Gifts from our Parents: Some Thoughts on Parashat Vayehi

The two parshiyyot in the book of Breishit whose topic is death are both called by names that indicate life: Hayei Sarah, in which Sarah, Avraham and Ishmael die, and this week’s parsha, Vayehi, in which Yaakov dies. At the very moment that we acknowledge that these ancestors died, we also proclaim something about their lives, something eternal that still lives. Their death somehow also points to hayim, life.

This sense of “life” after “death” is particularly true of Yaakov, of whom Rashi, quoting the Talmud, says, Yaakov avinu lo met. “Our father Yaakov never died.” This assertion is based on the lack of the word vayamot, “And he died,” in the brief description of his death: “He drew his feet into the bed, and breathing his last, he was gathered to his people” (49:33).

What can it mean to say that Yaakov did not die? This parsha also includes the blessings that Yaakov gave his children on his death bed. The first of these, which he gives to Yosef’s children, has become a classic bed-time prayer, Hamalakh HaGoel Oti, “May the Angel who saved me from all trouble bless these lads and may they carry with them my name and the name of my ancestors, Avraham and Yitzhak, . . .” Yaakov continues to live because he has bequeathed to his children a legacy. He has passed on to them the legacy of divine protection and connection which he received from his parents and grandparents.

Yaakov made himself into a link in a chain, a chain that extends backwards to Avraham and forwards to his grandchildren and to their children and grandchildren, all the way down to us. Yaakov still lives in us. We, too, are links in the chain, and as such, we both draw life from Yaakov, and breathe life back into him. We are a part of one another, moving beyond death into a divine space of eternity.

But what if we struggle with this legacy? Can we truly be links if we struggle with God and with Torah, are often doubtful and uncertain, and engaged in battle? But that is precisely the nature of our legacy. It is Yaakov who lives on in us, the Yaakov who struggled on the ground, fighting with the angel, the Yaakov who made mistakes and suffered so greatly, and yet somehow felt that there was an Angel looking out for him. To struggle is be alive, and to struggle with tradition is to keep it alive. Yaakov lives on in us precisely in our struggles.

Vayehi Yaakov. As the Torah tells of his death, it tells also of Yaakov’s hayim, of his continuing life, of the gifts that he bequeathed to his children that lived on in them and helped them, too, be links in a never-ending chain. As I drive home from minyan after saying kaddish one morning, I am struck by an overwhelming sense of gratitude to my father for the gift of Torah. I look over at the Humash sitting next to me in the car and see, emblazoned on its front, the words, Torat Hayim, “Torah of Life.” Where there is Torah, there never really is death.