Vayechi - Revealing the End of Days

you're listening to the weekly partial podcast with our goldwag recording with hashem's never earning assistance in romapi championship israel 5782 2021 this week's parasha is practiced by it's the final part of kazakhstan the final parsha of save fabricious the book of genesis and we go out with a bang from the book of genesis with the brachus of jacob avenue jacob's blessings to his sons the tribes the very last years the last 17 years of yaakov avenue's life and the plastic tells us he lived those last 17 years he had sought 22 years before he had sought to live a life of serenity because only at this point in his in his life the last 17 years of his life did he sit nearby he had his son yo safe his sons had reconciled the jewish people was now beginning to take shape and they were in egypt and they had a plentiful life they had all that they needed and yaakov avinu indeed had these last 17 years of serenity the message tells us as follows and some of this will sound familiar however i'd like to ask a few questions about this try to understand something that's something very powerful which the message teaches us it's a very famous issue rashi brings it up usually between the parachute between the sections of the torah so you have a space between the parties you start a new parish told us you start a new parsha there's a space in the torah itself if you look at the torah scroll there's a space between the parshas but if you look in a torah scroll our parsha begins without a space he lives in the land of egypt for 17 years so the pasuk continues on from the end of the of parshas without any break so whenever we have something like this in the torah something unusual whether it's something based on the messora or something from our from our sages so we need to know obviously there's a reason why it was done this way there's a reason the torah is written this way our torah is written it's letter for letter precisely as was written 3 300 years ago by god himself mount sinai by moshe rabbenu by moses you know hashem communicated it through him so if it's written this way we need to understand why so why is it written this way why is it closed why is the connection closed between the end of the last week's partial beginning of this week's pressure so the metric offers us three different possibilities as to why that might be why we could how we could explain it one aspect of the closing and the reason that it's closed is because the parsha our parsha is going to describe the death of yaakov avinu and once jacob died once he passed down from the world so the the sheba mitzrayim could begin as an abortion point out it didn't actually begin until all the 70 that came down with yaakov the brothers their children those seven you came down with yakub after all of them died that's when the the sheba the um in slavery the fact that the jews were enslaved that's when it began but there is a beginning here with yaakov's death that's why it's assumed something that's only that's closed you know ordinarily as our sages tell us when there's a space in the torah it's because god taught a certain concept to moshe rabbeim to moses and he wanted him to to pause to reflect and when we read the torah we're supposed to pause and reflect on the concept here but there's a the the closure the fact that there's no pause there's not a moment we think about what does it mean to become modern to be enslaved to power it means that it's something that the way the sahara gets us the evil inclination how does he get us how did power how is he able to and save the jewish people it was without giving them a space for pause perhaps we could explain it that way so that's the first explanation and i'm a fortunate point out that in this explanation on the next one yaakov in this puzzle is not dying yet talking about the fact that he lived another 17 years and he's going to call on his sons he's going to call in yosef efraim and menasha give them blessings he calls in his sons and he blesses them all but this is the beginning of the end that we can certainly say and that's that's in the push-up shot but i'd like to understand on a deeper level as well what is the idea if we're not talking about his death why are we talking about his death clearly the magician is saying that this is closed over here because he's about to die and the sheba is about to begin what is it what is the teaching here second point lama histuma why indeed is it closed why is there no space between the end of aigas and the beginning of the case this is the famous reason yaakov wanted to reveal the end when meshiach is going to come or maybe when me when the ghoulism is trying to supposed to occur the jewish people knew that they were supposed to be there in fact ahmadinew was told they would be there for 400 years when do you start counting the 400 years from well might say they were only there for 210 years et cetera yaakov wanted to reveal when the end was going to come maybe the end of shibu mitzvah maybe the end of the entire gulas when when the third temple would be built not clear exactly what he wanted to reveal but it was nistamimenu the fact that the torah is closed here the fact that there's no space between departures means that he wasn't able to reveal it the question we could ask is why did he want to reveal it at this point also he's not yet dying it's talking about as we said it's