Parsha Vaychi

(47,28) Yaakov lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years. The days of Yaakov, the years of his life were one hundred and forty seven years.

(47,29) The days of Yisrael’s death drew near, and he called for his son Yoseif, and said to him, If I have found favor in your eyes, please, place your hand under my thigh; that you will deal kindly and truthfully with me. Please, do not bury me in Egypt.

(47,30) For I will lie with my fathers. Carry me out of Egypt, and bury me in their grave. He [Yoseif said], I will do as you say.

(47,31) He [Yaakov] said, Swear to me, and he swore to him. Yisrael prostrated himself at the head of the bed.

(48,1) After these events, someone said to Yoseif, Behold your father is ill. He took his two sons with him, Menasheh and Ephraim.

(48,2) It was told to Yaakov, saying, Behold, your son, Yoseif, has come to you. Yisrael gathered his strength and sat up in bed.

(48,3) Yaakov said to Yoseif, Almighty Shaddai appeared to me in Luz, in the land of Canaan, and He blessed me.

(48,4) He said to me, Behold, I will make you fruitful and numerous, and I will make you into an assembly of nations. I will give this land to your descendants after you for an everlasting possession.

(48,5) And now your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you to Egypt, are mine. Ephraim and Menasheh, like Reuvein and Shimon, shall be mine.

(48,6) But your progeny that will be born after them shall be yours. They shall be called by their brother’s name with regard to their inheritance.

(48,7) And I, when I came from Padan, Rochel died unto me in the land of Canaan, on the road, when there was yet a stretch of land, before coming to Ephros. I buried her there on the road to Ephros, which is Beis Lechem.

(48,8) Yisrael saw Yoseif’s sons, and he said, Who are these?

(48,9) Yoseif said to his father, These are my sons, whom Elohim has given me in this [place]. He [Yaakov] said, Please Take them to me, and I will bless them.

(48,10) Yisrael’s eyes were heavy with age, and he could not see. He [Yoseif] brought them near to him, and he kissed them and hugged them.

(48,11) Yisrael said to Yoseif, I have never thought to see your face, and behold Elohim has even allowed me to see your offspring.

(48,12) Yoseif brought them out from between his knees, and he prostrated himself with his face to the ground.

(48,13) Yoseif took the two [of them]—Ephraim in his right [hand], toward Yisrael’s left, and Menasheh in his left, toward Yisrael’s right—and he brought them near to him.

(48,14) Yisrael stretched out his right [hand] and placed it on the head of Ephraim, [although] he was the younger, and his left [hand] on the head of Menasheh. He deliberately placed his hands so, even though Menasheh was the firstborn.

(48,15) He blessed Yoseif and said, Elohim before whom my fathers walked, Avraham, and Yitzchok, Elohim who was my shepherd from my inception until this day—

(48,16) The Angel who redeemed me from all evil, should bless the lads, and let my name be called on them, together with the name of my fathers, Avraham and Yitzchok. May they be like fish, multiplying within the land.

(48,17) Yoseif saw that his father placed his right hand on Ephraim’s head, and it was bad in his eyes. He held up his fathers hand, to remove it from Ephraim’s head [and to place it] on Menasheh’s head.

(48,18) Yoseif said to his father, Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn, place your right hand on his head.

(48,19) His father refused, and he said, I know my son, I know. He too will become a people, he too will become great; however his younger brother will be greater than he, and [the fame] of his descendants will fill the nations.

(48,20) He blessed them on that day saying: Through you shall [the People of] Israel bless saying; May Elohim make you as Ephraim and Menasheh. He placed Ephraim ahead of Menasheh.

(48,21) Yisrael said to Yoseif, Behold I am dying. Elohim will be with you, and He will bring you back to the land of your fathers.

(48,22) I have given you one share more than your brothers, which I took from the hand of the Amorite with my sword and with my bow.

(49,1) Yaakov called for his sons and said, Gather around and I will tell you what will happen to you in latter days.

(49,2) Come together and listen, sons of Yaakov; listen to Yisrael, your father.

(49,3) Reuvein, you are my firstborn, you are my strength, and the beginning of my manhood; superior in rank and superior in power.

(49,4) Unstable as water, you shall no longer be superior, for you have gone up your father’s bed. You profaned He Who went up on my couch.

(49,5) Shimon and Levi are brothers. Instruments of violence are their wares.

(49,6) My soul will not enter their secret council, let my honor not be identified with their assembly. For in their anger they killed a man, and through their willfulness they maimed an ox.

(49,7) Cursed be their anger for it is powerful, and their fury for it is cruel. I will divid them throughout Yaakov and scatter them throughout [the land of] Israel.

(49,8) Yehudah, your brothers will praise you Your hand will be on the neck of your enemies. Your father’s sons will prostrate themselves to you.

(49,9) Yehudah is like a young lion. You have risen above plunder my son. He crouches, rests like a lion, like an awesome lion, who will rouse him?

(49,10) The rod will not depart from Yehudah, nor a law-enforcer from between his feet, until Shiloh Comes, and to him shall be an assembly of nations.

(49,11) He loads his young donkey with grapes of a vine, and his she-donkey’s foal with a vine-branch. He washes his clothes in wine, and his cloak in the blood of grapes.

(49,12) His eyes are red from wine, and his teeth are white [from an abundance of] milk.

(49,13) Zevulun will settle on seashores, he will be a harbor for ships; his border will reach to Sidon.

(49,14) Yissachar is a bony donkey, crouching between the borders.

