Devar/5770/Vayechi
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< Devar | 5770
עברית
הִקָּבְצוּ וְשִׁמְעוּ, בְּנֵי יַעֲקֹב; וְשִׁמְעוּ, אֶל-יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲבִיכֶם. (בראשית מט:א,ב)
English
And Jacob called unto his sons, and said: 'Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the end of days.
Assemble yourselves, and hear, ye sons of Jacob; and hearken unto Israel your father. (Gen 49:1,2)
The Midrash Tanhuma states: Why did he say "gather"… "assemble"? He informed them they would experience two Exiles. Once he appointed leaders from them, he began to rebuke them: 'Reuven, you are my firstborn.' From that moment, the Israelites merited to read the "shema". How so? When Jacob was about to die, he wondered to himself and said, "Abraham my forefather sired Isaac and Ishmael, Isaac my father sired me and Esau. Perhaps too, my offspring contain 'debris'"? When they heard this, they all spoke up at once and said, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One!".
It is our received tradition that this is the reason our Sages established saying "Blessed is the Name of His glorious kingdom forever and eternity" after reading the first verse of the "shema". Because as soon as Jacob heard his sons declaring God's unity, may He be blessed, he said "Blessed is the Name…". (Laws of Reading Shema 4:1). He blessed God that his children were all whole -- that they did not wander after the ways of the Canaanites, that they were neither heretics nor idolaters.
But it is interesting: how were the sons able to say "hear O Israel" -- since it is forbidden for a child to call his father by his name (Laws of Rebels 6:3)! Should you argue that this statement was directed to all Israel and not to their father, they themselves were "all Israel" at that point in time! Rather, one might argue that when their father sired them, his name was only "Jacob", and he was not yet known as "Israel" -- and therefore this statement of theirs was not a transgression. One may additionally argue that once Torah was given, the Law was renewed (Laws of Mourning 1:1). That is to say that before the Torah was given at Sinai, people were not obligated by the commandments, even though some individuals did behave according to Torah. In any case, we must learn from the Patriarch's actions: just as Jacob was concerned about his children, and checked up on them, so too we should always try to guide our children on the good path.
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