When Yosef met Yaakov Avinu after 22 years, the passuk says that Yosef fell on his father’s neck and cried. Rashi says that Yaakov, though, didn’t react at all, because he was in the middle of saying krias shema. Now, doesn’t this sound a bit strange? After all, it doesn’t seem to have been the zman for krias shema because then also Yosef would have said it. So why did Yaakov choose to say Shema at this exact point? Couldn’t he wait a minute, until after he hugged his long-lost son? Let’s tell a story to help explain this.
Hershel was a workaholic. When any opportunity to make a buck came up, he took it. The only other thing he liked to do was fish. He loved fishing. Whenever he couldn’t work, he would go fishing. Well, when the big annual champion fish-off rolled around, everyone in the office took off. They were all excited to see who would catch the most gefilte fish! The only one who didn’t come was Hershel. “What happened to you?” ask his colleague, Anshel, the next day, “you missed some real amazing fishing!” “Fishing is nice,” answered Hershel, “but because nobody wanted to work yesterday, the boss was offering a $10,000 bonus to anyone who came to work! How could I miss it?”
Yaakov Avinu was "addicted" to ahavas Hashem. So, when he finally saw how Hashem’s chessed was behind the entire roller-coaster of the last 22 years, and he also felt the overwhelming simcha of finally seeing Yosef, it was a golden moment for him to show his love for Hashem. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! How could he miss it – even in order to hug Yosef?! Now it’s easy to understand why Yaakov began to say krias shema just then. It was worth a lot more to him than Hershel’s $10,000!
Let’s keep an eye out for all the bonuses that may come our way! We wouldn’t want to miss them!