not yet he's not yet dying he's dying 17 years after this so what is the idea or sometime after this what is the idea of him desiring to reveal the case to reveal the end in this context and the third explanation which is one that i don't remember hearing so something new something new for me maybe it's new for you and this is the one that makes sense at this point according to one explanation this this point in time as he came down to misraim and he rejoined with his son yosef all the brothers were together again they lived in the land of goshen in tranquility and peace serenity those last 17 years of his life were the end of his troubles he no longer had any difficulties he lived finally at the end of his life less 17 years from the age of 130 to 147 he lived a life of serenity surrounded by his sons yosef was the leader his grandchildren they lived in their own space in the hearts goshen they were able to develop as a nation spiritually studying the torah etc so because the difficulties ended it's it's signified by the fact that there's no space between the end of last week's prussian beginning of this week's parsha because finally yakov reached that that place that emotional spiritual place where he could indeed enjoy the fruits of his whole life his life of challenges finally the challenges came to an end now these three in the three explanations of the major seem to be just three different disjointed explanations but i'd like to try to understand how perhaps they are related how perhaps they are conjoined now i want to read one more piece and that's the next piece in the magis and it speaks about something very important and i'd like to perhaps once we understand this point we can understand the entire idea the message is the days of israel came to die yaakov was called israel he was called israel it was coming close his death was coming near here the verse says refers to the fact that that we are like strangers in the land human beings our life is limited we live on the earth we have a certain amount of time that's allotted to us that we live and that's it catsail you may know our days are like a shadow says the mesheville of i could see and we can't even say that where our days are like the shadow of a wall or the shadow of a tree which is pretty yet it's pretty stable and i could see this you off we are just like our lives are just like the shadow of a bird that's flying by it's just it's it's there for a moment and it's gone the civ could sail over like the verse says into him and we quote this verse in in the yom kippur davening we refer to our lives like like a cloud that dissipates like a wind that blows that's how our you know a person's life is quick a person's life how long are we here for how permanent are our accomplishments main mikveh the end of the verse says there's no hope [Music] no one can hope not to die everyone knows where they're headed i call you remember everyone can admit that they're going to die now the measure says that there were three we had the of this island when it came to speaking about that so avraham doesn't want to talk about death he refers to the fact before yitzhak is born he refers to the fact that he is going childless he's going to die he doesn't refer he doesn't mention the fact that he's going to die he doesn't want to say i'm going to die a child is heaven forbid right but he mentions the fact that he's going to that he's childless he says i will bless you in front of hashem before i die right so yitzhak also it actually turned out to be quite some time before he would pass away when he gave the blessings to asav and yaakov but he doesn't refer to the fact that he's going to die he says i want to bless you before i die doesn't refer to the fact that he is going to die he doesn't refer to it directly however yaakov says explicitly that he's going to die um he says i will sleep with my with my forefathers only at a specific point when did yaakov say it didn't say they were way before the point of saying it but yaakov avinu was able to say because he was so close to his actual time of death therefore he was able to refer to the fact that he would die now you know we believe an idea of you know ayan hara we don't want to say something to be careful about what we say because the power of our words can bring something into reality we don't speak about a person dying we if we say something about dying we say heaven forbid right so we're accustomed to this concept but i believe that the magician is saying something more and something deeper here and i want to understand what is the problem why don't we mention why don't we want to talk about the day of death we do find that our hazel say our sages tell us that a person is obligated to remember when a person is facing off with a sin a person feels like they're going to be pulled into sin so one of the things one of the aids is the advice that our sages give us is to remember the day of death remember that one day this body is going to be under the earth and i'm going to have to face judgment i'm going to face the heavenly tribunal so so we see that there is such a concept we do need to be aware of the day of our death we do need to be aware of the fact that our life is fleeting but still we don't want to say these words that yaakov said that he's going to sleep with his fathers he was only able to say such a thing when he was about to die what is the depth of this what