PARSHAT VAYECHI - A LESSON STILL NOT LEARNT

[TorahZionist]

BS"D

YESHIVAT HARA'AYON HAYEHUDI
Jerusalem, Israel
HaRav Yehuda Kreuser SHLIT"A, Rosh Yeshiva

PARSHAT VAYECHI
13 Tevet 5768/21-22 December 2007


A LESSON STILL NOT LEARNT

In our parsha, Jacob blesses all of his sons and then wants to reveal to
them the time of the Final Redemption. However, Hashem prevented him from
doing so, for the time was a long way off and Hashem did not want the people
to fall into despair. Still, he relayed to Joseph that Hashem would be with
them and send a redeemer to liberate the Jewish people from Egypt. He then
gave over to them signs to identify the true redeemer. He will use the
expression "Pakod Yifkod"- "Hashem will surely visit you." Later, before
Joseph passed on, he transmitted Jacob's message to
Serach, the daughter of Asher, who outlived all the other people of her
generation. She was still alive at the time of the arrival of Moshe to
Egypt. When Moses came to redeem the Jewish people, all knew that his words
were true, inasmuch that he used the expression "pakod yifkod".

The Midrash teaches us: "Pakod yifkod - Hashem will surely visit you".
He, Jacob, informed them of two visits. The first time referred to the time
of Moses, the second time, to that of the Messianic king. The last exile and
its Redemption will be like the first one from Egypt. Just as there in
Egypt - when the time of reckoning came, G-d did not allow Israel to remain
in the exile - the same will be true of the Final Redemption. And just as in
the time of the redemption of the Jewish people from Egypt, all of the ones
who tried to remain in Egypt were killed by the hand of G-d in the plague of
darkness - so, too, in the Final Redemption no Jew will remain in the exile.

The Gra writes in Kol HaTor: "It says, In Mount Zion and Jerusalem there
shall be those who escape. . . and among the remnant those whom the L-rd
shall call" (Joel 3-5). According to the Midrash, the word "Zion" is equated
with Mashiach ben Joseph, for what ever happen to Joseph happens to Zion.
Our master, the Gra, hinted at this also through the word "among the
remnant", which is equal in numerical value to the name Joseph, for
according to the Gra, the ingathering of the exiles will occur though him.
There will also be an increase in Divine prosecution of those who do not
support the ingathering of the exiles (i.e., those who do not come) since
the Redemption will start through it, for then there will be survivors in
Zion and Jerusalem and from the remnant. The Gra worried about this greatly.

For just yesterday, news of Israel’s arrival spread to Pharaoh's palace,
and in a very short time Hashem had turned their heart to hate His people.
Just yesterday, King Pharaoh said: "Bring your father and their families to
come and I will give you the very best land in Egypt." What follows? Israel
lived in Egypt and they took possession of it and were fruitful and
multiplied greatly. The land became full of them, the theaters and circuses
were filled with them.

This week I received an e-mail from a Jew who wrote about the horrible
situation that the Jewish people are going through today in France. He
writes:

"Nowhere have the flames of anti-Semitism burned more furiously than in
France: In Lyon, a car was rammed into a synagogue and set on fire. In
Montpellier, the Jewish religious center was firebombed; so were synagogues
in Strasbourg and Marseilles; so was a Jewish school in Creteil - all
recently. A Jewish sports club in Toulouse was attacked with Molotov
cocktails, and on the statue of Alfred Dreyfus in Paris, the words "Dirty
Jew" were painted. In Bondy, 15 men beat up members of a Jewish football
team with sticks and metal bars. The bus that takes Jewish children to
school in Aubervilliers has been attacked three times in the last 14 months.

"According to the Police, metropolitan Paris has seen 10 to 12
anti-Jewish incidents PER DAY in the past 30 days.Walls in Jewish
neighborhoods have been defaced with slogans proclaiming: "Jews to the gas
chambers" and "Death to the Jews." A gunman opened fire on a kosher
butcher's shop (and, of course, the butcher) in Toulouse,
France; a Jewish couple in their 20s were beaten up by five men in
Villeurbanne, France; The woman was pregnant;
a Jewish school was broken into and vandalized in Sarcelles, France. This
was just in the past week."

Interestingly enough, our Jewish friend from France calling out for
help, has asked from us, the free world, to respond in three ways: 1) stay
informed, 2) boycott France and 3) tell people what is going on.

Still, the most obvious answer is looking him right in the face and
telling him (although unfortunately, this has not even occurred to him) to
come home to Israel. This is the only real answer for the Jewish people, but
as we learned from this week's parsha, Hashem had to literally force the
Jews out of old Egypt-land. Amazing - but after all of these years, still -
the lesson has not been learnt.

With love of Israel,
Levi Chazen


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