Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Vayechi begins unlike any other portion in the Torah. No break, no space, no pause. And the sages insist that this absence is trying to tell us something. What could a missing space possibly reveal? Join me to discover why the silence itself may be the message in this week's Five Minute Torah.
[00:00:26] Shalom and blessings from Shalom Makin, the place where disciples of Yeshua learn to connect and grow. I'm Darren, and before I get into the five minutes of my five Minute Torah Commentary, let's cover a few quick facts about this week's Torah portion. This week we are in the 12th portion of the Torah cycle. We are in the portion of Vayechi Genesis 47, 28, 50, 26 and here are the three things that you need to know about it. Number one a Sabbath tradition the blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh. Every Friday night around the Sabbath table, fathers place their hands on the heads of their sons and bless them with the words Ephraim Vakimnasha. May God bless you. Like Ephraim and Manasseh, many people are familiar with the moment when Jacob crossed his hands, placed his right hand on Ephraim the Younger and his left hand on Manasseh the firstborn. What is less known is that Jacob himself established this tradition. He told them, by you, Israel will pronounce blessings, saying, God will make you as Ephraim and Manasseh. This is Genesis 48:20. This blessing was never meant to end with them. Ephraim was promised that his offspring would become, quote, a multitude of nations in verse 19, inviting every generation that follows to step into this ancient and enduring tradition. Number two Tribal blessings the prophecy of Kingship on his deathbed, Jacob blesses each of his 12 sons, speaking to each one according to who they are and what they needed. Some of these blessings sound comforting, while others feel sharp, even unsett.
[00:02:03] Yet correction itself can be a blessing when it redirects us away from destructive paths and toward who we were created to become. Among the elders, Judah and Joseph received the greatest weight of Jacob's words. Judah, in particular, is set apart as the royal line. The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him. And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. This is Genesis 49:10. Through this blessing, kingship is firmly established in Judah's line, shaping Israel's future for generations to come. And number three A time to cry the death of Jacob and Joseph. Jacob dies at the age of 147 and is mourned throughout Egypt for 70 days. Honoring his father's request, Joseph returns Jacob's body to Canaan to be buried in the cave of Machpel.
[00:02:56] The journey is marked by an extraordinary procession. Servants of Pharaoh, elders of Egypt, Joseph's household, his brothers, and a vast company of chariots and horsemen accompany them. Joseph then returns to Egypt and lives to the age of 110. Before his death, he makes his family swear to carry his bones back to Canaan. Yet for reasons the Torah does not explain, they do not. The portion closes with a haunting line. So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him and and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. Are you a disciple of Yeshua? Many people say they are, but few truly understand what discipleship really means. Why? Because discipleship is a distinctly Jewish concept, an intimate relationship between a rabbi and a student. Yeshua called 12 men into that kind of discipleship, and those 12 changed the world. So what do they understand about discipleship that we often miss? And how can we make better disciples if we've never truly been one ourselves? That those questions led me to write my book, the Four Responsibilities of a Disciple. While many books focus on how to make disciples, I wanted to understand what it means to be a disciple, because too many disciples today aren't transforming the world the way they should. What I discovered was that every disciple carries four essential responsibilities, and when these are lived out, they can truly change the world. If you want to know what it means to be a real disciple of our Master Yeshua, check out the Four Responsibilities of a Disciple using the link below below. This week's Torah commentary is called Can Blessings Be a Hidden Curse? And comes from my book, Five Minute Torah, Volume one.
[00:04:35] The Torah portion of Vayechi begins differently than all other Torah portions. It's the only portion in the entire Torah that is attached to the previous portion without any means of additional spacing. Unlike all the other portions, there's no break between vayigash and vayikhi in the Torah scroll. Our sages interpret this in a number of ways, as they consider the breaks and spaces in the Torah scroll to be equally as important as the letters, and for good reason. Since the spaces within the Torah are used to serve specific functions, there must be a lesson in this peculiarity within the Torah. One interpretation of this anomaly is that the lack of space between this portion and the previous one is supposed to teach us something about Jacob's portrait children. Rashi proposes that once the children of Israel lost their father, the spiritual leader of the emerging nation. Their foresight was cut short. Their fate was concealed from them. Their lives were like a snowball rolling downhill, gathering mass and momentum. There was no time to reflect. After the death of their father, they lived as if there were no tomorrow, spiraling toward their fate, unaware each day ran into the next, until they awoke abruptly and in the chains of Egyptian slavery. We have the potential for this to be repeated in one way or another in our lives as well. How so? Sometimes life can get away from us. Sometimes we are so caught up in creating a livelihood or getting the kids off to their soccer games that we forget the things that are most important. Sometimes we are so distracted by our jobs and getting ahead that we lose sight of the things that should be most dear to us. Therefore, we have a constant reminder to guard against this. In the daily Amidah, the pinnacle of of any prayer service, we ask the Lord to bless us for the good. We say, bless us, O Lord our God, this year and every type of produce for the good. Why is the expression for the good added to this prayer? Why don't we just ask for blessings in general? Aren't all blessings good? Not necessarily. Take, for instance, the successful businessman who prospers wildly but he never has time for his wife and children. When one's business dealings are successful, they often become all consuming, allowing little to no time for personal pursuits or spiritual endeavors. Or what about the one who suddenly comes into an enormous amount of money without any previous experience of managing money properly? Statistics show that the vast majority of those who win a large amount of money generally end up broke and worse off than they were before their windfall within one year. According to these findings, winning the lottery may seem like an incredible blessing, but could end up being a curse. There's a story told about a man who inherited a prosperous business from his father. However, rather than the business prospering as it did under the leadership of his father, it took a turn for the worse. With his son concerned and wondering why the business was not succeeding as it did for his father, he approached his rabbi to get his advice.
[00:07:33] After relating his predicament to his rabbi, his rabbi asked him, when business is slow, what do you do with your time? He replied that he read the newspaper and caught up on the latest news. That's your problem, the rabbi insisted. When your father was running the business, he used his free time to study Torah and perform mitzvot. But you just waste your time away. The yetzer hara, the evil impulse used the success of your father's business to try and distract him from his Torah studies to but you are already distracted, so the Yetzer Har doesn't need to overwhelm you with business. We need to constantly pray that the steps we take today will lead us in the proper paths tomorrow. We don't want to be obsessed with business success at the cost of our families or our health or even our own soul. Yeshua said it this way, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? Will our spiritual eyes be closed and our discernment be cut short to what lies ahead? Or will we take every step with discernment and eyes wide open? May every blessing we receive be for the good and not to our detriment. Chazakh Chazak Vanit Chazek. Be strong, be strong and may we be strengthened Next week we'll start the Book of Shemote or Exodus. If today's teaching stirs something in you, especially around the topic of regret, I want to invite you to explore a message I recently taught at my local congregation, Shalom Macon, called the Poison of Regret. It's a reflection on Jacob's words late in life and how regret can quietly shape the story that we tell about ourselves, sometimes without us even realizing it. My hope is that it helps you begin letting go of what's behind you so that you can live out your best life and be all that God has called you to be. Just click the link right here to get started.
