Commentary for Genesis 47:28

ויחי יעקב AND JACOB LIVED — Why is this section (Sidra) totally closed? Because, comprising as it does an account of the death of Jacob, as soon as our father Jacob departed this life the hearts and eyes of Israel were closed (their eyes became dim and their hearts troubled) because of the misery of the bondage which they then began to impose upon them. Another reason is: because he (Jacob) wished to reveal to his sons the date of the End of Days (i.e. when Israel’s exile would finally end; cf. Rashi on Genesis 49:1), but the vision was closed (concealed) from him (Genesis Rabbah 96:1).

AND JACOB LIVED IN THE LAND OF EGYPT SEVENTEEN YEARS. I have already mentioned¹Above, 43:14. that Jacob’s descent into Egypt alludes to our present exile at the hand of the “fourth beast,”²In Daniel’s vision concerning the Four Kingdoms, the fourth beast symbolizes Rome. See Daniel 7:7, also Note 8 in Seder Vayeitzei. which represents Rome. [There are many parallels,] for it was Jacob’s sons themselves who, by the sale of their brother Joseph, caused their going down there. Jacob, moreover, went there on account of the famine, thinking to find relief with his son in the house of his son’s friend, for Pharaoh loved Joseph and considered him as a son. It was their hope to ascend from there as soon as the famine would cease in the land of Canaan, just as they said, To sojourn in the land we have come, for thy servants have no pasture for their flocks, for the famine is heavy in the land of Canaan.³Above, 47:4. But then they did not come up, but instead the exile prolonged itself upon Jacob and he died there, and his bones ascended from there accompanied by all the elders and courtiers of Pharaoh, who instituted severe lamentation for him. Our relationship with our brothers Rome and Edom is similar. We ourselves have caused our falling into their clutches, as they⁴The Hasmonean rulers during the Second Temple era. See Abodah Zarah 8b. made a covenant with the Romans, and Agrippa, the last king during the Second Temple, fled to them for help. It was due to famine that Jerusalem was captured by the Romans, and the exile has exceedingly prolonged itself over us, with its end, unlike the other exiles,⁵It was known that the Babylonian Exile would last for a period of seventy years, (Jeremiah 25:12; II Chronicles 36:21). There was also a terminus known for the Egyptian Exile, (above 16:13). being unknown. We are in it as the dead, who say, “Our bones are dried up, we are completely cut off.”⁶See Ezekiel 37:11. But in the end they will bring us from all the nations as an offering to the Eternal,⁷Isaiah 66:20. and they will be in deep sorrow as they will behold our glory, and we will see the vengeance of the Eternal. May He raise us, that we may live in His presence.⁸Hosea 6:2.

ויחי יעקב, Jacob lived, etc. Although G'd had changed Jacob's name to Israel in 35,10, this is one of numerous instances when the Torah refers to him again as Jacob. I have explained that Jacob's permanent personality (נפש) had not changed as we know from Berachot 7 which interprets Psalms 46,9 where the word שמות, desolation, is re-interpreted to mean also שמות, names. The name Israel was an additional name reflecting spiritual highs that Jacob attained from time to time.

ויחי יעקב בארץ מצרים שבע עשרה שנה, the commentators point out that just as Joseph was under the protection of his father for the first 17 years of his life, so his father was under Joseph’s protection for the last 17 tears of his life.

