Parshat Vayechi
Jacob lives the final 17 years of his
life in Egypt. Before his passing, he asks
Joseph to take an oath that he will
bury him in the
Holy Land. He blesses Joseph's two sons,
Manasseh and
Ephraim, elevating them to the status of his own sons as progenitors of
tribes within the nation of Israel.
The patriarch desires to reveal the
end of days to his children, but is
prevented from doing so. Jacob blesses his sons, assigning to each his role as a tribe:
Judah will produce leaders, legislators and kings; priests will come from
Levi, scholars from
Issachar, seafarers from
Zebulun, schoolteachers from
Shimon, soldiers from
Gad, judges from
Dan, olive growers from
Asher, and so on.
Reuben is rebuked for "confusing his father's marriage"; Shimon and Levi for the massacre of Shechem and the plot against Joseph.
Naphtali is granted the swiftness of a deer,
Benjamin the ferociousness of a wolf, and Joseph is blessed with
beauty and
fertility.
A large funeral procession consisting of Jacob's descendants, Pharaoh's ministers, the leading citizens of Egypt and the Egyptian cavalry accompanies Jacob on his final journey to the Holy Land, where he is
buried in the Machpeilah Cave in
Hebron.
Joseph, too, dies in Egypt, at the age of 110. He, too, instructs that his
bones be taken out of Egypt and buried in the Holy Land, but this would come to pass only with the Israelites' Exodus from Egypt many years later. Before his passing, Joseph conveys to the Children of Israel the testament from which they will draw their hope and faith in the difficult years to come: "G‑d will surely
remember you, and bring you up out of this land to the land of which He swore to
Abraham,
Isaac and
Jacob."
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