Daily Chumash Friday, 17th Teves: Yaakov passes away and is buried

Shishi

Pesucha

• Binyamin’s final message from his father: “Binyamin is a wolf who kills his prey. In the morning he eats his spoils and in the evening he distributes it.”
• All these are the tribes of Israel, 12 in number, and he blessed them, each according to his blessing.

1. Yaakov’s instructs to be buried in Mearas Hamachpeila:

• Yaakov instructed his sons that after he passes away, he is to be buried in the Mearas Hamachpeila. This refers to the cave found in the field of Efron the Chiti, which was bought by Avraham from Efron. “My ancestors are buried there. Avraham and his wife Sarah was buried there. Yitzchak and his wife Rivka was buried there, and there I buried Leah.”

2. Yaakov passes away:

• After Yaakov completed instructing his sons he placed his feet together on the bed and passed away.
• Yosef fell on his fathers face and cried on him and kissed him.
• The embalming: Yosef commanded his servants, the doctors, to embalm his father, and they did so.
• The mourning: After forty days of the embalming, the Egyptians mourned his passing for [a total of] seventy days.

3. Yaakov is buried in Eretz Yisrael:

• Asking permission: After the mourning period, Yosef asked the house of Pharaoh for permission to fulfill his oath to his father, to bury him in the land of Canaan. Pharaoh agreed.
• The funeral procession: Yosef went to bury his father, and all the servants of Pharaoh came with him, and the elders of Egypt. All his and his father’s households, his brothers, came with him, and only the children and cattle remained in Goshen. It was a very large procession of people who came.
• The eulogy and mourning: When they arrived to Goren Haatad a great and heavy eulogy took place and they mourned Yaakov for seven days. The Cannanite nations took notice of the great funeral procession, and the mourning, and therefore name this place, Avel Mitzrayim.
• The burial: The children of Yaakov did as they were instructed and buried him in the Mearas Hamachpeila.

4. Yosef and his brothers make peace with what they did to him:

• After the burial, Yosef, his brothers, and the entire funeral procession returned to Egypt.
• The brothers feared that now that their father has passed on, Yosef will hate them and take revenge against them for what they did. They thus connivingly told Yosef that prior to Yaakov’s death he told them to tell Yosef to forgive his brothers. When Yosef heard this he began to cry. His brothers also cried and they threw themselves before him offering themselves as slaves. Yosef assured them saying that he is not in the place of G-d, and that Hashem set up his kidnapping for the sake of him rising to his position to provide food for the people.