ויחי יעקב, “Yaakov lived (peacefully), etc.” The descent of Yaakov to Egypt is meant to be reminiscent of the third exile of the Jewish people, the exile under Roman domination, as the sons of Yaakov had brought about their exile in Egypt themselves through having sold their brother Joseph to Egypt. Yaakov descended there under the impression that he would be saved there due to his beloved son occupying such an illustrious position in a country that was not severely damaged by the famine. The brothers themselves had declared that they had only come to Egypt for a brief stay, expecting to return to Canaan as soon as the famine had come to an end. In the event, this is not how things worked out, the exile in Egypt dragged on for one reason or another, and even Yaakov himself was only brought back to the land of Israel after he died, and even that only because Joseph told Pharaoh that his father had made him swear not to bury his remains in Egypt. While it is true that he was buried with great honour and the elite of Egypt participated in his funeral, his death put an end to any chance of the brothers returning even if they had wanted to. Something very similar happened during the later years of the Hasmonean reign when two brothers vied for the position of King, and the one who did not succeed by his own strength, called in the Romans to support him politically and militarily. They did, but they never left the country again after King Agrippas took refuge with them. Eventually, due to famine in Jerusalem after years of siege, the defenders of Jerusalem were captured and until this day we are enduring this ”Roman” exile. In contrast to previous exiles, we have no idea when this exile will come to an end. Who knows how far off is the day when the tables will be turned and we will go up to Jerusalem and offer offerings of thanksgiving, and all the nations will witness the redemption of the Jewish people. Rashi explains that the reason why this portion has not been separated from the previous portion by even the space of a single letter, is to allude to the fact that as soon as Yaakov had closed his eyes for the last time, the ability of the Jewish people to look into the future with any sense of confidence and assurance had vanished. This remained true although, according to tradition, the Egyptians did not commence any repressive measures against the Jewish tribe until after the last one of the brothers had died. The enslavement commenced immediately after the death of the last surviving brother Another approach to the peculiar lack of the separation of the previous portion in the Torah from this one, is that before the Torah had commenced with the chronology of the years of the life of Yaakov who was 130 years old when he came to Egypt, now the Torah relates that he had 17 years left to live out his life while in Egypt, and the Torah did not want to interrupt its chronology. [Joseph spent the first 17 years of his life under the care of his father, whereas his father spent the last 17 years of his life under the care of Joseph. Ed.]

Why is this portion completely closed... I.e., we have a tradition from Ezra the Scribe that Parshas Vayechi begins a new section and is not in the same parshah with the preceding verse וישב ישראל. Yet, a “closed” parshah usually has [a blank space in front of it] the measure of nine letters, while here it is completely closed with no space.

ויחי schließt sich unmittelbar dem Vorhergehenden an, ohne die sonst gewöhnliche פרשה -Abteilung. Wenn man bedenkt, dass die hiermit eingeleiteten siebzehn Jahre die einzigen waren, die Jakob ruhig durchlebte, sie somit, seinem ganzen vergangenen Leben gegenüber, als die eigentliche Blüte desselben betrachtet werden dürften, so hätte man umsomehr erwarten können, deren Erzählung werde durch einen besonderen Abschnitt hervorgehoben sein. Dessen Abwesenheit jedoch lehrt uns, dass diese siebzehn Jahre wohl individuell mitzählen, national jedoch gerade die minderbedeutenden waren, dass vielmehr die Jahre des getrübten, gedrückten Lebens, in welchen die Prüfung zu bestehen war, mitten im herbsten Jakobgeschicke sich den Namen Jisrael zu erwerben und dessen würdig zu werden, diejenigen gewesen, in welchen Jakob seine ewige nationale Bedeutung errungen, und für welche die hier folgenden siebzehn Jahre nur den heiter lohnenden Abschluss bilden.

ויחי יעקב, “Yaakov “lived;” Rashi explains why there is not even the space of a single letter between the last letter of the previous portion and the first letter of this portion. It is the only time this occurs in the Torah. He writes that as soon as the eyes of Yaakov closed for the last time, so did the spiritual eyes of the Jewish nation and their hearts, on account of the hardships experienced when they became enslaved. [He adds that an alternate explanation is that seeing he was about to reveal parts of the future to his children, G–d immediately deprived him of his prophetic insights, preventing him form carrying out his wish. Ed.] The difficulty with Rashi’s first explanation is that Joseph’s rule in Egypt continued for another 54 years, during which period the Jews enjoyed preferred social status. Also, how do we know that Yaakov had at all been privy to what would happen to his descendants after his death, and when? We would have to answer that in his dream of the ladder he watched the ascension of that ladder by the guardian angel of brother Esau, as Rashi had explained in his commentary of B’reshit Rabbah, 68,12, and as we know from Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer chapter 35.

