Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan Parshat Vayechi 1

good morning we are learning par we're using the article we're on page 269 Yakov lived in the land of Egypt 17 years and the days of Yakov the years of his life were 147 years so from the age 130 until age 147 for 17 years Yakov lived in in Egypt with his children all his children with uh his entire family these were the happiest days of yakov's life even though it was not in the land of Israel but it was with Hashem Hashem came to Egypt with Yakov and it was with his entire family and not only that he's uh seeing how ysep is the ruler of a great country the huge country Egypt is run by ysf yakov's son now verse 29 the time approached for Israel to die so he called for his son for YF and said to him you now Yakov is calling the son that has the most power because he's going to ask him something that only he can do please if I have found favor in your eyes please place your hand under my thigh and do kindness and Truth with me just like we see with Abraham and his uh servant Eleazar that when he wanted Eleazar to swear to him that he will do everything properly he asked him to put his hand under Abraham's thigh that has double meaning number one the servant that the the shows that he is under control of the master he is placing his hand under the thigh of the master as if to show I'm under you I'm subserviant to you and I will do everything that you say and secondly whenever person swear he usually takes an object of value to show that I'm swearing with this object whether it is we take uh seph Tora orash and we swear or you swear by life of someone who is dear to you for example we we saw that ysf swore a few times but he used life of par that was because he really was not swearing um honestly he was tricking the children children of Yakov his brothers and because he was lying he swore by life of par but when a person is saying the truth he holds in his hand an a holy object or he swears by someone 's life um or in the in Jewish Court person swears with the name of Hashem and he says just like God is true so my words are true and if I go against my words it's as if I'm proclaiming the God is not true Shalom so in in the case of Yakov and Abraham the Brit Mila circumcision was a Holy Covenant between us and Hashem so in both of of of of their cases they asked their servant to place their hand close to Brit Mila and to swear by the Covenant between us and God and that's what ysep did and yov asked him 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 why Yakov doesn't want to be buried in Egypt even though that's where the Jewish people are going to be for the next 200 years and that is because Yakov was a righteous man and we have a rule that righteous uh people after their death they're even more powerful than during their life time people come to the grave of righteous of righteous people and they pray to Hashem in the Merit of righteous people and these prayers work even more than if you would go to a living um SA a living sadic so Jakob was afraid that after he dies and he's buried in Egypt the Egyptians who are very superstitious they might make his grave side a place of worship and they might treat his gravestone as an idol and he said I do not want to put a stumbling block in front of people I don't want people to think that I have special powers and therefore I'm God yes I may have special powers because I serve God because I'm righteous and I do everything in accordance with God's Will and therefore we have a rule if you do God's will then God will do your will so yes I have special powers but only because I serve God but they will not know that and they will think that I'm independently Godly so he said get me out of here Place me far away that that uh nobody should know where I am and uh nobody should worship me another reason was that that um in the future the land of Egypt will be um turned into lice all the sand and and Yakov said I don't want that all the Earth around my body should turn into into Li that of course is a minor reason um if there was a purpose for Yakov to be in Egypt he would forgo that that um U uncomfortable feeling of lice crawling all over your your body for the sake of the Jewish people but there's no need God is with them the bodies of all 12 brothers were in Egypt until the Jewish people came out out by The Exodus and they brought out all the 12 um coffins of the 12 brothers and each brother is buried in the land of Israel ysep for example is buried in shim um that is the second reason that yov is asking ysep to bring him to Israel and the third reason the famous reason is that in times of resurrection of the dead people who are buried in Israel they will just rise up but people who are buried outside of Israel they will have to first roll in the ground underground in special tunnels until Israel and only then they will be able to rise up so for these three reasons Yakov says transport me out of Egypt and bury me in the Tomb of my forefathers and ysep answered I personally will do as you have said ysep agrees even though it's going to be very hard for him and as midash explains ysf had to go through a lot of trouble a lot of convincing par in order for par to allow him to bury Yakov in in Israel because Egyptians they had a very um interesting idea that anyone who leaves Egypt shows that Egypt is not good and therefore Egyptians did not allow any of their citizens and even slaves to leave Egypt once you in you're in Forever this is very similar to uh former Soviet Union Russia they had the same policy that if anybody immigrates from Russia to the outside uh World it shows that uh they were not so happy with Soviet Union it shows that communism is not so good and therefore the Russians said no one is allowed to leave especially the Jews because the Jews for sure will go and not come back and that will look bad on us they're going to Israel not because they're