Weekly Torah Lesson
Parasha: va Yechi and he lived
Torah: Bereishit 47:28 – 50:26
This seventeen year saga in the life of our father, Ya’akov, helps us to understand the “power” of a promise when the source of that promise is Avinu.
Ya’akov is one hundred and thirty years old when he receives the news that his son, Yosef, is not only alive but is the second in command of Mitzryim. Being determined to see his son before he dies, Ya’akov packs up his entire family and heads South to the Northern frontier of Mitzryim. His last stop in Canaan is a lonely outpost on the southern tip of a vast desert / wilderness.
Here is what happened:
1 And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices (peace offerings) to the Elohim of his father Isaac. 2 And Elohim spoke to Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Ya’akov, Ya’akov. And he said, Here am I. 3 And he said, I am Elohim, the Elohim of your father: fear not to go down into Mitzryim; for I will there make of you a great nation: 4 I will go down with you into Mitzryim; and I will also surely bring you up again: and Yosef shall put his hand on your eyes. (Bereishit 46:1-4)
Avinu’s promise lacks detail but Ya’akov knows that he can trust whatever promise that Avinu makes. Ya’akov finally meets his estranged son, Yosef, and settles in to a comfortable life in Goshen, a fertile territory of Mitzryim.
Seventeen years later we pick up the story:
28 And Ya’akov lived in the land of Mitzryim seventeen years: so the whole age of Ya’akov was an hundred forty and seven years. 29 And the time drew near that Israel must die: and he called his son Yosef, and said to him, If now I have found grace in your sight, put, I pray you, your hand under my thigh, and deal kindly and truly with me; bury me not, I pray you, in Mitzryim: 30 But I will lie with my fathers, and you shall carry me out of Mitzryim, and bury me in their burial plot. And he said, I will do as you have said. 31 And he said, Swear to me. And he swore to him. And Israel bowed himself on the bed’s head. (Bereishit 47:28-31)
28 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this is it that their father spoke to them, and blessed them; every one according to his blessing he blessed them. 29 And he charged them, and said to them, I am to be gathered to my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, 30 In the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Avraham bought with the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burial plot. 31 There they buried Avraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Yitzchak and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah. 32 The purchase of the field and of the cave that is therein was from the children of Heth. 33 And when Ya’akov had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered to his people. (Bereishit 49:28-33)
1 And Yosef fell on his father’s face, and wept on him, and kissed him. 2 And Yosef commanded his servants the physicians to embalm his father: and the physicians embalmed Israel. 3 And forty days were fulfilled for him; for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed: and the Mitzryimians mourned for him three score and ten days. 4 And when the days of his mourning were past, Yosef spoke to the house of Pharaoh, saying, If now I have found grace in your eyes, speak, I pray you, in the ears of Pharaoh, saying, 5 My father made me swear, saying, See, I die: in my grave which I have dig for me in the land of Canaan, there shall you bury me. Now therefore let me go up, I pray you, and bury my father, and I will come again. 6 And Pharaoh said, Go up, and bury your father, according as he made you swear. 7 And Yosef went up to bury his father: and with him went up all the servants of Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Mitzryim, 8 And all the house of Yosef, and his brothers, and his father’s house: only their little ones, and their flocks, and their herds, they left in the land of Goshen. 9 And there went up with him both chariots and horsemen: and it was a very great company. 10 And they came to the threshing floor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days. 11 And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Mitzryimians: why the name of it was called Abelmizraim, which is beyond Jordan. 12 And his sons did to him according as he commanded them: 13 For his sons carried him into the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Avraham bought with the field for a possession of a burial plot of Ephron the Hittite, before Mamre. 14 And Yosef returned into Mitzryim, he, and his brothers, and all that went up with him to bury his father, after he had buried his father. (Bereishit 50:1-14)
In some circles, the world that we are living in today is referred to as “Egypt (Mitzryim). Now think about the promise:
And Elohim spoke to Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Ya’akov, Ya’akov. And he said, Here am I. 3 And he said, I am Elohim, the Elohim of your father: fear not to go down into Mitzryim; for I will there make of you a great nation: 4 I will go down with you into Mitzryim; and I will also surely bring you up again: (Bereishit 46:2-4)
I believe that He is with us “in Egypt” and that He will bring us out of this “Egypt” in His time.
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