ויחי יעקב, “Yaakov lived;” according to Rashi, the reason why this portion has not been separated from the preceding portion by as much as the space of a single letter, is because with the death of Yaakov the “eyes and the heart” of his descendants were as if closed to the spiritual mission they were to bring to the world, as they were being enslaved. You might well ask that seeing that Joseph his son ruled in Egypt for another 54 years during which all of his descendants enjoyed complete freedom, how is that possible? The answer is that this was not quite so. [His family had become culturally too dependent on Egypt. Ed.] When Jacob died, slavery started very, very slowly without anyone taking notice. Another interpretation for the omission of even a minimum amount of blank space in the Torah before the commencement of this portion is that the subject dealt with here was inextricably interwoven with what preceded it, i.e. the Torah’s description of the years during which Yaakov lived thus far.

In this verse Solomon wishes to extol the virtue of charity in the wake of which much reward may be expected; in fact, the performance of that good deed may add years to one’s life (compare Psalms 19,12). The practice of charity is a panacea for both body and soul. It is capable of overcoming what is in store for people based on the mazzal they have been born under. We have proof of this in Samuel I 26,10 where David speaks of: “or his time will come and he will die.” What he meant was that the person’s day of death will approach sooner than had been originally scheduled. Death may sometimes occur sooner than originally scheduled, such as in the case of David of whom we read in Kings I 2,1 “David’s days approached to die.” On the other hand, there are instances when years are added to the life of a person who had been born under horoscopic influences which presaged a much shorter life for him. The best known example of this was the King Chiskiyah who, though he had been told by the prophet Isaiah to make his last will and testament, was granted an additional 15 years in response to his prayer (Isaiah 38,4-8).
Conversely, we find that the life span of a person may be shortened from what had originally been decreed for him as we find in the case of King Yehoram son of Achazyah who was punished for his idolatry. We find in Kings II 1,16 that Elijah told him: “because you sent messengers to inquire of Baal-Zevuv the god of Ekron — as if there were no G’d in Israel whose word you could seek — assuredly you shall not rise from the bed which you are lying on but you shall die.” This is what prompted Solomon to say that charity is such a powerful virtue that it can overcome even decrees of death. Its power is equal to that of “being fruitful and multiplying.” The word חיים in the sequence בארח צדקה חיים means that an additional life span may be granted in recognition of the charity one practices. The word מות, “death,” in the second half of our verse refers to shortening someone’s life expectancy as retribution for some sin committed.
We are told in Baba Batra 11 that a certain righteous individual Binyamin, who was in charge of the distribution of public charity once had a certain woman approach him during a year of famine. The woman said to him: “please support me!” He answered her that there were no funds left in the kuppah. Thereupon she said to him: “if you do not provide me with food, a woman and her seven children will surely die.” He then gave her of his own money. Some time later, this very Binyamin fell sick and was on the point of death. At that point the angels said to G’d: “did You not say that anyone who keeps alive even a single Jew is considered as if he had kept a whole world alive? Did not this Binyamin save the lives of a woman and her seven children? Why does he have to die so young?” Thereupon the decree ordering his death was torn up and he had 22 years added to his life span.
The words ודרך נתיבה אל מות mean that because a person is performing constant acts of charity he may be certain that he does not die prematurely. Translated literally: “there is no death on its path.” This idea is expressed also by Proverbs 10,2 צדקה תציל ממות, “charity saves from death.” This means that the person who practices charity does not die before his appointed time thanks to his acts of charity. Seeing that on occasion acts of charity are the reason why someone’s life span is extended beyond what was originally decreed, it is only logical that such acts protect the person performing them against dying prematurely.
The subject matter of charity, how to practice it, and in what amount to practice it is quite complicated; the fundamental ingredient of doing charity is that one gives to someone else something which belongs to one. There are many ways of doing this. A minimal performance of the commandment would be giving a small alms to a Gentile. The next higher level of charity would be giving a similar amount to a Jewish person from another town who is in need. A still higher level of charity is giving this amount to a needy Jew from your own city. This is based on Exodus 22,24 “the poor person who lives amongst you.” A poor person residing in your house takes precedence in his claim on your charity over someone who lives out of town. A poor person who is also a next of kin takes precedence over another poor person of your hometown. The relevant verse in Isaiah 58,7 states: “do not ignore your own kin.” A still higher level of charity is to provide one’s children with a livelihood. Our sages (Ketuvot 50) applied to this Psalms 106,3 “Happy are those who do right at all times.” They argued that it is not possible to do right at all times as most people do not become called upon to perform acts of charity all the time. The only way they can fulfill what the psalmist talks about is by providing for their children while they are minors. The next higher level of performing charity is looking after one’s aged parents financially. By doing this one also fulfills the commandment to honour father and mother. This is the finest way of doing charity. When one does this one may be in line for living to a ripe old age oneself. This is why the Torah wrote in connection with this commandment (Exodus 20,12) “in order that you may experience long life on the earth that the Lord your G’d is assigning to you.” This is precisely what Solomon termed בארך צדקה חיים, that the path to life is righteousness. G’d repays measure for measure. If children keep their parents alive longer by ensuring that they can enjoy their old age, G’d in turn will recompense the children in a similar manner.
We see a perfect example of this principle in the relationship between Yaakov and Joseph. Yaakov had provided for Joseph during the first 17 years of his life; in our Parshah we are told that Joseph repaid his father by providing for him during the last 17 years of his life. This is why the Torah (Genesis 47,28) was at pains to write: “Yaakov lived in Egypt for 17 years.” [Had the Torah not wanted to make this point it could simply have written that Yaakov lived for a total of 147 years. We know that he was 130 years old when he was presented to Pharaoh. Ed.]

