VAYECHI 1980

Torah portion starts out with words VaYechi Ya Acov and Jacob lived 17 years and then it says his days were 147 years.  Why 17 years singled out?  Only in the last 17 years did he have naches.  Before that he had trouble with brother, uncle, children.  Jacob was able to raise children who followed in his footsteps because he didn't mix up tolerance with approval.  Today the family is disintegrating.  We are called Israel, not Abraham or Isaac because Israel knew how to create family.  Abraham and Isaac didn't.  Today young people don’t even want to start families and when they have them they want to get away and out from them.  The first generation may have thrown out kashruth and Shabbos and only come to Shul two or three times a year, but they were Jewish because believed in family.  New generation doesn't believe in family anymore. And very Jewish existence is threatened.  A family can only exist if there are standards, values.  If we say everything is alright, all a question of personal preference then family cannot stand.  Sure, people break standards and we have to understand that but we don't have to approve.  The same thing is true of a country.  We in the U.S. have made the false assumption that there is always two sides to a question.  Both sides are right.  Both sides are just.  This paralyzes our action.  In this world there is a right and wrong.  Tolerance talks to punishment.  It doesn't mean that the other side is right.  People who say after all Afghanistan is right next to Russia, Russia has a large Moslem minority, Russia will need oil, her actions are understandable and justifiable are wrong.  In this world both sides are not right.  That's why we speak about justice and mercy in Judaism.  Judaism says there is a right and a wrong.  After you determine that something is wrong then you bring in mercy. A family cannot exist unless there is justice and mercy.  There has to be standards and then people must be tolerated who don't quite live up to standards but admit that there are standards.  Abraham couldn't build family because he at Sara's insistence rejected son who didn't meet standards.  Isaac couldn't build family because he blind to all faults, no standards Jacob could build family because criticizes with love.  Jacob even when blessed children at end didn't overlook faults.  He expected children to live up to standards and he dealt mercifully when didn't.  But he never let them think that he didn't demand best from them. They respected him because he set high standards and they knew he would never reject them but would work with them to attain standards.  Same thing with nation.  We can never say wrong is right.  Sometimes we have to accept things we don't like but we should never say
they're right.  No justification for hostages in Iran.  Can't say Shah worst tyrant ever lived.  Nobody will respect us and it will paralyze all action.  Must have respect.  Can only have respect if we have standards.
Story about politician who was addressing crowd.  A little boy started to howl.  His mother started to take him out.  The politician sensing he would lose a vote said, "Madam, baby isn't bothering me".  To which the woman replied, "Sir, the baby isn't bothering you but you sure are bothering the baby". We must have standards.

This Torah portion opens by telling us that Jacob lived in the land of Egypt for 17 years before he died.  These were happy years because he had naches from his children.  He had no more troubles and he was able to see his son, Joseph, as the ruler of Egypt.  Before he died he asked Joseph to take a vow that he would not bury him in the land of Israel.  The reason for this was to emphasize to his family that although they held very high positions in Egypt and that although they were now treated very well in Egypt there were differences between the Jewish culture and the culture of Egypt and that they should not forget it, that although they had made positive contributions to Egypt they were never to confuse Judaism with Egyptian culture.  This has been true throughout all ages that Judaism had a unique message which is never the same as the culture in which the Jews find themselves.  Immediately after this incident we learn how Joseph hears that his father is sick and he brings his two sons, Menasha and Ephraim, to be blessed by Jacob.  Jacob adopts them as his own thus giving Joseph the first horn's double portion, and he blesses them.  Menasha is the oldest.  Joseph places his sons in front of his father so that his father would bless Menasha with his right hand and Ephraim with his left, but Jacob reverses this.  He crosses his hands and he blesses Ephraim with his right hand and Menasha with his left. Joseph sees this and is upset.  He tells his father not so because Menasha is the oldest.  His father says I know, Menasha will be a great nation but Ephraim will be greater than he.  Here we have an incident which illustrates again how Judaism differs even from a modern American perspective.  In America today the idea is rampant that if something feels good it must be good.  Feelings are being contrasted to the intellect.  We do not know how to handle objectivity and subjectivity. Complete objectivity leaves us cold while complete subjectivity can

lead to terrible excesses.  Menasha in our tradition is the man of intellect. He had a powerful mind.  He was a good administrator.  He served as the interpreter between Joseph and his brothers.  Ephraim, on the other hand, was considered a man of feeling.  In Judaism the right hand is a symbol of intellect.  The right hand is the hand with which we can usually do skills.  Most people are right-handed.  The left hand, on the other hand, is the symbol of feelings, emotion.  The heart is on the left side.  Jacob was telling us that feelings must be combined with intellect and intellect must be combined with feelings.  How do we know something is true?  We cannot rely on our feelings alone.  Feelings are very deceptive.  We also cannot rely on the intellect.  Reason and intellect are based on assumptions and how do we know that our assumptions or rules are true?  This is where Jewish learning comes in.  Feelings must be tempered by intellect, by learning.  Objectivity alone leaves us cold.  Excessive reliance on science creates an emotional void which can lead to explosions like what happened in Germany.  Jacob is telling us feelings are good if they are filtered through the mind.  But only then they can lead to greatness. The story about the man who was sitting in the living room while his son was playing the violin with his dog beside him.  As the boy was screeching on the violin the dog began to howl.  The boy kept screeching and the dog kept howling.  Finally the man could not stand it and he turned to the boy and said, "Can't you play something the dog doesn't know?"  If we do not know how to train our feelings we will all end up going to the dogs.  Just relying on whether something feels good rather than also determining whether it is also right can only lead to disaster.