?And they lived happily ever after.?
These words mark the end of most storybooks of old. The Torah, although not a storybook, has a rule that its divisions always ends on a positive note. This week we will be reading parshat Vayechi, and with that, we will finish the entire book of Bereishit. We end off with the words: ?Yosef died at 110 years old? and was put in a coffin in Egypt.? Why couldn?t the Torah stop a little earlier, where it said that Yosef merited seeing his great-great grandchildren? This question is especially relevant when we take into account that in the beginning of next week?s parsha we will be reading again that Yosef and his entire generation had died.
There is also a rule in the Torah that the beginning and end of each book is connected. What is the connection here? First let?s take a look at the beginning: ?In the beginning Hashem created the heavens and the earth.? Rashi comments, in the name of Rabbi Yitschak: The Torah should have really started with the first commandment. The reason that we start with a history lesson is to counter the nations of the world who claim, ?You are thieves. You stole the land (of Israel) from us!? The answer we should give them is, ?Hashem created it, gave it to you, took it away from you and gave it to us.? It is a little bit hard to believe that an entire book of the Torah was only written to be able to answer non-Jews. It certainly wouldn?t be the beginning (and therefore most important) part of the Torah. We must conclude, therefore, that it has a lesson for all of us too.
What is the claim of the nations against us? They recognize us as the chosen nation. Since we are a holy people, they say, we must be completely given over to spiritual matters and shouldn?t have anything to do with the world. Therefore the Jewish people, because they are special, cannot have their own land. Yet, the opposite is true. The earth was made by Hashem, too. He gave us the physical world to elevate it and make it into a holy land. He could have given us Israel in the first place. He gave it to another nation first, to teach us that it is up to us to transform land that had previously not been holy into something special and imbue it with holiness.
It is interesting to note that in the commentary all of the nations come with this claim, even though we only took Israel away from seven nations that dwelled there. The reason why the Jewish people live spread out over the world is to make the entire world holy. We also know that when Moshiach comes Israel will expand into the entire world. Everyone in his own place has the obligation to make his surroundings holier by learning Torah and doing mitzvot. By every mitzvah we do, we make our land, whether it is the USA or Pakistan, a holy land and bring the world one step closer to Moshiach.
Now, let?s take a closer look at the relationship between the two books, Bereishit and Shemot. Bereishit speaks about the early history and background of the Jewish people. Shemot speaks about how the Jewish people became a nation. The way the Torah splits the two books is seemingly very strange. Shemot starts by giving an account of Yakov and his family descending to Egypt, which we know about already from the middle of last week?s parsha, Vayigash. Either it should have started from when we left Egypt as a nation, or it should have started when Yakov moved to Egypt.
Shemot is the story of how we became a nation. The purpose of us becoming a nation was to receive the Torah. Nevertheless, we start Shemot with the story of the slavery in Egypt, which started when Yakov moved his family there. Our purpose is to work in this world to make it holy. We received the Torah as a result of our slavery and hard labor in Egypt. Our sages tell us that when we took all the silver and gold from Egypt, we took all the holiness that was hidden in the physical and elevated it. Dealing with the physical world and imbuing it with spirituality - that is what makes us the chosen people. In other words, the slavery is what made us worthy of becoming the chosen nation.
In order to give us the strength to do all that work, our forefathers prepared us. That is what we read about in the book of Bereishit. Our claim to the land (also meaning the spiritual within this world) is based on the promise Hashem made to Avraham, Yitschak and Yakov. Our ability to stand strong against all outside forces we inherited from them.
Until the moment Yakov came to Egypt, there was a drought there. It was after he blessed Pharaoh that the Nile River would rise up to Pharaoh and water the land. Yosef, as viceroy of Egypt, fed the entire world at that time. The whole world knew that nature did what Yakov and his children demanded from it. They stood above the limitations of the world, because they were totally connected to Hashem, creator of nature.
This is the beginning and end of Bereishit and the theme that goes through the whole book. We finish Bereishit with the final preparation for the exile next week in Shemot. Yosef tells us that we will be redeemed: ?Hashem will surely take you out,? (lit., bring you up) he says. The purpose of the exile, then and now, is to deal with the world in order to bring it to a higher level. The strength to be able to do that we get from our forefathers, but especially from Yosef, who stayed with us in a coffin in Egypt. This is not ending on a negative note. On the contrary. It is the strength we have to stand stronger than the world.
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Asher ben Shimon writes commentary for www.TorahThoughts.tk.