And hearts of Israel were “closed” because of the hardships of the bondage for they began... I.e., they were not yet in actual bondage, but had the “hardship” of bondage. Pharaoh requested them to [voluntarily] serve him, as it says in Sotah 11b that בפרך (Shemos 1:13) means בפה רך, “with a soft mouth.” In the beginning, the Egyptians enslaved them with a soft mouth.

We do need to examine the criteria which cause the Torah to refer to Jacob sometimes as "Jacob" and other times as "Israel." It is a fact that when these names are applied to the Jewish people as a whole, the name Jacob reflects some deficiency in the Jewish nation, whereas the name Israel reflects the fact that the nation lived up to its potential on the occasions when it is described by that name. This principle has been alluded to in the Zohar 210 on Parshat Balak. The reason given there cannot be applied to Jacob the individual, however, inasmuch as he lived a righteous life at all times.

Daher auch das eigentümliche ויהי ימי. Jakobs ganzes Lebensbild war ein einheitliches. שני חייו scheint, in Hinblick auf Jakobs bescheidene Äußerung über seinen Lebensinhalt, dieselbe wahrheitsgetreu rektifizieren zu sollen. Es waren nicht bloß מגוריו, die nur wenig חיים zählten, vielmehr waren alle Tage seiner Wanderschaft auf Erden Jahre wirklichen und wahrhaftigen Lebens. — Dass wir bei kleinen Zahlen das Gezählte im Plural, bei großen im Singular ausdrücken, hat vielleicht darin seinen Grund: bei einer kleineren Mehrheit stellen sich dem Auge und den Gedanken die einzelnen mehr in ihrer Individualität dar, während bei großer Anzahl sich mehr die Gesamtsumme hervorstellt, die den gemeinsamen Charakter der gezählten Objekte trägt. Wir sagen: חמשה אנשים und עשרים איש, ,"fünf Männer" und "zwanzig Mann".

