Implementing The Call
During Shabbos Chazak, each and every Jewish person should strengthen themselves, their family, and all around them (the word ‘nischazek’ – may we be strengthened’ is plural), in all matters pertaining to Judaism, Torah, and Mitzvos.
The name of every Parshah, in addition to its content, serves as a lesson and instruction that we should implement. This is included in the directive from the Alter Rebbe to ‘live with the Parshah of the week’ by implementing its lessons. Moreover, since our Parshah is also the conclusion of the entire book of Breishis - and ‘everything follows its conclusion’ (Brachos12a) - this Parshah’s name (Vayechi) must certainly contain a powerful lesson.
However, since we are already alive (and can therefore ‘live with the Parshah’) – the life of Jewry being true life since it stems from the Torah of Life (Avos d’Rabbi Nasan 34) – then what instruction can we take from the name Vayechi, which means ‘life’?! How do we ‘live’ with ‘living’?
The explanation, in brief, is that a person generally does not feel his life-force and certainly not its source i.e. the essence of his soul. He merely feels the individual powers that stem from this life-force e.g. sight, hearing, etc. Our general and essential life-force remains undetected by our senses. The instruction of Vayechi, then, is to take the expression of our soul’s essential life-force i.e. our essential faith in Hashem, and ‘live with it’ by expressing it within the particulars of our divine service and details of our daily affairs. Insofar as Torah is concerned, instead of merely living with (and sensing the vivifying force we receive from) the individual Parshah of each week, ‘Vayechi’ instructs us to live with and sense the general vivifying force of Torah itself, ‘for it is our lives and the length of our days’. This awareness should then be likewise brought to bear in the particular of our daily ‘living’. And since the life of the entire creation comes from the Torah, Vayechi teaches us to view the world in context of its true general life-force, so that we fully interact with the world based on the awareness that there is nothing besides Hashem. (Editor’s synopsis of Sichas Vayechi 5750 – Hisv. p137)
“It is now Shabbos Parshas Vayechi, Shabbos Chazak, when we conclude the first book of Torah [i.e. Breishis, also known as] ‘Sefer Hayashar’ [i.e. the Book of the Upright – our forefathers Avraham, Yitchak and Yaakov. The name Breishis comes from the word rosh – a head or beginning, which indicates that this book is loftier than the other four books. See there, footnote 1]. Each and every Jewish person should therefore strengthen... [See main text above for continuation] ... in a manner whereby it becomes clearly discernable that he lives in the true sense of the word ‘living’ i.e. with the individual as well as general life-force of the Jewish people and the Torah, as it permeates every last detail of our day-to-day lives.”
