Our parasha’s topic is the last days of Ya‘aqov Avinu: ויקרבו ימי ישראל למות וכו' (“And the days of Yisra’él approached to die [la-muth]....”; XLVII, 29). Accordingly, from his bed, he called to his sons, who gathered about him to hear his last instructions.
ויכל יעקב לצות את בניו ויאסף רגליו אל המטה ויגוע ויאסף אל עמיו: (“And Ya‘aqov finished commanding his sons, and he gathered his legs into the bed, and perished [va-yigva‘] and was gathered to his peoples”; XLIX, 33). Rashi notes that this is not quite what was advertised at the beginning of the parasha: ומיתה לא נאמרה בו ואמרו רז"ל יעקב אבינו לא מת (“And death [mitha] is not said of him, and Hazal said, 'Ya‘aqov Avinu did not die'”).
Certainly the language of our verse differs from what is written of Ya‘aqov’s illustrious forebears. Concerning his grandfather, for instance, we read: ויגוע וימת אברהם בשיבה טובה זקן ושבע ויאסף אל עמיו: (“And Avraham perished and died [va-yigva‘ va-yamoth] at a good old age, elderly and satisfied, and was gathered to his people”; XXV, 8), and of his father: ויגוע יצחק וימת ויאסף אל עמיו זקן ושבע ימים וכו (“And Yitzhaq perished and died [va-yamoth], and he was gathered to his peoples, elderly and sated of days....”; XXXV, 29).
What, then, was different about Ya‘aqov? Why does the Torah not mention “death” concerning him, as it does with regard to the other Patriarchs? How can it be said that Ya‘aqov did not die?
B.
Rashi’s source is the Talmud, where we learn: רב נחמן ורב יצחק הוו יתבי בסעודתא א"ל רב נחמן לרב יצחק לימא מר מילתא א"ל הכי א"ר יוחנן אין מסיחין בסעודה שמא יקדים קנה לושט ויבא לידי סכנה בתר דסעוד א"ל הכי א"ר יוחנן יעקב אבינו לא מת. א"ל וכי בכדי ספדו ספדנייא וחנטו חנטייא וקברו קברייא?! א"ל מקרא אני דורש שנאמר "אל תירא עבדי יעקב נאם ד' ואל תחת ישראל כי הנני מושיעך מרחוק ואת זרעך מארץ שבים". מקיש הוא לזרעו מה זרעו בחיים אף הוא בחיים (“Rav Nahman and Rav Yitzhaq were sitting at a dinner. Rav Nahman asked Rav Yitzhaq, 'Will you say something?' [Rav Yitzhaq] told him, 'Thus said Rabbi Yohanan, "One should not engage in conversation during a meal, lest one put the windpipe before the esophagus and come into danger."' After the dinner, [Rav Yitzhaq] told him, 'Thus said Rabbi Yohanan, "Ya‘aqov Avinu did not die."' Said [Rav Nahman] to him: 'Then did the eulogizers eulogize, the embalmers embalm, and the grave diggers bury for nothing?!' Said [Rav Yitzhaq] to him, 'It is Scripture I am expounding, as it is said, "'Fear not, My servant Ya‘aqov,' says Ha-Shem, 'and be not afraid, Yisra’él, for behold, I am saving you from afar, and your seed from the land of their captivity....’" [Jeremiah XXX, 10]. [The prophet] equates him to his seed: Just as his seed are alive, so is he alive'”; תענית ה).
Rashi explains that G-d is saying through His prophet: שיביאנו כדי לגאול את בניו לעיניו כמו שמצינו במצרים "וירא ישראל וגו'" ודרשינן ישראל סבא ודחנטו חנטייא נדמה להם שמת אבל חי הי' (“that He will bring him into exile to redeem his sons before his eyes, just as we find concerning [the Exodus from] Egypt: ‘And Yisra’él saw...’[Exodus XIV, 31], and we expound it as referring to Grandfather Yisra’él; and that the embalmers embalmed? It seemed to them that he was dead, but he was alive” שם ד"ה אף ). And Tosafoth add: וכן משמע מדכתיב "ויגוע" ולא כתיב "וימת" וגו' “And so do we hear from that va-yigva‘ is written but va-yamoth is not written....”; שם ד"ה יעקב).