'ויחי יעקב בארץ מצרים וגו, “Why did the Torah mention the number of years that Yaakov lived in Egypt? We could have figured this out from the data the Torah already provided us with about how old Joseph was when he left the house of father, (Genesis 37,2) how old he was when he was appointed as viceroy by Pharaoh, and from the age of Yaakov (130) at the time of his death which is listed in the same verse. The point the Torah wished us to appreciate is that just as for the first seventeen years of his life Yaakov, his father, had provided for him, during the last seventeen years of his life, his son Joseph provided for his father.

ויחי יעקב בארץ מצרים, “Yaakov lived in the land of Egypt;” all the years of Yaakov until he settled in Egypt could not truly be described as חיים, “life,” seeing that they were all clouded by different kinds of anguish. It was only during his last seventeen years in Egypt that his mind was at rest and not beset by serious worries of one kind or another. In fact, this whole verse has been inserted in the Torah as a compliment to Joseph who was the cause of Yaakov’s last seventeen years being happy years. During those 17 years he repaid his father who had sustained him for the first seventeen years of his life, by providing for him during the last 17 years of his life. He had been seventeen years old when he had been sold.

ויהי ימי יעקב שני חייו שבע שנים וארבעים ומאת שנה “the years of Yaakov’s life were one hundred and forty-seven years.” This Parshah is “closed,” i.e. we do not have the customary separation of words, lines or letters between the last portion and this one. There are two reasons for this. 1) The exile was about to start and the hearts of the Israelites became “closed” due to the progressively increasing difficulties in their daily lives. 2) Yaakov wanted to compensate for their feeling that a deterioration in their lives was about to take place by revealing to them the glorious future in store for them after the redemption. However, he was unable to do so. In other words, Yaakov’s channels of communication with the celestial regions had become “closed.” He had announced that he would reveal to them “what will befall you in the end of days” (49,1). When reading what follows it becomes clear that this is not what Yaakov announced. The “end of days” Yaakov had in mind was the exile in which we find ourselves now, not the exile in Egypt or Babylon. Seeing that Yaakov was the third of the patriarchs it is reasonable that his life should have foreshadowed experiences of the Jewish people during their third exile, i.e. our exile. At any rate, G’d would not let him reveal these matters and even Daniel (Daniel 12,9) states that these matters remained sealed secrets until the end of that exile. Our sages felt that Daniel had known about these developments and that is why the angel had to tell him to obscure the matter (Daniel 12,4).
Isaiah said something similar in Isaiah 9,6 where we read: לםרבה המשרה ולשלום אין קץ. The final letter ם in the middle of the word לםרבה where we should have had a regular “open” letter מ, is a warning that whatever the areas in which Israel excels, these will not be in evidence during their exiles. The prophet seems to be saying that even attempts to hasten the redemption through Torah-study, through establishing G’d’s authority on earth, etc., will not affect G’d’s timetable. It is interesting that we find exactly the reverse phenomenon in the Book of Ezra (Nechemyah 2,13) where an open letter מ appears at the end of a word, i.e. בחומות ירושלים אשר המ פרוצים, “the walls of Jerusalem which are broken down.” A Midrash comments on this verse that this is an allusion that whereas when the walls of Jerusalem which are now “open,” i.e. broken down, were still “closed,” i.e. intact, such as during the period of the Temple, G’d’s authority which had been “closed”, i.e. not in evidence during that period, will re-emerge and reassert itself as a result of the Jewish people learning their lesson during a harsh exile. Just as the two letters מ in the verses we have quoted from Isaiah and Nechemyah respectively contain allusions to matters hidden from us, so the unusual absence of a division between the two portions Vayigash and Vayechi also contain allusions to matters hidden from us, i.e. hidden from Yaakov.
There is a Midrash according to which Yaakov saw that the names of his twelve sons [the future tribes of Israel. Ed.] contained between them all the letters of the alphabet except the letters ח and ט. He concluded that this was a hint that none of these sons were guilty of a sin (chet.) This prompted him to reveal to them what he knew about the period preceding the final redemption. When he re-examined the letters in the names of the sons and realized that the letters ק and צ also did not appear in the names of any of them, he reconsidered and decided that his sons were not fit to have this information revealed to them. He therefore desisted, and this is why this portion is “closed.”