Jewish and Israel is their country but they're going to Israel because they don't like Soviet Union and therefore caring very much about their image they did not allow anyone to leave so the same with par parro now is not going to allow yov to be buried in Israel so easily because par says to ysf why the land of Egypt is not good enough for you that you don't want your father to be buried here it doesn't look good on us that you should transport your father to the land of Canan why that land is any better and ysep had to convince par and he used various tricks um to make sure par gives permission and therefore Yakov asks ysep swear to me in verse 31 it's not enough that you just saying I will do I know it's going to be very difficult for you and therefore I want you to be committed to me through an oath something that you cannot easily just dismiss and he swore to him and then Isel prostrated himself toward the head of the bed which means he bowed down According to some to the sh that is visiting um a sick person we say that Hashem God himself heals a sick person and therefore Hashem came to visit Yakov and to to give him strength in his old age and therefore Yakov bowed down to Hashem on his bed and according to some interpretations he bowed down to ysep and here was fulfilled the dream of ysep that his own father will bow down to him and from here our sages learn that sometimes a greater person bows down to a lesser person because at at that time the a person has um a greater position so that's what happened here the father bowed down to his son because he recognized my son now is the king of Egypt my son now is the one that saved the entire world from famine so it's okay for the father to bow down to the son um when son's position is great it sometimes happens um that that due to circumstances the son has greater opportunities and he achieves more and therefore the father shows him honor so this way they both show honor to each other the the Son shows honor to the father because he's his father and the father shows honor to his son because he's greater person so that shows the humility the humility of of both uh Yakov and Ys Yakov says it's okay even though I'm the father I will forgo my honor and I will bow down to ysep and ysep says even though I'm the king but I will forgo my honor and I will visit my father personally and I will bow down to him and I will take care of him and I will swear to him and so on and so forth now one more idea we said that when a person is sick Hashem visits him and heals him healing can only come from Hashem as it says I am Hashem your healer it says in as we say in every day in prayer we say you are the one that heals the sick of the Jewish people or as we say when we leave the bathroom we say you heal All Flesh Hashem Keeps Us Alive and Hashem keeps us healthy why does person get sick so according to Jewish sources a person gets sick only when he becomes spiritually lacking when his Nish is inside the body fully he is totally uh healthy when the Nish leaves with it leaves the strength stren and the spirituality affects physicality and what determines um the amount of Nish in person's body and what determines is his connection to Hashem his connection to God when a person fulfills God's will when a person is connected in his thoughts to God he will be healthy and we hear this talk now that a person who is confident a person who is uh who thinks positive things will be healthy once a person becomes stressed out depressed he will get sick and this is a direct um um correlation between connection to Hashem and thinking positively a person who is confident and optimistic it means he has trust in God he has trust that someone Beyond him will take care of him a person who is stressed out person who is worried it means that that that he's losing the connection to Hashem he's losing the trust to Hashem and therefore he causes his Nish to leave he severs he cuts the the pipe the channel that connects him to God the Nish can no longer flow into the body and therefore the person gets sick now how does a person get better if the way he became sick was because he disconnected himself from God then becoming healthy depends on person's reconnection to Hashem when person smiles when a person says to himself I'm healthy I'm strong God is with me and he turns to Hashem and says Hashem please Heal Me Hashem please help me then he gets better much faster I have a friend here in man uh who healed him himself and many other people just by talking to them abouta about Hashem about hashem's greatness and his power and his ability to heal you and Hashem is with you all the time and just by speaking with him and he says usually takes half an hour I speak to the person for half an hour about God and all of a sudden they get better and they that's it they're on the road to health all the co patients that he spoke to for half an hour and told them about they got better that's the power that that that we get from connecting to Hashem because he is the source of all power and all healing and that's what happens exactly here yakob is old and frail and sick and he bows down to Hashem who comes to visit him when Hashem visit the sick person the sick person becomes better and you don't have to wait until Hashem comes to visit you you can uh you can invoke hashem's name you can bring Hashem down by thinking about him and one of the reasons you could say that God came to visit him was because until now yakob was worried what's going to be with me soon I'm going to die they're going to bury me in Egypt he's worried and stressed out and he calls his son ysf and he says I hope ysf will agree to do that and as soon as ysf says yes my father I will do it and he says swear and I'm swearing I will do it for sure now Isel yov feels good now he's optimistic now he's happy and right away Hashem comes to visit him and right away he bows down to him and he gets healing and he is able