is the teaching of this so in thinking about the questions from before and this question i was reminded of what happened with yosef azad we know that yosef had a dream and in his dream he saw something that would not occur for 22 years he saw his brothers bowing down to him he saw that he was going to be someone there there the sheaves they bowed down to him representing the fact that he would be someone who would provide them with sustenance he saw the stars which represented his brothers etc and he saw all of these things he saw his father bowing down to him he was to be the leader he saw the case he saw his own personal redemption he saw where he was going to be where he was headed what happened when he revealed that what happened when he spoke to his brothers because it was no good to them it wasn't just a a it wasn't just a dream of prophecy that touched on him it was something that touched upon his brothers as well if he was being revealed to him it was something that needed to be revealed to them as well it was it was a dream that touched them as well and indeed it was a dream that would come true and they would they would experience the the reality of that dream in all of its difficulty in all of its challenges through the challenge that yosef was divine inspiration as i understand it put them through the challenge of having to go back to their father bring binyamin stand up for benjamin et cetera but all of this was part of the dream coming true now when we think about that we realize what is the challenge the difficulty of revealing the kate's just like yosef revealed the kate's and it was this gal go because of his revelation of what's going to be yes it was in this goggle as he tells his brothers hashem planned this whole thing from the beginning but when you know too much information about the future it brings upon a person it brings upon yosef and his brothers a tremendous din a tremendous judgment you want to get to the gaoula you want to get to the point of redemption it involves great challenges and interestingly those challenges become compounded they become much more difficult when you know about the fact that there's an impending goula there's an impending redemption think about it let's let's look for a moment we just went we re rewound a bit to the past video said let's fast forward a bit to moshe rabino and paro moshe says to paro let my people go let them go there it's time for redemption it's redemption time the time for redemption has arrived what happens when moshe says to paro he's not holding there he's not up to it well let go of all of my slaves and because he's not able to hear it so what happens to paro and to all of the egyptians until they finally finally are ready to receive the tough news that all of their slaves are going to go out free they have to endure these 10 these ten markets the ten plagues of egypt so the information that's in front of them is for them an incredibly destructive a destructive experience a difficult experience it brings about the more we are aware of the impending love of the impending redemption at that's it's happening the more the challenge is the more difficult things become yaakov he wants to reveal the redemption why i think that it's because he himself had reached a point of personal redemption he finally went through all of the trials in his life and he reached a moment a 17-year moment if we could say where he was at peace he had reached his personal redemption and so when you get to the end of the redemption process you're like wow this is amazing i want to tell you about your redemption process i want to tell you when it's going to end for you when you're going to reach this end point this moment of redemption but you see yaakov couldn't reveal that because even though he himself had reached a personal redemption and that redemption process would be reflected in the lives of his children myself as smilabonin they would also go through this but they're not there yet their process is beginning now right as the says until yaakov died they were in a certain state of redemption right as the major says i'm sorry it only began the sheba itself which is the process wouldn't happen until he passes away until he's he's dead it couldn't start yet so they were in a state of redemptive state a day as a you know a point along the process and because it's a spiral and you hit a moment which is oh we're at the redemption but then there's another process oh we're at the next point of redemption another process and it goes around and around the so reaches the redemption but then we have to go through another goal it's another exile another process to get to the next stage the next redemptive moment so yaakov reached it himself he wanted to reveal to them when they're going to get to it but it's not revealed why because hashem does not want to reveal it because the moment it's it's revealed like with yosef and his brothers it pushes the process forward it moves it forward it creates the the friction the friction the pain the pain begins the challenge begins as soon as the the process becomes clear to people with yosef and his brothers look what happened when he revealed the dreams it created the friction which started the ball rolling yaakov avinu wanted to start the ball rolling as well but that's not what it was meant to be in his lifetime the ball was not meant to start rolling until after his lifetime for