Bur Rav Nahman was right: Whilst one might suggest that the eulogizers could eulogize somebody who was still alive, how do we explain the embalming and burial, since our parasha tells us quite explicitly: וישאו אתו בניו ארצה כנען ןיקברו אתו במערת שדה המכפלה וגו' (“And his sons elevated him to the land of Këna‘an and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpéla....”; L, 13)?
The Hochmath Manoah suggests of Rabbi Yohanan and Rav Yitzhaq שרומזים שיעקב אבינו לא מת מיד במצרים אלא בארץ ישראל וזה רמז "הנה אנכי מת בקברי" וגו' (“that they are hinting that Ya‘aqov Avinu did not die immediately in Egypt, but rather in Eretz Yisra’él, and this allusion is found in ‘Behold I am dead in my grave....’ [L, 8]”), i.e., that Ya‘aqov was not yet dead, but lingered on until he was brought to Hevron for burial. Indeed, Tosafoth (op. cit.) go on to cite another Talmudic source wherein we learn of a dramatic encounter at Hevron with ‘Ésav. Another name for Hevron is Qiryath Arba‘, “City of Four,” which is an allusion that there was room for the burial of four couples in the Cave of Machpéla. These were: the First Man and his wife; Avraham and Sara; Yitzhaq and Rivqa; and (as our parasha informs us) Ya‘aqov had already laid Lé’a to rest there (XLIX, 31). Yet, ‘Ésav sought to be buried in the ancestral tomb, and during the altercation, the Talmud tells us, Ya‘aqov opened his eyes (סוטה י"ג.). Hence, he was at that stage still alive.
Yet, the prophet Yirmëyahu is clearly addressing “Grandfather Ya‘aqov,” since the verse is couched in the second person singular; so what does he mean? Says the Hochmath Manoah, כמו שהייתי מושיעך מרחוק כלומר בהיותך במצרים רחוק מא"י הושעתיך "ואעלך גם עלה" כמו שהבטחתיך כן אושיע את זרעך כו' והנה ע"כ צ"ל שיושיע לזרעו להביאם לא"י בעודם בחיים וגו' (“Just as I was rescuing you from far away, i.e., from Egypt; far from Eretz Yisra’él I saved you ‘and surely raised you up’ [cf. XLVI, 4], as I promised you. So will I save your seed.... And it has to be that He would rescue [Ya‘aqov’s] seed to bring them to Eretz Yisra’él while they were yet alive....”). So, Ya‘aqov had been brought out of Egypt alive.
So the Hochmath Manoah shows us a way to reconcile Rabbi Yohanan’s otherwise startling statement with the text of our parasha. This, it seems, is also what Tosafoth mean; whatever va-yigva‘ actually refers to, it is not the final severing of the ties of nëshama to guf expressed by va-yamoth. By leaving out the latter verb, our parasha is in fact telling us that Ya‘aqov may have been in a deep coma, perhaps, such that the embalmers (who surely were engaged only in some external treatments with unguents and oils of various sorts, not what we usually think of as “embalming” which is, after all, the only sort of “embalming” which might be halachically permissible) were fooled, as Rashi wrote.
But what does Rashi mean when he implies that Ya‘aqov witnessed the Exodus, and will yet witness Yisra’él’s final redemption?
Enter the Torah Tëmima.
The Torah Tëmima points out that, were it not for Rashi and, arguably, Tosafoth, we would have no trouble in understanding Rav Yitzhaq’s exposition of Yirmëyahu as לשון מליצי, a metaphoric usage, Various other ma’amarei Hazal already point us in that direction. For instance, elsewhere in the Talmud we learn: דרש רבי פנחס בן חמא מאי דכתיב "והדד שמע במצרים כי שכב דוד עם אבותיו וכי מת יואב שר הצבא" מפני מה בדוד נאמרה בו שכיבה וביואב נאמרה בו מיתה כו' דוד שהניח בן כמותו נאמרה בו שכיבה ויואב שלא הניח בן כמותו נאמרה בו מיתה (“Rabbi Pinhas ben Hama expounded, "What is meant, that it is written, ‘And Hadad heard in Egypt that David lay with his fathers and that Yoav was dead’ [I Kings XI, 21]? Why is it said of David shëchiva [“lying down”] whilst of Yo’av it is said mitha [“death”]? ... David, who left a son like himself [i.e., Shëlomo], it is said of him shëchiva, and about Yo’av, who did not leave a son like himself, it is said mitha”; בבא בתרא קט"ז. ).
