PARASHA 012 MAIN PAGE
B'resheet/Genesis 012
Vayechi 47:28–50:26
The name of the Parshah, "Vayechi," means "And he lived" and it is found
in Genesis 47:28.
This Parasha contains
the 12 tribe blessings.
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 Simeon, soldiers from Gad, judges from Dan, olive-growers from
Asher, and so on. Reuben is rebuked for “confusing his father’s marriage
bed”; Simeon 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 Machpelah 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: “God will surely remember you, and bring
you up out of this land to the land of which He swore to Abraham, Isaac
and Jacob.”
|