{"id":393,"date":"2014-02-13T01:37:15","date_gmt":"2014-02-13T01:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marcmangel.net\/?page_id=393"},"modified":"2014-02-13T01:37:51","modified_gmt":"2014-02-13T01:37:51","slug":"393-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/?page_id=393","title":{"rendered":"VaYechi (5768)"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Drash for VaYechi \u00a0(5768\/2007)<\/strong><\/p>\n

by Marc Mangel<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s parsha is about the death of Jacob.\u00a0 And yet it begins with the words \u201cJacob lived\u201d whereas it could have begun with \u201cAnd Jacob died in Egypt, after being there seventeen years\u201d.\u00a0 We are given extraordinary detail about the death of Jacob.\u00a0 Perhaps this is because Jacob is the only of the Patriachs to die on foreign soil.\u00a0 Perhaps because we are the Children of Israel and he is our role model.<\/span><\/p>\n

We experienced the same pattern in the parsha about the death of Sarah, which is called \u201cChayei Sarah\u201d \u2013 Sarah\u2019s lifetime?<\/span><\/p>\n

What is the Torah teaching us here?\u00a0 That what matters is how we lead our lives. Indeed, we can choose how to lead our lives, but not how we die. We can choose how we respond to situations, but often not the situation.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the course of this parsha, he is still referred to sometimes as Jacob and sometimes as Israel.\u00a0 What are we to learn from this?\u00a0 Reb Bachya, in Snai Luchot HaBrit, says that even at the end of his life, the Divine presence could leave Israel and he would revert to Jacob.\u00a0 This was a person who had to struggle to maintain connection with the divine, very much unlike his grandfather Abraham for whom the Divine presence was always\u00a0present.<\/p>\n

In Pesachim, it is taught that Jacob says \u201cShma Yisrael…\u201d and his sons respond \u201cBaruch Shem\u2026\u201d\u00a0 About this teaching, Reb Moshe Feinstein, a modern Orthodox rabbi, notes that \u201cBaruch shem \u2026\u201d is said when we need to strengthen our faith and that we whisper it because we are embarrassed to announce out loud a temporary lapse of faith.<\/span><\/p>\n

But should we be ashamed?\u00a0 The lesson of this parsha about how to lead our lives can be seen by taking these two comments together:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u2022\u00a0 It is hard to keep the Divine presence with us<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2022 It is common to need to strengthen our faith<\/p>\n

In \u201cNatan Der Wise\u201d, a play about a Jewish advisor in the Ottoman court, Lessing wrote that \u201cthe search for truth is more important and its possession\u201d. This was one of Einstein\u2019s favorite sayings.<\/p>\n

Perhaps lesson of Jacob\u2019s life is that the struggle to keep the Divine presence with us is more important than its possession.<\/span><\/p>\n

Reb Faitel Levin, in his book about the philosophy of the Rebbe, writes that \u201cman\u2019s particular greatness lies in engaging, not escaping the indifferent physical world into which he is created, and transforming it into a Dwelling Place for God\u201d.<\/p>\n

May we all be like Jacob.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

A Drash for VaYechi \u00a0(5768\/2007) by Marc Mangel This week\u2019s parsha is about the death of Jacob.\u00a0 And yet it begins with the words \u201cJacob lived\u201d whereas it could have begun with \u201cAnd Jacob died in Egypt, after being there seventeen years\u201d.\u00a0 We are given extraordinary detail about the death of Jacob.\u00a0 Perhaps this is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":53,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"full-width-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-393","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/393","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=393"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":395,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/393\/revisions\/395"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcmangel.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}