whatever reason i'm not coming to explain that but that's what it seems to me from this major and in thinking about the second part of the major which speaks about why can't he talk about his day of death and i believe that the reason is because when a person speaks of the day of death the day of death refers to the person's completion all that he's supposed to accomplish throughout his life yes a person can use the moment of death as a way of waking himself up in order to make sure that he does what's right in the moment of challenge in a moment when it seems like oh i'm steering off of the proper path of where i'm supposed to head so let me remind myself of where i'm supposed to be headed what my life is going to look like at the end that vision of who i want to be but the danger of mentioning the day of death besides for the ayan horror of it or the we know we don't open our mouths to the satan besides that there's another aspect of it which i think is reflected in the first idea which is when i mention the day of death it refers to my personal ghoul and my completion my redemption and there's this in intrinsic in mentioning something like that intrinsic intrinsic in speaking about my goal intrinsically speaking about my dream intrinsic and speaking about who i want to be is this roughness this challenge that sparked that that creates yes it gets me there eventually i have to be careful about how i express it i have to be careful last week we spoke about commitments and should we make commitments and not make commitments but this is also you know a commitment is a dream to be careful i'm not saying that we shouldn't make commitments we should we have to but we have to be careful about them because they create a resistance within ourselves they create a darkness comes along with them that we have to be able to get through to be able to get to the other side of that darkness when the nations around the jewish people today see that the redemption is close it's because of that that they're misguided why do they hate us so much why are they so why does iran want to destroy us why does why the why do the the europeans and the americans why do they refuse to clamp down and say you are not going to do this because there's a certain intrinsic jealousy there's something that's going on just like the brothers in yosef the jewish people return the promises of redemption are being revealed in front of their very eyes kiwi's golias seven million jews are living in israel almost half of the jewish population of the world do you know what this means on a cosmic level everybody knows that there's at the root of their souls what it means it means the redemption is close and it means that they're not ready for that they're not ready to give up their spot in the scheme of god's plan what do you mean we the muslims we are the leaders of the world on the spiritual side the western powers the christians say what do you mean we are the leaders of the worlds on the spiritual side they're not ready to allow the jewish people to take their their correct place just like you say was the leader of the brothers the jewish people are meant to be the leaders of the world in a spiritual sense the nations of the world are not ready to allow that to happen as soon as they start to see it happening it makes it makes them nervous it creates a friction it creates a resistance but just like when it came when it came to yosef and his brothers ultimately that resistance had to be passed through the darkness had to be walked through until the end until they got to that point of where yaakov really indeed sat for 17 years in inshallah in serenity in a state of unbelievable spiritual serenity and joy closeness hashem surrounded by his sons and his grandchildren that also happened in the time of egypt with that resistance of of power until the jewish people were freed to be able to receive the torah and receive their eternal mission so too it will be right before mashiach comes when the messiah arrives and here we are on the doorstep there's a resistance to it not just the resistance but there's a refusal on the part of the um asylum on the nation of the nations of the world to admit what's going on but they see it and they want to stop it they don't want to allow it to happen and so we will see bezrat hashem hashem will reveal who are the true heirs of his spiritual legacy who have remained faithful to him for three thousand three hundred years and beyond that who are the ones it's the jewish people who have returned to our homeland to take our rightful place as the leaders of mankind as the spiritual leaders of mankind i want to bless you i ask you to bless me hashem should help us to recognize the power of a dream to recognize the power of a prophecy of a vision to know what it involves to know the danger involved in revealing it to ourselves to others to recognize the the friction that we're going to face as we approach that dream as we try to get to that goal that we want shim should help us to be able to have the fortitude to be able to get through to the other side and to be able to withstand the tests that come from all sides of us should help us indeed to fulfill all of our dreams thank you so much for listening have a wonderful shamas this podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you for more podcasts like this please visit www.ariegoldwag.com or search on itunes ari goldwag [Music]