An alternate explanation: Because he wished to reveal the End... You might ask: According to the first explanation, it should be “closed” [not here but] in the verse where it is written that Yaakov died (49:33). And according to the alternate explanation, it should be “closed” in the verse, “Gather around and I will tell you... the end of days” (49:1). The answer is: In the middle of the parshah it would not be noticeable that it is “closed,” since it is usually “closed” there, so we would not know [that we should make] these expositions. And here Scripture enumerates Yaakov’s years, so it is considered the place where he died. And [this as well answers the explanation of] “reveal the End”: Yaakov assumedly would not reveal the End until close to his death, and here is the place of his death, as Rashi explains. Therefore, [the basis for Rashi’s interpretations] is evident. Maharshal writes that there is a question on the first explanation: This parshah does not mention the bondage. Why then was Parshas Shemos not “closed”? Therefore Rashi brings the alternate explanation. And there is a question on the alternate explanation: Why is it not “closed” at the section of (49:1), “Yaakov called for his sons... gather around and I will tell you...”? Therefore Rashi brings also the first explanation.

We must remember that Jacob strove to attain a very high degree of sanctity, one which is reflected in his name Israel. Spiritual highs are attainable only when one simultaneously frees oneself of such human concerns as pain, anguish, anger, etc. The kind of sanctity Jacob strove for needed to be based on the attainment of a degree of serenity in his earthly life, something that we nowadays experience only on the Sabbath, a day that G'd has imbued with the quality of מנוחה. He gave us an additional soul in order to appreciate that day to the full, and in order to help us to disregard all the depressing phenomena we have to deal with during the 6 days preceding the Sabbath. The reason we are able to do this is because the מנוחה emanates in the higher spiritual regions. This is why G'd Himself called the Sabbath עונג, delight. Whenever Jacob experienced the kind of spiritual serenity we are meant to experience every Sabbath, he qualified for the name Israel. The Torah therefore informs us about all these occasions by referring to him by his additional name. Whenever Jacob experienced worries, etc., this serenity departed from him similar to the departure of the נשמה יתרה from every Jew at the end of the Sabbath. At such times the Torah reverts to referring to our patriarch as being merely "Jacob."

