{"id":337,"date":"2013-12-15T16:51:53","date_gmt":"2013-12-15T16:51:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marcmangel.net\/?page_id=337"},"modified":"2013-12-15T16:51:53","modified_gmt":"2013-12-15T16:51:53","slug":"vayechi-5774-2013","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/?page_id=337","title":{"rendered":"VaYechi 5774 (2013)"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Drash for Va-Yechi 5774 (2013)<\/strong><\/p>\n

by Marc Mangel<\/p>\n

\u2022 Blessings, part 1: Israel [the God-wrestler] tells Joseph to bring his (Joseph\u2019s) sons to him so that he (Israel) can bless them [Ch 48, v 9]. \u00a0It worked ( vs 10-20), with the exception of a disagreement about who should be blessed first<\/p>\n

\u2022 Blessings, part 2: Jacob [the materialistic not always mature person] calls his sons together\u00a0 as he is dying.\u00a0 The Rabbis [Pesachim 56b] say that Jacob was afraid that his sons would not continue to worship God, but they said \u201cShma Yisrael\u2026\u201d to which he responded \u201cBaruch shem kvod\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 Jacob plans \u00a0to tell them \u2018what will happen at the end of days\u2019 (Ch 49, v1), but then he gives them \u2018blessings\u2019 (some are not very nice \u2013 Shimon and Levi are partners in crime) and says nothing about the end of days.\u00a0 What happened?<\/p>\n

\u2022 Rabbis also say that God did not want Jacob to divulge what would happen at the end of days \u2013 when the Masiach comes \u2013 so God withdrew from Jacob\/withdrew the gift of prophecy from him.<\/p>\n

\u2022 What would be wrong with knowing when Masiach is coming?<\/p>\n

\u2022 Well, if we know if Masiach is coming on a particular day, why bother to try to do anything to hasten it \u2013 Masiach is coming no matter what.\u00a0 Doing nothing for the wrong reason.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Alternatively, knowing when Masiach will come will likely cause people to redouble their efforts to accrue merit through mitzvot so that they are higher in the world to come.\u00a0 Doing the right thing for the wrong reason.<\/p>\n

\u2022 We need to do the right thing \u2013 mitzvot \u2013 for the right reason \u2013 to discover our distinct portion of the world that we are obligated to refine during our life and work at illuminating it, because as we do this we bring the coming of the Masiach closer, even if we don\u2019t know when that is.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Shalom Hanoch told us many years ago \u201cMasiach lo ba, hu gam lo metalfen\u201d. That\u2019s the way it should be. And we should just keep at making this world a dwelling place for God.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Drash for Va-Yechi 5774 (2013) by Marc Mangel \u2022 Blessings, part 1: Israel [the God-wrestler] tells Joseph to bring his (Joseph\u2019s) sons to him so that he (Israel) can bless them [Ch 48, v 9]. \u00a0It worked ( vs 10-20), with the exception of a disagreement about who should be blessed first \u2022 Blessings, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":51,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"full-width-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-337","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":338,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/337\/revisions\/338"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/51"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}