Similarly, in the midrash we find: רשב"י אומר כל מי שיש לו בן שהוא יגע בתורה כאלו לא מת (“Rabbi Shim‘on ben Yohai says, 'Anyone who has a son laboring in Torah, it is as though he is not dead'”; בראשית רבה פמ"ט סי' ח).
So the Torah Tëmima calls our attention Rav Yitzhaq’s first pronouncement, and notes that he cannot be speaking simply of talking and eating at the same time, since if he were, he would have quoted Rabbi Yohanan as saying, Éyn sahin, “one does not converse,” instead of éyn mésihin, which has a causative force; i.e., one should not make others talk whilst eating (presumably, one knows well enough not to speak with a mouthful). It is only after the meal that he delivers himself of Rabbi Yohanan’s comment on Ya‘aqov, which sounds so shocking on its face, and indeed, Rav Nahman rises to the bait with his sudden exclamation: Did they not eulogize him, embalm him, bury him?! It was precisely Rav Yitzhaq’s point, concludes the Torah Tëmima, to make it sound as controversial as possible, in order to illustrate the genuine danger which had prompted Rabbi Yohanan to rule against provoking such an outburst – “making someone else talk” – during the meal.
This, then, explains Rav Yitzhaq’s intent in saying what he did, just as the Hochmath Manoah explains Rabbi Yohanan’s intent in the original statement, and leaves us free, therefore, to understand the rest as לשון מלוצו.
Which brings us to the Maharal mi-Prag.
In his Gur Aryeh, the Maharal also takes aim at explaining Rashi’s laconic citation of our first gëmara, and explains that the organic relationship between a father and a son, such that the son owes not only his physical existence, but also the nature and texture of his life, in so great a degree to his father that the tie cannot be nullified even by death, and so it is quite natural to say that so long as the son lives, so, too, does the father.
However, he goes on to say, how much more so is this true when we are speaking of a דבר שיש לו חיות בעצמו כמו שהם זרע ישראל והם חיים קיימים תמידים וכדכתיב "ואתם הדבקים בד' אלקיכם חיים כלכם היום" ודבר זה חיות בעצם. ולפיכך יעקב שהוא אב להם ונקראו בני ישראל במה שהוא מתיחס להם כמו האב והבן ראוי שיהי' בחיים וגו' (“a thing which has vitality in itself, such as the seed of Israel living and flourishing continuously, as it is written: ‘And you who cling to Ha-Shem your G-d, are all of you alive today [Deuteronomy IV, 4]’, and this thing is vitality in itself. And therefore Ya‘aqov, who is a father to them such that they are called bënei Yisra’él in that he relates to them like the father and the son, it is fit that he be alive....”).
This, too, is the thrust of the other ma’amarei Hazal cited supra. If a man makes the effort to learn with his son, to inculcate in him the love of Torah and the sense of its overriding importance, such that his son follows in his footsteps, cherishing Torah, learning and laboring in words of Torah כי הם חיינו ואורך ימינו (“for they are our lives and the length of our days”), as we pray every night, gives his son not mere existence, mere accidental life, but כמה שהתורה היא חיים גם אינו דבר מקרה שיוסר ממנו ואינו כמו החיים האלו שהן חיים מקריים (“just as the Torah is life, it is also not an accidental thing which can be snatched from him, and it is not like this [physical] life which is purely accidental....”).
Such a father, in transmitting his values, is a direct conduit back to Yisra’él sabba, and is a true ben Yisra’él. Our patriarch Yisra’él lives, so long as such Jews live.
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