The Context:
As Yaakov’s passing approached, he called his children to his bedside: "Gather and I will tell you what will happen to you at the end of days." (Bereishis 49:1)
The Sages explain: Yaakov desired to reveal the date of the final redemption, but the Divine presence departed him. (Pesachim 56a)
The Question:
The ultimate redemption would be thousands of years away from Yaakov’s children. What possible benefit could there be to reveal to them that their descendants would be wallowing in interminable exile?
The Explanation:
In the original conception, the Egyptian redemption was to be the final redemption. Therefore, the end date that Yaakov wanted to reveal to his children was only two-hundred odd years away. With this knowledge, perhaps his children would be emboldened to increase their good deeds and faith and thereby elicit from G-d an expeditious redemption in their own lifetime.
Yet, G-d did not want Yaakov’s children to have this knowledge. The truest form of Divine service is when a person motivates themselves to approach G-d, when they use their own talents and resources to fulfill His will. If their motivation would be external, propelled by a knowledge of imminent redemption, then it would not be coming from their own efforts.
Furthermore, the ultimate, irreversible redemption has to come through a Divine service that is similarly “irreversible.” When one’s efforts are inspired by an external source, they are not self-sufficient and therefore they are subject to termination. When a person has to muster their own resolve to serve G-d, then it stands the test of time, it is obdurate, and therefore it elicits the complete and final redemption.
Yaakov’s Perspective:
Why, then, did Yaakov attempt to reveal the end-date to his children and rob them of the opportunity to do their own work?
Yaakov’s spiritual station is identified as the world of Atzilus, where Divine unity reigns. Yaakov had already refined his portion of the material world and reconciled it with Divine unity. He assumed that his children had also done so, and therefore thought it was time to reveal the end-date so they could hasten it even sooner.
Yet the withdrawal of the Divine presence indicated that his children were not yet ready for this top-down inspiration, and still needed to develop their own spiritual paths to redemption. Yaakov forgot the end-date so that he would appreciate the value of internally motivated spiritual work and understand his children’s perspective.
The Lesson:
Being a “chariot” to G-d’s will, Yaakov surely did not have a pointless plan that had no practical effect. Even his aborted desire to reveal the end-date influences his children in an abstract way to be able to find the internal motivation to serve G-d without obstructions from within and without.
We, too, must demand from G-d to reveal the end-time of the future redemption, because the desire itself to have this knowledge propels us in our Divine service and ultimately brings the redemption.