(49,15) He saw that rest is good, and that the land is pleasant; he bent his shoulder to bear the burden; and became a servant to pay the tribute.

(49,16) Dan will avenge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.

(49,17) Dan will be a serpent on the road, a viper on the path, that bites the horse’s heel so that the rider falls backward.

(49,18) For your deliverance, I wait, Adonoy.

(49,19) Gad will be an assailing troop; he will be a troop at their heels.

(49,20) From Asher will come oily food, he will provide delicacies for the king.

(49,21) Naftali is a gazelle-like messenger, he delivers pleasant Sayings.

(49,22) A fruitful son is Yoseif, a fruitful son at the well [source]. Daughters tread on the wall.

(49,23) They made him bitter and quarreled with him. Expert bowmen with hatred made him their target.

(49,24) His bow remained in strength, his arms were bedecked with gold, by the hand of Mighty One of Yaakov; from there he became the shepherd [the provider], the stone of Israel.

(49,25) From the Almighty of your father and He will help you, and Shaddai Who will bless you with the blessings of heaven from above, blessings of the depths that lie below, blessings of seed and womb.

(49,26) The blessings that your father [received] are stronger than the blessings my forebears [received] even to the boundaries of the eternal hills; they shall be on Yoseif’s head, on the crown of him who is a Nazirite among his brothers.

(49,27) Binyamin is like a wolf that preys. In the morning he will eat a portion, and in the evening he will divide the spoil.

(49,28) All these are tribes of Israel, twelve [of them]; and this is what their father spoke to them and he blessed them. He blessed them each with his own unique blessing.

(49,29) He commanded them, and said to them, I shall be gathered to my people; bring me for burial to my fathers, to the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Chittite.

(49,30) In the cave that is in the field of Machpeilah, which faces Mamrei in the land of Canaan; which Avraham bought, along with the field, from Ephron, the Chittite, for a possession as a burial place.

(49,31) There they buried Avraham and Sarah, his wife, there they buried Yitzchok and Rivkah, his wife, and there I buried Leah.

(49,32) The purchase of the field and the cave that is in it was made from the sons of Cheis.

(49,33) Yaakov concluded his commands to his sons, and he gathered up his feet, to the bed. He expired and was gathered to his people.

(50,1) Yoseif fell on the face of his father, and wept over him and kissed him.

(50,2) Yoseif commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father and the physicians embalmed Yisrael.

(50,3) They completed forty days [of embalmment] for him, for that is the number of days required for embalming. The Egyptians wept for him seventy days.

(50,4) [When] the days of weeping were over, Yoseif spoke to the house of Pharaoh saying, If I have found favor in your eyes, please speak in Pharaoh’s ears, saying.

(50,5) My father made me swear [an oath] saying, Behold I am dying. In my grave that I have prepared for myself in the land of Canaan, there you shall bury me. Now therefore, please, I would go up and bury my father, and then I will return.

(50,6) Pharaoh said, Go up and bury your father, just as he made you swear.

(50,7) Yoseif went up to bury his father; and with him went up all Pharaohs servant’s, the elders of this house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt,

(50,8) And all Yoseif’s household, his brothers and his father’s household. Only their little ones, their sheep and their cattle did they leave behind in the land of Goshen.

(50,9) With him also went up chariots and horsemen. It was a very imposing camp.

(50,10) They came to the threshing place of Atad, which is on the other side of the Jordan, and there they eulogized [him and held] a very great and imposing funeral. He [Yoseif] made seven days of mourning for his father.

(50,11) The Canaanites who lived in the land saw the mourning in the threshing place of Atad, and they said, This is heavy mourning for Egypt. It was therefore named Egypt’s Mourning, which is on the other side of the Jordan.

(50,12) His sons did for him as he commanded them.

(50,13) His sons carried him to the land of Canaan, and buried him in the cave of the field of Machpeilah, which Avraham purchased along with the field, for a possession as a burial place, from Ephron, the Chittite, facing Mamrei.

(50,14) Yoseif returned to Egypt, he and his brothers, and all those who went with him, to bury his father, after he had buried his father.

(50,15) Yoseif’s brothers saw that their father was dead, and they said, Perhaps Yoseif still bears a grudge against us. He will then certainly repay us for all the evil that we did him.

(50,16) They sent a command to Yoseif saying, Your father issued a command before his death, saying,

(50,17) This is what you should say to Yoseif, Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, for they did evil to you. And now please forgive the transgr ession of the servants of the God of your father. Yoseif wept as his brothers spoke to him.

(50,18) His brothers also went and threw themselves down before him, and they said, Behold, we are your slaves.

(50,19) Yoseif said to them, Fear not. For am I in place of Elohim?

(50,20) You meant to do evil to me, but Elohim meant it for good, in order to do as it is today, to preserve the lives of a great people.

(50,21) And now, fear not. I will provide for you and your little ones. He comforted them and spoke to their hearts.

(50,22) Yoseif lived in Egypt, he and his father’s household. Yoseif lived one hundred and ten years.

(50,23) Yoseif saw Ephraim’s children of the third generations. The children of Machir, Menasheh’s son, were born on Yoseif’s knees.

(50,24) Yoseif said to his brothers, I will die, and Elohim will surely consider you and bring you up out of this land, to the land which He swore to Avraham, Yitzchok and to Yaakov.

(50,25) Yoseif made the sons of Yisrael swear, saying, Elohim will surely consider you, and you shall bring my bones up from here.

(50,26) Yoseif died being a hundred and ten years old. They embalmed him and he was placed in a coffin in Egypt. Chazak