In Parshas Vayechi, the final parsha in the book of Bereishis, the narratives of the lives of the Avos and Imahos, Yaakov and his many struggles, the events between Yosef and his brothers, come to a close. The family of Yaakov has descended to Egypt, and the enslavement is about to begin (in Sefer Shemos).
Parshas Vayechi, in its closing, transmits to us fundamental lessons regarding the foundations, and survival, of Am Yisrael.
Both Yaakov Avinu - in the beginning of the parsha, and Yosef ha’tzadik - at the end of the parsha, demonstrate two vital foundations of our nation.
Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik zt’l, the Rav, points out that for the first time in the entire Sefer Bereishis, we see interaction between an Av and his grandchildren (Yaakov with Menashe and Ephraim, Bereishis 48), and Yosef with his descendants, through Menashe and Ephraim (50:23). Klal Yisrael depends upon the continuity of the generations, and the transmission of the mesorah through the generations, and both Yaakov and Yosef illustrate this for us in their final acts.
Our nation depends upon the past (the elderly father) and the future (the young child). Hence, Moshe said to Pharaoh, when asked “who and who is going?”, נֵלְֵ וּבִזְקֵנֵינוּ בִּנְעָרֵינוּ - with our youth and our elderly we shall go... for a festival to G-d is to us (Shemos 10:9). Without the youth and the elderly, no one goes, for that is no festival to G-d for us.
The other ideal demonstrated by both Yaakov and Yosef is love of, commitment and dedication to, and longing for, the land of Israel.
The parsha opens with Yaakov on his deathbed, instructing Yosef to swear to him that he will not bury his father in Egypt. Rather, בִּקְבֻרָתָם וּקְבַרְתַּנִי ,מִמִּצְרַיִם וּנְשָׂאתַנִי ,אֲבֹתַי-עִם ,וְשָׁכַבְתִּי - and I will lay (in burial) with my forefathers, and you shall carry me up from Egypt, and bury me in their grave (47:30, Rashi explains this means in the Me’aras Ha’Machpela). Abiding by his father’s request, Yosef swears that he will do so.
And many years later, echoing his father’s last wishes, when Yosef is upon his own deathbed, at the age of 110 years old, he commands his brothers - under oath - that when the redemption from Egypt commences, their descendants will take his remains out of Egypt with them, for burial in the land of Canaan (50:24-26).
And so it was. Yaakov was buried by his sons, as he wished, in Kiryat Arba, which is Chevron, in the Cave of the Machpela (50:13). And Yosef is buried - hundreds of years after his death - in Shechem, in the land of Canaan (Yehoshua 24:32).
In their lives, as well as in their deaths, the avos teach us about commitment to family, mesorah, Torah, and Eretz Yisrael.
