Weekly Dvar Torah: Yaacov Lives Because We Are Alive
The name of this week’s parsha is Vayechi Yaacov — “And Yaacov lived.” Yet this parsha describes Yaacov’s final days, his blessings, his passing, and the grand funeral procession from Egypt to Chevron. It also describes the reality of the family after his passing. One would expect the parsha to be called “And Yaacov died.” Instead, the Torah declares, “And Yaacov lived.”
The Torah further tells us: “And Yaacov lived in the land of Egypt for seventeen years.” The Baal HaTurim writes that these were the best years of Yaacov’s life. Seventeen equals the gematria of Tov — good. But this only deepens the question.
What was “good” about Egypt?
Yaacov’s life seemed anything but calm. He fled from his home because his brother Eisav wanted to kill him. He spent twenty difficult years with Lavan, his father-in-law, who deceived and exploited him. After finally returning to the Promised Land, he faced his greatest anguish—believing for decades that his son Yosef had died. Then famine drove him from the Holy Land into Egypt, the lowest and most immoral culture of its time.
And yet the Torah says his best years were there?
This exact question was asked by the Tzemach Tzedek as a child. Learning the verse, “And Yaacov lived in the land of Egypt for seventeen years,” and hearing that those were his best years, he went home and asked his grandfather, the Alter Rebbe:
“How could the best years of Yaacov Avinu’s life be in Egypt?
Egypt is Mitzrayim — a place of boundaries, constraints, and spiritual offensiveness and depravity. How could life be best there?”
The Alter Rebbe answered:
“Before Yaacov came to Egypt, he sent Yehuda ahead to establish a yeshiva in Goshen. Once there is a yeshiva—even in Egypt—there is true life. Therefore, those were his best years.”
But this answer itself needs explanation. Yaacov always learned Torah. He studied for fourteen years in the yeshiva of Shem and Eiver and is described throughout his life as the one who “dwells in the tents” of Torah. He certainly learned Torah in Eretz Yisrael, a land whose air itself makes one wise. Why then were his best Torah years specifically in Egypt?
At that time Egypt was not yet oppressing the Jewish people. Yosef, as viceroy, provided them the best of the land. His greatness there cannot be attributed simply to enduring suffering or overcoming persecution, especially since the Alter Rebbe emphasized that it was the Torah study itself that made those years the best.
What, then, changed in Egypt?
The key lies in the verse: “He sent Yehuda ahead… to show the way to Goshen.” Rashi explains that Yehuda was sent to establish a house of study. But it was not merely the existence of a school. Yaacov specifically sent Yehuda, because Yehuda represents Hoda’ah — humble submission and self-nullification before G-d. Torah is, by nature, an intellectual pursuit, and left only on that plane, it is limited by human intellect. But Torah is not merely wisdom; it is G-d’s wisdom. When Torah is studied with Yehuda-like humility, the finite mind connects with the infinite G-d who gave it.
That is what changed.
In Egypt, through Yehuda’s yeshiva, Torah study became infused with Bitul, with deep attachment to the Giver of the Torah. The very name Goshen —from Gesh, “come close”—hints to this. There, in exile, Torah became not only understanding but closeness.
And in Egypt, Yaacov also experienced something else he had not experienced earlier: Nachas.
He witnessed harmony restored among his children. The brothers who had once sold Yosef now lived in unity; Yosef held no grudge and cared for his family with love. Yaacov saw children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren remaining faithful to his path despite living in a foreign land. He realized that his life’s work would not end with him. His values were alive in his children. As the Talmud says: “Yaacov Avinu did not die—just as his children live, he lives.”
Egypt — Mitzrayim — means boundaries and limitations. It is the model of every exile and every spiritual constraint we experience. Yaacov demonstrated that exile does not define the Jew; Torah does. He did not become part of Egypt—he transformed it. Where there was darkness, he created light. Where there were limitations, he revealed the Infinite. By sending Yehuda to establish Torah in the lowest place, he showed that even Egypt can become a home for holiness.
When you want to raise a building, you do not pull on the roof; you lift from the very bottom. Egypt was the bottom of the world. When Torah flourished there, the world itself was elevated from its foundation upward. That is why Yaacov’s best years were there — because there he completed his mission.
And that mission belongs to every Jewish soul.
Our souls descend from the highest realms into a physical world full of distraction, technology, temptation, pressure, and noise—not to be dragged down by it, but to transform it. Our modern “Egypts”—work environments, public culture, digital life—are not mistakes; they are our assigned mission fields. When they become tools for Torah, kindness, and spreading holiness, Egypt itself becomes Goshen, a place of closeness to G-d.
This is the meaning of Vayechi Yaacov. Life is not defined by comfort or geography. True life is when a Jew, even in exile, studies G-d’s Torah with humility, builds an island of holiness, ensures continuity in children and students, and reveals that nothing in the world can imprison the Jewish soul.
Yaacov lived his best years in Egypt because there he saw the survival and future of the Jewish people, experienced Torah with new depth, and fulfilled his mission of lifting the lowest parts of the world toward G-d.
It is now our task to transform our own personal Mitzrayim, to study Torah with the mind and with the humility of Yehuda, and to see the completion of this work with the coming of Moshiach very soon, when G-dliness will shine openly without exile or limitation.
Have a Shabbos Full of Life,
Gut Shabbos
Rabbi Yosef Katzman