I shall make a short list of instances where the respective names of Jacob and Israel clearly reflect different frames of mind of Jacob/Israel. In Genesis 35,10 where G'd tells Jacob for the first time that though his name remains Jacob he will henceforth also be entitled to the name Israel, the reason that G'd emphasised that at that time his name was still Jacob is that he had just heard about the death of his mother Rivkah (compare Bereshit Rabbah 82, which understands the words: "He (G'd) blessed him" in 35,9 as the blessing one extends to mourners). This is why the name Jacob continues to appear throughout this paragraph. The time when Rachel died (immediately afterwards according to the report in the Torah) was also a period during which Jacob could not qualify for the additional name Israel. The Torah (35,20) speaks about Jacob erecting a tombstone on the site where Rachel died and was buried. As soon as the thirty days of mourning had passed, we find that G'd called Jacob "Israel" in 35,21 where he is described as continuing his journey towards reunion with his father. When we find Jacob's children referred to as "the sons of Jacob" instead of as "the sons of Israel" in 35,22, this does not contradict what we have written, as the Torah merely wants to inform us that Israel's children were not on the same spiritual level as their father. The fact that Reuben was guilty of a misdemeanour with Israel's concubine at that time, is clear evidence of that. When the reunion between Isaac and his son Jacob is described in 35,27, the reason that Jacob is not called Israel is simply that it would not be good manners for the son to be called by a name which suggests a higher spiritual level than that of his father Isaac. You will find confirmation of this thought in Yalkut Shimoni item 875 on Psalms 116,15 "that the death of His faithful is precious to the Lord," where the author writes: "if Abraham had been alive at that time, how could his son Isaac have exercised any authority?" The same argument applied to all the other patriarchs. The above teaches that while one's illustrious father or teacher is alive, the son or disciple is not allowed to outshine him. This is why the Torah refers to Jacob as Jacob at that time. When we read about Jacob settling in the land of Canaan in 37,1 he is again called Jacob to remind us that during all the years he remained in the land of Canaan his life was full of mental anguish with very brief exceptions. One such exception was his relationship with Joseph before the latter was sold into slavery. This is why the Torah speaks of that relationship as "Israel loved Joseph, etc." The name Israel is used by the Torah only three times from the time Joseph was sold until 45,28 after Jacob had regained a measure of Holy Spirit as stated in 45,27 ותחי רוח יעקב אביהם, "their father Jacob's spirit revived." The three instances during the period between the sale of Joseph and Jacob's receiving the news that he was alive and well are 43,6: "Israel said: 'why did you harm me,'etc,"--43,8: "Yehudah said to Israel his father, etc." and 43,11: "Their father Israel said to them, etc." In all those instances Jacob spoke to his sons as a person who exercised his position of authority; this is why the Torah describes him with his full title "Israel." In those instances Jacob/lsrael had to assert his authority when he noticed that his sons did not give due consideration to their father's anguish. By acting as "Israel" he indicated that he would not forgive them if they did not heed his words. As soon as Jacob heard the news about Joseph he is referred to repeatedly as the "Israel" of old. This situation continues until Jacob/lsrael is told that he has to remain in Egypt, i.e. in exile. From then on the Torah called him Israel only at the moment of his reunion with Joseph or when the Torah referred to his sons. During the period Jacob dwelled in Egypt the Torah generally calls him Jacob until shortly before his death. It was important that his sons and family should remember that they had lost not merely a Jacob but an Israel. Besides, as Jacob prepared for death, his mind became filled with other-worldly concerns. It was therefore easy for him to attain the serenity needed to be Israel once more. The Zohar first section, 218 elaborates on the spiritual growth of the human soul shortly before its death in connection with "Israel prostrating himself at the head of the bed" during the period described in the Torah as "the days approached when Israel was to die," (47,29 and 47,31). All of this is the plain meaning of these verses. They do have implications of a more profound and mystical nature, however.

ויחי יעקב בארץ מצרים, Jacob lived in the land of Egypt, etc. Why did the Torah have to tell us once more that Jacob was in Egypt? Besides, all the Torah had to write was: 'ויהי ימי יעקב וגו, "Jacob lived to be 147 years old." This information would have allowed us to calculate that he lived in Egypt for the last 17 years seeing that he had told Pharaoh that he was 130 years old when he came to Egypt (47,9). Furthermore, why did the Torah have to repeat שני חייו, the years of his life?

Perhaps all of this is connected to the fact that Jacob's life was never smooth from the moment of his birth when he held on to the heel of his twin brother. His adversary Esau grew up alongside him; thereafter he lived a life of constant tension with his uncle Laban for 20 years. Not much later he experienced the anguish of Dinah's rape to be followed by Joseph's disappearance. For all these reasons the Torah tells us that the only 17 years Jacob lived a relatively serene life were the last 17 years of his life in Egypt. The Torah underlines that these were the only years which Jacob could really be described as having enjoyed by writing ויהי ימי יעקב שני חייו, "these years were full of חיים, life." These 17 years were truly ימי יעקב, "Jacob's years."