to live for much longer and that's why the the chapter 48 says and it came to pass after these things some time passed he was still healthy someone told to Y ysep behold your father is ill again so he took his two sons M with him to visit their grandfather and yakob was told behold your son ysep has come to you so is exerted himself and set up on the bed now we're on page 271 of the yov said to ysep Shak the name of God special name of God in English we would say Almighty had appeared to me in L in the land of Canan and he blessed me Yakov is sharing his Blessing with ysep because Yakov will give ysf um the the blessing to continue the guidance of the Jewish people behold I will make you fruitful and numerous and I will make you Congregation of Nations now this specific blessing was about uh ysep Hashem after oldest sons of yob were born Hashem told Yakov I will make you Congregation of Nations which means two more nations are going to come out of you and Yakov says to ysf I didn't have any more children so what does it mean Hashem told me you will have other two Nations two other tribes must be your children even though they're my CH my grandchildren they're going to be counted as my children and in verse 5 he says and now your two sons who were born to you in the land of Egypt before my coming to you to in Egypt shall be mine Ephraim and Mas shall be mine like ruven and shiman just like ruven and shiman are my children ephra and Min are my grandchildren are going to be counted as my children this came also because when ruven who is the firstborn lost his uh status of a firstborn because he moved his father's bed ysph received the status of the first born ruven was the first born of uh Leia and ysf was the first born of Rael and we know that the firstborn gets double portion in in inheritance from the father so ysep now gets double portion because his two children EP become full-fledged tribes so YF is going to get two portions of land in the land of Israel now in verse seven Yakov explains to ysep why he didn't bury Rael in Kon in the land of Israel why did he bury her on the way in bleim but as for me when I came from padan Rael died on me in the land of Canan on the road while there was still a stretch of land to go to ephrat and I buried her there on the road to afat which is ble raal was buried in Israel but she was not buried in any um Town not in a cemetery she was just buried on a road so he's saying to ysep ysf I'm asking you to carry me all the way from Egypt toon and I didn't carry ra from toon which is much closer and that is because we were on a road and it would be very difficult for me to go toon to bury her we have a rule that you do not postpone unnecessarily the burial of of deceased so yakob said to ysf I couldn't delay rael's burial I had to bury her right away and we were on the road uh we couldn't take time to divert even a little bit to uh town and plus um we know that there is another reason for ra being buried on the road because when the Jewish people will be exiled by the Babylonians after the the destruction of the first temple they will be walking on the road and they will pass uh the grave of Rael and they will cry to her and she will come and comfort them she will come out and and reassure the Jewish people and she will pray to Hashem to bring them back and that's what happened Jewish people came back after 70 years of Babylonian exile now verse eight then Israel saw yosef's sons and he said who are these we know that that Yakov uh couldn't see so well the par is going to tell us about it so he saw just the the shape of two people but he didn't recognize ephra and Mas according to midash he felt that some evil is going to come out of them in the future and yes um two two evil kings came one from ephra one from Mas so he was asking are these really your children I feel something negative from them and verse 9 and ysph said to his father they are my sons whom God has given to me me here in Egypt and yob said bring them to me if you please and I will bless them and now Torah tells us that yakob cannot see well in verse 10 Israel's eyes were heavy with age he couldn't see so well so he brought them near him and he kissed them and he huged hugged them and Israel said to yoseph I Dar not accept the thought that I would see your face and here God has shown me even your Offspring Yakov is is very happy that after 22 years of U mourning for ysep not only he saw ysep but now he sees his adult children and he can bless them and give them the status of full tribes now page 273 ysph then removed them from his knees and he prostrated himself with his face toward the ground here ysep bows down to yakob ysep took the two of them Ephraim in his right hand to Israel's his father's left hand and Minasha with his left to Israel's right and he drew close to [Music] him since Masha is the firstborn he is older y ysph wants him to be on the right hand of his father to receive the the the greater blessing verse 14 but Israel extended his right hand and laid it on ephraim's head though he was the younger and his left hand on masha's head he maneuvered his hands although Minasha was the firstborn and he blessed yoseph and said oh God before whom my forefathers Abraham and it walked God who Shepherds me from my Inception until this day and here come the famous words of the song the beautiful blessing may the angel who redeems me from all evil bless the lands and may my name be declared upon them and the names of my forefathers Abraham and yak and may they proliferate abundantly like fish within the land may they have many children like fish but on the ground the Jewish people are compared to fish because fish have a lot of uh babies and also fish are hidden underwater away from a har from evil eye so to the Jewish people are blessed with a lot of children and the Jewish people are above the eye but just like fish we have to be hidden the fish are hidden under water