Vayechi: The perpetual bond
Rav Johnny's original thoughts on the weekly parsha
In his opening remark to this week’s Torah portion of Parshat Vayechi, Rashi – quoting the Midrash Rabbah – states a truth that has been the lifeline of the Jewish people throughout our history.
As you may know, when a Torah scroll is written by a sofer (scribe), a large blank space is left between each parasha to physically indicate the end of one portion and the beginning of another. However, this is not the case with Parshat Vayechi which is separated from Parshat Vayigash with the space of just a single letter. Rather than being framed by gaps (which are referred to as ‘openings’) to suggest its independence, Parshat Vayechi is ‘closed’ (setuma), and it remains visibly connected to the previous parsha. The question asked by the Midrash and repeated by Rashi is: why is this so?
The answer given by the Midrash relates to the major narrative of Parshat Vayechi which describes the death of Yaakov. Accordingly, ‘once our forefather Yaakov died, the eyes and heart of Israel were ‘closed’ due to the suffering and enslavement that begin soon after [his death]’. What this suggests is that the death of Yaakov indicated a transition in the happiness and independence of this family who soon became enslaved by the Egyptians.
However, I recently saw a beautiful explanation of these words; one which Rabbi Isaac Bernstein describes as being ‘a most original, poetic and majestic interpretation of Rashi’s comment’, which can be found in the collection of essays of Rabbi Meir Yechiel, the Ostrowczer Rebbe titled ‘Sefer Meir Eynei Chachamim’. Here is how Rabbi Bernstein summarized this explanation, as faithfully transcribed by David Cohen in ‘Gevurot Yitzchak: Insights into the Parshiot by Rabbi Isaac Bernstein zt’l’. Please note that Rabbi Meir Yechiel lived in Poland from between 1852-1928 before the State of Israel was established, and that his love of Israel was so great that he would send part of his salary to the needy in Israel:
‘It would be quite impossible for us, the Jewish people, to bear the harsh yoke of exile were it not for the cherished memories of our land, Eretz Yisrael, where we used to live centuries ago. For it is on the basis of those memories that we dare to entertain the hope that the Almighty will, in His mercy, one day restore us to that land permanently. Galut (exile) is therefore but a station, rather than a destination. In Parshat Vayigash we still find Yaakov residing in Eretz Yisrael, and in Parshat Shemot, although the bondage is at its height, we can already perceive the faint glimmerings of the anticipated redemption. Only in Vayechi is the exile total, for the parsha both commences and concludes with Yaakov’s descendants in Egypt. If Parshat Vayechi were ‘open’, in the sense of being separated from Vayigash in the Sefer Torah in the conventional manner, that would symbolize Jewish destiny in exile being permanently severed from any links to the Holy Land. Now, however, that these two Sidrot are connected, we still retain that vital link with Eretz Yisrael which greatly mitigates the bitterness of the galut, and without which our plight would be far more desperate and intolerable than anything we have actually experienced throughout the millennia.’
What this teaches us is that the structure of Parshat Vayechi, in terms of its physical bond to Parshat Vayigash in a Sefer Torah, expresses the manner in which Jews, wherever we have lived, have felt an inextricable bond to the land of Israel such that even when we were physically far away from the land, we remained connected to the land.
Admittedly, while this was always known to me in theory, the past 84 days have highlighted and strengthened this bond in a way that I’ve not seen in any comparative way in my lifetime. Jews who until now have dismissed their connection to Israel or even to Judaism, or who have learnt little or nothing of Judaism, or who have not visited to learnt about Israel, have now acknowledged their Jewish identity and their connection to their ancestral homeland. Given all this, what we learn from Parshat Vayechi is that the Jew in exile is never truly exiled, and this is because to be a Jew is to be continually connected to the land and people of Israel.
Shabbat Shalom!
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