We have a tradition based on Tana de bey Eliyahu Rabbah chapter 5 that when someone concludes his life on earth in a happy frame of mind his entire life may be considered as having been a happy one. This is also the meaning of Job 8,7: והיה ראשיתך מצער ואחריתך ישגה מאד, "though your beginning was full of pain, your end will be a great achievement." Solomon has expressed a similar thought in Kohelet 7,8 when he said that "a good ending is better than a good beginning." When the Torah speaks of ויחי יעקב, this means that the last 17 happy years which Jacob lived in Egypt made his entire life, i.e. שני חייו appear as years during which he had lived to the full. The Torah chose the word ויהי which always signifies some painful experience to tell us that though there had been many painful experiences in Jacob's life on earth they were all converted to positive experiences in light of his last seventeen years in Egypt.

We need to consider why the Torah enumerates the years of Jacob's life in a different manner from the way it enumerated the lives of Abraham and the other patriarchs. When the Torah told us about the number of years Abraham lived, it commenced with the larger unit first, i.e. 100 years plus seventy years plus five years (compare Genesis 25,7). We find the same thing in Genesis 35,28 when Isaac's life is described; the same also is the case when the Torah described the number of years Sarah lived (Genesis 23,1). Perhaps the reason that the Torah reversed this in Jacob's case is to drive home the point that Jacob's last 17 good years were the key to his whole life.

Perhaps the Torah actually wanted to pinpoint 47 years of Jacob's life as the ones during which he experienced what we are in the habit of calling happiness. This is based on the interpretation of the verse in Genesis 37,3 that וישראל אהב את יוסף מכל בניו. According to the Zohar both Jacob's love for Rachel his true mate and Joseph is lumped together in this verse as indicated by the extra word את. As long as Joseph had not been born Jacob dressed in sackcloth [a figure of speech denoting he had not yet begun to experience what he perceived to be his true destiny. Ed.] When computing the number of years Jacob was married to Rachel and the 17 years prior to Joseph's disappearance, one must consider that some of these years overlapped as Rachel was alive until the birth of Benjamin 6 years after the birth of Joseph. Jacob was married to Rachel for 13 years during his stay at Laban. He experienced 11 years in the company of Joseph before the latter was sold making a total of 24 years. When you add to this the 17 years he lived in Egypt you get a total of 41 years of happiness in Jacob's adult life. When you add the first 6 years of Jacob's childhood, years that are not yet clouded by the various problems we experience in life, we have a total of 47 years of Jacob's life during which he could be considered as having lived a "normal" life. The Torah may have wanted to draw our attention to this fact and therefore it mentions these 47 years before mentioning the numerically bigger number, i.e. the 100 years.

According to this approach we have to justify the word ויהי as a hint by the Torah that Jacob did not exploit all the good years of life on earth he could have enjoyed because he had caused Rachel's premature death when he uttered the oath that anyone who had stolen Laban's Teraphim should not live (31,32). Bereshit Rabbah 74,9 writes that the reason Jacob did not attain the age of his father Isaac (180), was that he lost 33 years of his life, a number corresponding to the numerical value of the word יחיה when he had said in 31,32 that the person who stole Laban's teraphim לא יחיה, should not live.

We are now left with the task of explaining why the Torah reports on the total of Jacob's years long before he was actually about to die, and before he had called in his sons to give them his last blessing. Perhaps the Torah wanted Jacob (and us) to become aware that he did not have the life expectancy of his father or his grandfather. This may have prompted him to call in his son Joseph order to make him swear that he would bury him in the land of Canaan. The patriarchs were all prophets and Jacob may well have been aware that he had forfeited 33 years of his life by his premature curse. As a result of this foreknowledge he called upon his son Joseph to visit him at that time in order to discuss burial arrangements.

If we look for some kind of allusion in the fact that Jacob enjoyed precisely 17 years in Egypt at the expense of his son Joseph who had become the provider of the family, it maybe that this number of years corresponded to the number of years Jacob himself had provided for Joseph before the latter had been sold into slavery by his brothers. It is also interesting that the number 17 is equal to the numerical value of the word טוב, good. Perhaps the Torah hints that Jacob experienced a repayment of the good he had done for Joseph while the latter grew up, when his son now repaid him with an equal number of years.