Two Thoughts on VaYechi

Rav Chaim Schmuelvitz suggests that the name Yisrael connotes happiness while Yaakov reflects sadness. He says this is clear at the start of VaYechi: “And it came to pass after these things that someone said to Yoseph: 'Behold, your father is sick.' And he took with him his two sons, Menasheh and Ephraim. And someone informed Yaakov, and said: 'Behold, your son Yosef is coming to you.' And Yisrael strengthened himself, and sat upon the bed.” (There’s an interesting literary parallelism – first someone tells Yosef something about his father, then his father is told something about him. Wonder what the message is in that little piece of Torah poetry. I wonder who that person, in each case, was. Sometimes mysterious people are angels, and the lesson is about G-d’s will being made to come true.)
t
First sad, then reinvigorated; Yaakov then Yisrael. This reminds me of an interview I saw in which Robert Klein was asked if he sees himself or someone else when he watches videos of his old performances. He said that he actually sees different people, not him as he knows himself now. We are all (hopefully) different people at different ages, in different moods, and during different times.

Yaakov was sometimes so sad that he was a different person. And yet he was always forefather and role model. Different states of mind are opportunities, not excuses. This is a difficult truth, true nonetheless. Wherever we're at and whoever we are at any moment we are expected to be our best, to do to our best to be close to G-d.

May we be so blessed.

------------------------------------------------

The following is transcribed from a piece on Vayechi by Rav Moshe Feinstein. It's in Darash Moshe, published by Artscroll/Mesorah.

"I shall be gathered to my people." - Breishit 49:29

It is unclear to whom Jacob was referring with the word "people." He could not have meant the Jewish people, since he himself was the first of them to die, and had he meant Abraham and Isaac he would have said, "I am about to be gathered to my fathers."

To understand what Jacob meant, I wish to suggest that even though a particular group may not be considered a distinct people in our world, in the world of truth a "people" is defined by the strength of its belief in Hashem and by the quantity and quality of merits accumulated through efforts in this world. Surely the tzadikim who had made themselves known in the world until that time, including Adam, Seth, Methuselah, Shem, Eber, and, of course, Abraham and Isaac, would constitute such a group.

This is what Jacob meant: "I shall be gathered to my people" - to the righteous ones who have a place together in the world of truth because they believed in Hashem, and therefore I wish to be buried with my fathers, Abraham and Isaac.