Educational Insights from Parashat Vayechi — “When You Discover That All the Tools Are Within You: A Lesson for Generations”

In our parashah lies one of the great and important foundations for transmitting values to the next generation.

The verse states: "ועתה שני בניך הנולדים לך... עד בואי אליך מצרימה לי הם" (מח, ה) — “And now, your two sons who were born to you… before I came to you in Egypt, they are mine” (48:5).

"ומולדתך אשר הולדת אחריהם לך יהיו..." (שם ו) — “And your offspring whom you beget after them shall be yours…” (ibid., 6).

Rashi: “If you beget more children, they will not be counted among my sons; rather, they will be included among the tribes of Ephraim and Menashe, and they will not have the status of tribes with regard to inheritance.”

Our forefather Yaakov distinguishes between Yosef’s sons who were born before he came to Egypt and those who would be born afterward.

The Gaon Rabbi Moshe Feinstein zatzal wondered: what is the reason for this distinction? Why did Menashe and Ephraim merit that Yaakov elevate them to the level of a tribe and include them in the count of the twelve tribes? Why only them, from among all his grandchildren?

After all, one would seemingly expect the opposite: Yosef’s children who were born while our forefather Yaakov was in Egypt knew the illustrious father of the family — Yaakov Avinu — from the beginning of their lives. They certainly had a more essential connection and a greater true closeness to Yaakov than those born before he came to Egypt, who until now had not known him or been acquainted with him.

If so, why are “those born to you before I came to you in Egypt” “mine” , while “your offspring whom you beget after them” “shall be yours” ?

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein zatzal answers this and lays down essential foundations in the structure of education. Our forefather Yaakov teaches us how far the obligation of education reaches. Good education is education that accompanies a person in every situation, time, and period, throughout all the days of his life. For when is the success of education tested? Precisely when the student is outside the framework in which he was educated; then his actions and conduct are put to the test.

The test of education is measured by the nature of the child’s behavior and conduct when he is outside the walls of the home, far from the eyes of his parents and educators: does he implement what his parents taught him and chart his path according to the pure aspirations he absorbed in his father’s home, or does he instill within himself a new and foreign way of life that contradicts the outlook of the home in which he grew up?

The education that we instill in our children must be deep and rooted, so that it will endure for many days and its influence will accompany the child wherever he may be, at home and outside it, at all times, seasons, and periods throughout the years of his life.

Yosef HaTzaddik is the most striking proof of the success of the quality and good education that our forefather Yaakov transmitted to his sons.

A seventeen-year-old youth, in a foreign land, far from his parents’ home, amid the impurity of the lands of the nations, full of idols and idolatry — a land distant and alien from the home in which he grew up and was educated — nevertheless, despite everything, continues to walk in the path paved by his parents.

He is tested with exceedingly difficult trials and withstands them all with supreme courage; he establishes a home of holiness, educates his children in purity, bequeaths to them true perspectives of a life of sanctity, and continues the tradition of his father’s home.

From where did he draw the incomprehensible inner strength to ignore the influence of his surroundings, neighbors, and friends? From where did he derive the power to continue along the path of Torah and to transmit this purity to his children without deviation? The depth of the matter lies in what Chazal revealed to us: “The image of his father’s likeness stood before his eyes and saved him from sin.”

Yaakov rooted and implanted pure education in Yosef’s soul; from it he drew the strength to withstand the trial, and accordingly he conducted his sanctified way of life. And how did our forefather Yaakov, peace be upon him, do this? Through the love he felt for him. But he thereby taught us the plain meaning of this matter for generations: love does not mean carrying him in one’s arms at all times; on the contrary, it means planting within him the proper tools to face all the challenges of life by identifying the strengths hidden inside him.

This education that his father planted within him, Yosef bestowed upon his sons — Menashe and Ephraim — and he transmitted to them the tradition of Torah in holiness and purity, with tremendous trust and immense love, believing that within them were mighty strengths.

Now we can understand why our forefather Yaakov attributes to himself specifically those born before he came to Egypt: because he saw in them the fruits of his own education. These descendants of Yosef embody the quality of the education that he had transmitted to his sons, and therefore our forefather Yaakov felt a deeper inner connection to Menashe and Ephraim than to those who were born afterward. In them, the distinctiveness of his education was not as apparent as it was in the successful education of Menashe and Ephraim, who did not grow up on his knees, but rather on the knees of their father, his son Yosef alone — which, as stated, expressed the greatness and power of Yosef’s own education by his great father, our forefather Yaakov, peace be upon him.

To illustrate how much a value engraved in the soul of a young man can influence him and accompany him for years, even when he is disconnected from a value-based and Torah environment, let us learn from the following incident.

A Struggling Youth Buys Meat from a Private Shechitah

This happened when I went to visit a young man in one of the boarding schools for at-risk youth in the Gush Dan area. There I met the housemaster, who told me the following:

A few years ago there was a student here, a good boy, but he had many ups and downs, and spiritually his situation was not easy, until one day he broke down and left the boarding school. Gradually he drifted away from the path, until eventually he enlisted in the army.

I was very pained, because after all, we had invested in him. I felt a sense of missed opportunity accompanied by disappointment.

A few years passed, and one day, very recently, I heard a knock at the door. When I opened it, I was surprised. The young man was standing before me and asked to come in. Of course, I was happy to see him. When I asked how he was, he told me that he was still in the army, had gotten married, and had three daughters. I asked him what he was doing in Bnei Brak, and he answered that he had come to buy chickens and meat from a private shechitah by a certified shochet who himself slaughters, checks, and supervises the entire kashering process.

I was very surprised as to why he was not satisfied with purchasing meat from the well-known and recognized kashrut certifications, especially since this did not at all match his spiritual level. I asked him about it gently, and then he told me that as part of his army service he had served for a long period in the city of Chevron, on guard duty and patrols, including during the festival period, and he would see the multitudes of the House of Israel coming to visit the graves of the Patriarchs. Then his heart would fill with longing for the days when he studied in the boarding school, and as this happened, the foundations he had received from the staff would surface in his memory.

One day he and his friends caught a group of Arabs who were trying to smuggle non-kosher meat bearing a forged stamp of one of the Badatz authorities. This shook him, and since then he decided not to eat meat except from a private shechitah.

I said to myself, related the devoted housemaster, " one must never despair or think that the investment was in vain, because every investment has an effect on the soul, and one can never know where it will find expression over the course of life ".

By Rabbi Michael Zechariahu, spiritual director of the Torat David yeshivah gedolah and chairman of the Legiono Shel Melech organization