26 | JANUARY 9 • 2020
I
n the 49th of Genesis’
50
chapters, our patriarch Jacob
assembles his 12 sons and
declares: “Agidah lakhem et
asher yikra etchem b’
acha-
rit hayamim” — “I will tell
you that which shall befall
you in the end of days.
”
What Jacob proceeds to
tell them, though, includ-
ing a few generalizations
about the future, is mostly
a series of strange poems
and animal imagery.
Anyone anticipating a
vivid description of the
future is certainly disap-
pointed.
Parashat Vayechi is the
only weekly portion of the year
that does not begin following a
blank space in the text. It is not
unusual for the Torah reader to
have a bit of difficulty finding
the opening word, vayechi.
Commenting on its strange
placement in the Torah scroll,
Rashi, quoting Bereishit Rabbah,
explains that just as this Torah
section is “closed” (i.e. hard to
locate), so, too, the details of the
future are closed to Jacob.
Though Jacob wanted to
explain the future, God prevents
him from doing so explicitly.
Which leads to the question:
Why would God not want a par-
ent to let his/her children know
what lies ahead?
#1 – They won’
t believe us
anyway. Try telling your children
what to do and what will happen
if they don’
t listen. Enough said.
There’
s a memorable scene in
Oliver Stone’
s JFK, in which a
woman is tossed from a car in
Louisiana by two men on Nov.
20, 1963. She tells the police
officers who pick her up and the
doctors at the hospital where
she is treated for bruises that
the men in the car are going
to Dallas to kill the president
two days later. She correctly
describes the future, but no one
believes her.
#2 – Predicting the
future might negatively
impact the way we live.
What if Jacob had clear-
ly identified the events
that would occupy his
children’
s destiny? These
include slavery, exile,
Crusades, pogroms,
Holocaust, in addition to
personal pain, illness and
loss.
Would knowing the
future alter the path of
Jacob’
s children away from
Judaism? Would we, too, change
our life’
s decisions if we knew
our future? Would an artist still
embark on a new creation, if he/
she knew for sure that it would
not be well received?
#3 – Even “guaranteed” future
might not come true. Look how
many individual futures did not
follow logic. Abram, the son of
an idol maker, grew up to be the
first Jew. Joseph, sold into slav-
ery at age 17, later became the
second most powerful person
in Egypt. Moses, barely surviv-
ing drowning as an infant, was
raised in Egyptian royalty then
gave it all up to be the leader of
his people.
While some might find it
interesting to “see into the
future,
” we have learned that
doing so is neither realistic nor
helpful. Instead of predicting
the future, our goal should be to
make the future happen.
Rabbi Elliot Pachter is the rabbin-
ic adviser at the Frankel Jewish
Academy, and rabbi emeritus at
Congregation B’
nai Moshe, both in
West Bloomfield.
Parshat
Vayechi:
Genesis
47:28-50:26;
I Kings
2:1-12.
Rabbi Elliott
Pachter
Spirit
torah portion
Knowing What Will Be
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