Thursday, December 12, 2013
Parshas Vayechi: Exile is a Terrible Thing!
11:56 PM | 
Posted by
Rabbi Chaim Coffman |
"And Yaakov lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years so the whole age of Yaakov was a hundred and forty-seven years" (Genesis 48:28)
Rashi asks why this parsha is considered a closed one. He answers that Yaakov's eyes were closed as well as the hearts of the Jewish people due to the pain and suffering of the servitude in Egypt. Rav Moshe Feinstein in Derash Moshe asks how this can be if Yaakov was still alive and the servitude in Egypt only began when Yosef and the brothers died?
The reason Rav Moshe answers is although they were in exile living under the good conditions set up by Pharaoh, they did not feel that the exile was bad. Since they were dependent on Pharaoh and the Egyptians for their good fortune, isn't this the worst type of exile that exists?
Had they felt the exile as a terrible thing, the eyes of Yaakov would not have been dimmed because of their suffering at the hands of the Egyptians. After Yaakov died things changed as they saw that they did not have the same goodness from the Egyptians as had been before!
We can take a great lesson from what Rav Moshe is telling us. Even if we live in a country that grants us the greatest freedom to have Yeshivas, girl schools, kosher food and the like, we are still beholden to that place. We even feel comfortable in such a place and forget that we are still suffering this bitter exile we find ourselves in!
We are not looking for pogroms or anti-semetism G-d forbid against the Jewish people but when we think we fit into that society and want to partake of the customs of that society, it is a recipe for disaster. As we have witnessed over the millennium, the more the Jewish people integrated into their society, the more the non-Jews around them hated them more
We are forced to live in certain societies and be part of them for livelihood...but at the same time we have to recognize that we are guests there. The problem is that we don't feel the exile and live it up too well in our country of residence!
When we feel too comfortable that is usually the time that the tide turns against us and we are forced to realize the bitterness of our exile. May we learn this lesson through keeping Torah and mitzvos and growing closer to G-d rather than through pogroms and the anti-Semites!
Shabbat Shalom
Rashi asks why this parsha is considered a closed one. He answers that Yaakov's eyes were closed as well as the hearts of the Jewish people due to the pain and suffering of the servitude in Egypt. Rav Moshe Feinstein in Derash Moshe asks how this can be if Yaakov was still alive and the servitude in Egypt only began when Yosef and the brothers died?
The reason Rav Moshe answers is although they were in exile living under the good conditions set up by Pharaoh, they did not feel that the exile was bad. Since they were dependent on Pharaoh and the Egyptians for their good fortune, isn't this the worst type of exile that exists?
Had they felt the exile as a terrible thing, the eyes of Yaakov would not have been dimmed because of their suffering at the hands of the Egyptians. After Yaakov died things changed as they saw that they did not have the same goodness from the Egyptians as had been before!
We can take a great lesson from what Rav Moshe is telling us. Even if we live in a country that grants us the greatest freedom to have Yeshivas, girl schools, kosher food and the like, we are still beholden to that place. We even feel comfortable in such a place and forget that we are still suffering this bitter exile we find ourselves in!
We are not looking for pogroms or anti-semetism G-d forbid against the Jewish people but when we think we fit into that society and want to partake of the customs of that society, it is a recipe for disaster. As we have witnessed over the millennium, the more the Jewish people integrated into their society, the more the non-Jews around them hated them more
We are forced to live in certain societies and be part of them for livelihood...but at the same time we have to recognize that we are guests there. The problem is that we don't feel the exile and live it up too well in our country of residence!
When we feel too comfortable that is usually the time that the tide turns against us and we are forced to realize the bitterness of our exile. May we learn this lesson through keeping Torah and mitzvos and growing closer to G-d rather than through pogroms and the anti-Semites!
Shabbat Shalom
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