Jan 14/06 - Shabbat Veyechi

Commentary by Chazzan Aníbal Mass

This week we read a very interesting and special Parashah: “Veyechi”—“He Lived”. I say special because it’s the last Parashah of the book of Genesis and is the introduction to the era of slavery and the story of the Exodus. It basically tells the history of Yaakov in Egypt and his re-encounter with Joseph, his beloved son; but it also relates to us the deaths of Yaakov and Joseph.

There are two Parshiot in the Torah, “Chaya Sara” and “Veyechi”, in which the word “life” is part of the name. But paradoxically, in these two Parshiot the main characters die. How it is possible that the Torah can talk about life at the moment of such important deaths?

The fact is that we can really appreciate a life, anyone’s life, only at the end of it. However, not only are the patriarchs’ lives examples for our lives, but so are their deaths. For instance, when Abraham dies, the Torah uses two words to define the situation: “vaikva” (he passed away), and “vaiamot” (he died). The exact same words are used to describe the death of Isaac. But in the case of Yaakov, it only says “vaikva” and not “vaiamot”. To explain this difference, two Rabbis had the following conversation in the Talmud:

Rabbi Yochanan said:
Our father Yaakov is not dead.
Rabbi Nachman replied:
But according to the Torah he was mourned, prepared for eternal rest and buried.
Rabbi Yochanan replied:
As Yaakov’s children are alive, he is alive too.

This doesn’t mean that he didn’t die in the physical sense (for that reason it says “vaikva”), but we are called “Children of Israel (Yaakov)”, and being Jewish is giving him life through our lives.

There is a question that Joseph asks his brothers when he reveals his real identity to them: “Od avinu chai?”—“Is our father still alive?” And this is the same question and challenge for our time. Is the tradition of our fathers still alive and present in our lives? Do we continue giving life to Yaakov’s teaching? Are we still “B’nai Israel”—“Children of Israel”?

So, we already know that we have a physical life, but are we conscious that we also have to develop and strengthen our spiritual life—the real life that will be present in our own children and the children of our children forever? The sad side of death is not the physical death, but what dies in us while we are still alive. We are called to live a life of meaning, combining the physical world and the spiritual world in the way that our patriarchs lived their lives. A life of Mitzvot and Torah is a guarantee of continuation.

I have heard people say, “If we survived the Holocaust and the Inquisition, nothing will be able to destroy us.” However, every day more sociologists and Jewish historians assure us that if we continue living a life with no connection to our past and tradition, we can’t survive as “Children of Israel”.

So I want to ask you: “Od avinu chai?”—is Judaism still alive in your life?—because our future relies on the way we answer this question.

Shabbat shalom.