הרב ד'יפו on Parshas VaYechi
Highlights:
When a person dies, two things occur. First, the bodily functions (breathing, pumping of the heart, and so on) cease. This is called Geviyah (expiring). The second aspect of death concerns the soul. After the sin of Adam, the first man, death was decreed in order to allow the soul to purify itself from its contact with the body's physical drives and desires. Death purges the soul of those sensual influences that distance one from true closeness to God. The aspect of death that cleanses the soul is called מיתה.
In certain respects, Jacob did in fact die. But this was only in personal matters, due to the baseness of the physical world and its negative influence upon the human soul. Yet, that was not the true essence of Jacob's soul. When the Torah describes Jacob's passing, it does so in terms of his life's goal, as the father of the Jewish people. The Torah does not use the word 'death,' since these was no need to purge his soul of its ties to its worldly occupations.
This explains why we don't find in the Torah that Jacob's sons eulogized their father. Only the Egyptians did so — "A profound mourning for Egypt" [Gen. 50:11]. Jacob had assisted the Egyptians by bringing the years of famine to an early end. From the standpoint of the Egyptians, Jacob had died, and the connection of his soul to these matters was severed. Therefore, the Egyptians had reason to mourn. But Jacob's sons, who knew that Jacob was still alive with them, had no need to eulogize their father.
[adapted from Midbar Shur, pp. 242-251]
Click on the link for the complete text.
Gevaldig!
ReplyDeleteThanks H - Please post more like this!!!
Yasher Koach Hirshel, I have something to say at the tish tonight.
ReplyDeleteOch un Vei if you rely on me to supply you with your Shabbos Tish Divrei Torah....
ReplyDeleteHow does this shtim with what the Rebbe says on the same Chazal?
ReplyDeleteand does his Hashkofoh in general פאס for a Chossid? Should you be quoting him at all? I ask, I do not condemn.
It is nice to finally see a posting without the Chabad vs. The World weltschaung.
ReplyDeleteShabbat Shalom Hirshel!
Tzig
ReplyDeleteI saw you posted about r'nussen Vogel in London who was nifter.Can you please tell us a bit about him, how he got to Lubavitch, bit of backround etc.Seems that he supported Lubavitch in the UK was HE a man of means?tHANKS IN ADVANCE
You mean in Hydepark? I did, and it was a great loss to Jews in London bichlal and Lubavitch bifrat. Iy"h I'll write more.
ReplyDeleteThis is a wonderful explanation of the possuk, of why the chumosh doesn't say vayomos, as it does about every other death, except that of Dovid Hamelech. The Ramban says something similar, as do many other meforshim on the chumosh. But they do not have the burden of explaining the gemoro. They can explain the chumosh any way they like, but it's almost impossible to read the gemoro in a way consistent with these explanations.
ReplyDeleteThe gemoro remarks that Yaakeiv Ovinu Lei Meis, and asks why, in that case, he was embalmed, mourned, and buried. Now it could have answered that even though his essence didn't die in the way that almost everybody else does, his body was still lifeless, and needed to be dealt with. RAYK's observation, that only the Egyptians mourned him, explains one of the gemoro's three questions, but doesn't address the other two. It was Yeiseif who ordered him embalmed, and it was his sons who buried him; and the gemoro assumes that if he were not dead then these things would not have been necessary. And it does not offer any explanation. Instead it insists that we must accept that it was so, despite the difficulty, because it's a drosho on a posuk in Yirmiyohu.
Now the rationalists will of course explain that what the gemoro's saying is "it's only a medrosh, it's not real". In reality, Yaakeiv was as dead as a doornail, and was embalmed, mourned, and buried just like any other stiff; the absence of the word vayomos is to let us make nice droshos and learn all sorts of moral lessons, but we all know that it wasn't actually so. And they will laugh at all the credulous right-wingers who drink the Artscroll kool aid and take medroshim literally.
But Rashi will have none of that. Veho dechontu chontayo, sevurim hoyu shemeis. And he repeats himself a few lines later: Udechontu chontayo, nidmeh lohem shemeis, avol chai hoyo. Had they known the truth that Yaakeiv had not died, they would not have embalmed him. Nor, we may infer, would they have mourned or buried him. Clearly Rashi understands Yaakeiv Ovinu lei meis in a way that is inconsistent with embalming, mourning, and burial, and therefore cannot accept any of these nice explanations about his soul not tasting the level of death called misoh, or about his body never having been essential to who he was, etc.
Now of course we're not obligated to accept Rashi's explanation; we are free to offer other explanations, both of the posuk and of the gemoro. And with what we now know about Egyptian embalming technology (which Rashi had no way of knowing), it seems obvious that even if Yaakeiv was alive when the embalmers started working on him, he cannot possibly have been so when they were finished. So we may respectfully disagree with this Rashi; but what we cannot do is ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist. Rashi remains our rebbe for pshat in gemoro, and this is what he says the gemoro means. And yet there is so much hostility to this view, especially in the last 12 years.
Two things that Kook and Schneirson have in common is ,both devulged in seforim chitzionim and both were funded by the zionist to advance their inroads in the frum communities
ReplyDeleteanon you idiot, not for naught are you embarrased to take on a name (even a penname)
ReplyDeleteTzig
ReplyDeleteYou promised a post on R'Nussen Vogel.Nu??
?