This week’s parshah starts off, “וַיֵּשֶׁב יַעֲקֹב בְּאֶרֶץ מְגוּרֵי אָבִיו בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן” “Yaakov lived in the land which his fathers traveled in, the land of Canaan.”(37:1). The Kli Yakar asks two questions on this pasuk. First, why does the pasuk use two different words to describe how Yaakov and Yitzchak settled in Eretz Yisrael? By Yaakov the word is “וַיֵּשֶׁב” “settled”, and by Yitzchak it says “מְגוּרֵי” from the word גר, meaning a stranger or someone who has not settled that place, but rather is just passing through. It should either say that Yitzchak also settled the land or it should say that Yaakov was a גר, like his father? Why this double language? Secondly, why does the pasuk have to say “בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן”? We already know where Yaakov is from the end of last week’s parshah, plus, we know where Yitzchak and Avraham lived?
He answers with an important idea. The word “וַיֵּשֶׁב” implies a more permanent stage of settling. The pasuk is telling us that in the same place where Yaakov’s fathers had lived like nomads, Yaakov decided to settle in permanently. Even in the land which the Avos’ children were destined to settle, the Avos were not allowed to live there like permanent residents. Why not? After all, they were promised the land as inheritance, why did they have to wait to take it over?
Chazal teach us that tzaddikim are not allowed to live in comfort in this world, only in the world to come can they completely “relax”. While in this world, the job of a tzaddik is to perfect the world around him. He is not allowed to keep to himself and let everything take care of itself, he must look around and fix what he can. When Hashem saw Yaakov trying to live in peace in this world, he said, “You want to live in peace in this world and in the next world?” Because of this, the whole story with Yosef happened and Yaakov’s temporary peace was broken.
There is a very important lesson here which each and every Jew must take to heart. Everyone wants to live a peaceful life, to be able to go through life without worries, pain, troubles, and just be able to serve Hashem with joy. That is not the job of a Jew, however. Life is not supposed to be easy. We were put in this world in order to bring it to a level of kedushah which is not normally found down here on Earth. By accepting the Torah, we not only took responsibility for our own spiritual level, but for the whole world as well! So we can’t just allow the world to spin around us, we must be proactive and change what we can. Yaakov especially had this responsibility as one of the builders of the Jewish people. Because he tried to ignore this task, he was forced back into it by eventually going down to Mitzrayim to build up an extremely impure area to serve as the Jewish people’s home for 210 years.
If we can keep ourselves on a high level and bring the world to a higher level at the same time, we will merit a place in the World to Come, where we will be able to “relax” in a completely spiritual place. (In fact, just because we accepted the Torah, Hashem has already promised each Jew a spot in Olam Habah [World to Come], and the better you are in this world, the larger your portion is.) Because we have this in our future, Hashem does not allow us to “relax” in this world too! Here we must work! We must try to bring this world to the same spiritual level we hope to reach in Olam Habah.
May we all be able to fulfill our job to purify this world so that we may merit a greater portion in Olam Habah where we will finally be able to “relax”.
Shabbat Shalom!
AIMeM
No comments:
Post a Comment