive individuals we're talking about great sadiq they knew hashem created the world he put us here to accomplish we're not we're not um children who are are sensitive who are going to cry yaakov knew that and they knew that they accepted it with love so they wanted to hear rebuke you know of course now it's not recommended but yaakov did the right thing to rebuke them okay now verse 15 yosef's brothers perceived that their father was dead now they became scared and they said perhaps joseph will nurse hatred against us and he'll repay us for all the evil that we did to him so they quickly instructed the they sent a message to joseph and said oh thus shall you say to yourself we're on page 289 please kindly forgive the spiteful deed of your brothers and their sin for they have done you evil and they themselves went and prostrated in front of joseph and said we're ready to be your slaves but joseph said to them fear not for am i instead of god although you intended me harm god intended it for good in order to accomplish it is as clear as this day that advanced people be kept alive you have some says to them it ended up well so it means it was god's plan don't worry fear not i will sustain you and your young ones thus he comforted them and spoke to their heart so commentators differ whether joseph forgave them or not some say it doesn't say he forgave them he just calmed them down said don't worry it's it was meant to be but he never said i forgive you so they said because of that jewish people suffered in the end and the ten martyrs the the the asarah were killed because yourself didn't forgive them other other mifashim other commentators say that joseph did forgive them okay now verse 22 joseph dwelt in egypt and joseph lived 110 years she saw three generations through ephraim even the sons of sons were raised on joseph's knees and yosef before dying said to his brother i'm about to die but god will surely remember you pakodi if god elohim at him he said to them he gave them a code word pakodiv called if a savior will come and claim that he is from god and he wants to take you out of egypt he has to use these words parkour difficult and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to avraham then yosef made the children of israel swear saying when god will indeed remember you then you must bring my bones up out of here so yourself also made jewish people swear that they will bring him and other brothers remains up from egypt and bury them in israel and the last verse for this chapter this parsha and this center this book joseph died at the age of 110 years they embalmed him and he was placed in a coffin in egypt hazak we will continue next week with parashat shemot thank you for listening uh shabbat shalom [Music] foreign