These words mark the end of most storybooks of old. The Torah, although not a storybook, has a rule that its divisions always ends on a positive note. This week we will be reading parshat Vayechi, and with that, we will finish the entire book of Bereishit. We end off with the words: ?Yosef died at 110 years old? and was put in a coffin in Egypt.? Why couldn?t the Torah stop a little earlier, where it said that Yosef merited seeing his great-great grandchildren? This question is especially relevant when we take into account that in the beginning of next week?s parsha we will be reading again that Yosef and his entire generation had died.
There is also a rule in the Torah that the beginning and end of each book is connected. What is the connection here? First let?s take a look at the beginning: ?In the beginning Hashem created the heavens and the earth.? Rashi comments, in the name of Rabbi Yitschak: The Torah should have really started with the first commandment. The reason that we start with a history lesson is to counter the nations of the world who claim, ?You are thieves. You stole the land (of Israel) from us!? The answer we should give them is, ?Hashem created it, gave it to you, took it away from you and gave it to us.? It is a little bit hard to believe that an entire book of the Torah was only written to be able to answer non-Jews. It certainly wouldn?t be the beginning (and therefore most important) part of the Torah. We must conclude, therefore, that it has a lesson for all of us too.
What is the claim of the nations against us? They recognize us as the chosen nation. Since we are a holy people, they say, we must be completely given over to spiritual matters and shouldn?t have anything to do with the world. Therefore the Jewish people, because they are special, cannot have their own land. Yet, the opposite is true. The earth was made by Hashem, too. He gave us the physical world to elevate it and make it into a holy land. He could have given us Israel in the first place. He gave it to another nation first, to teach us that it is up to us to transform land that had previously not been holy into something special and imbue it with holiness.
It is interesting to note that in the commentary all of the nations come with this claim, even though we only took Israel away from seven nations that dwelled there. The reason why the Jewish people live spread out over the world is to make the entire world holy. We also know that when Moshiach comes Israel will expand into the entire world. Everyone in his own place has the obligation to make his surroundings holier by learning Torah and doing mitzvot. By every mitzvah we do, we make our land, whether it is the USA or Pakistan, a holy land and bring the world one step closer to Moshiach.
Now, let?s take a closer look at the relationship between the two books, Bereishit and Shemot. Bereishit speaks about the early history and background of the Jewish people. Shemot speaks about how the Jewish people became a nation. The way the Torah splits the two books is seemingly very strange. Shemot starts by giving an account of Yakov and his family descending to Egypt, which we know about already from the middle of last week?s parsha, Vayigash. Either it should have started from when we left Egypt as a nation, or it should have started when Yakov moved to Egypt.
Shemot is the story of how we became a nation. The purpose of us becoming a nation was to receive the Torah. Nevertheless, we start Shemot with the story of the slavery in Egypt, which started when Yakov moved his family there. Our purpose is to work in this world to make it holy. We received the Torah as a result of our slavery and hard labor in Egypt. Our sages tell us that when we took all the silver and gold from Egypt, we took all the holiness that was hidden in the physical and elevated it. Dealing with the physical world and imbuing it with spirituality - that is what makes us the chosen people. In other words, the slavery is what made us worthy of becoming the chosen nation.
In order to give us the strength to do all that work, our forefathers prepared us. That is what we read about in the book of Bereishit. Our claim to the land (also meaning the spiritual within this world) is based on the promise Hashem made to Avraham, Yitschak and Yakov. Our ability to stand strong against all outside forces we inherited from them.
Until the moment Yakov came to Egypt, there was a drought there. It was after he blessed Pharaoh that the Nile River would rise up to Pharaoh and water the land. Yosef, as viceroy of Egypt, fed the entire world at that time. The whole world knew that nature did what Yakov and his children demanded from it. They stood above the limitations of the world, because they were totally connected to Hashem, creator of nature.
This is the beginning and end of Bereishit and the theme that goes through the whole book. We finish Bereishit with the final preparation for the exile next week in Shemot. Yosef tells us that we will be redeemed: ?Hashem will surely take you out,? (lit., bring you up) he says. The purpose of the exile, then and now, is to deal with the world in order to bring it to a higher level. The strength to be able to do that we get from our forefathers, but especially from Yosef, who stayed with us in a coffin in Egypt. This is not ending on a negative note. On the contrary. It is the strength we have to stand stronger than the world.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Asher ben Shimon writes commentary for www.TorahThoughts.tk.