Treasures of the Torah.
Vayechi is the last of the seven parshas chronicling the lives of Jacob’s family, the rise of Joseph, a Hebrew servant in prison to his new favoured position as Zaphnath-Paaneah, governor of Egypt. It is significantly the twelfth portion that also sees the gathering of the twelve tribes together again in Egypt.

This parsha begins in Genesis 47:28 where Jacob lived, and ends in 50:26 when Joseph dies. We have taken quite a journey with this peculiar family. We have seen Jacob settled in the land of Canaan to having been forced to travel out of it to Egypt for the very survival of his family. We have witnessed sibling rivalry and shared in the sadness that comes when we too, experience the loss of one of our own.

Since Parsha Vayeshev, our pages have been dominated by the story of one character – Joseph.
Scripture tells us that YHVH’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts not ours.
How do we fathom the struggle of this family, and for what purpose does the story mean anything for us?
Isaiah 55:8-9Complete Jewish Bible (CJB)
8 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
and your ways are not my ways,” says Adonai.
9 “As high as the sky is above the earth
are my ways higher than your ways,
and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Jacob’s story is indeed our own struggle. The sages teach that the pattern of the patriarchs is the pattern for Israel. On a personal level it is also the pattern for each of us as we struggle with the change that takes place in us as we begin are own transformation from the corporeal man to the spiritual man.