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Vayechi
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Jacob lives the final 17 years of his life in Egypt.
Before his passing, he asks Joseph to take an oath that
he will bury him in the Holy Land. He blesses Joseph's
two sons, Menasseh and Ephraim, elevating them to the
status of his own sons as progenitors of tribes within
the nation of Israel.
The patriarch desires to reveal the end of days to his
children, but is prevented from doing so. Jacob blesses
his sons, assigning to each their role as a tribe: Judah
will produce leaders, legislators and kings; priests
will come from Levi, scholars from Issachar, seafarers
from Zebulun, schoolteachers from Shimon, soldiers from
Gad, judges from Dan, olive growers from Asher, and so
on.
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Reuben
is rebuked for "confusing his father's marriage"; Shimon
and Levi for the massacre of Shechem and the plot
against Joseph. Naphtali is granted the swiftness of a
deer, Benjamin the ferociousness of a wolf, and Joseph
is blessed with beauty and fertility.
A large funeral procession consisting of Jacob's
descendants, Pharaoh's ministers, the leading citizens
of Egypt and the Egyptian cavalry, accompanies Jacob on
his final journey to the Holy Land, where he is buried
in the Machpeilah Cave in Hebron.
Joseph, too, dies in Egypt, at the age of 110. He, too,
instructs that his bones be taken out of Egypt and
buried in the Holy Land, but this would come to pass
only with the Israelites' Exodus from Egypt many years
later. Before his passing, Joseph conveys to the
Children of Israel the testament from which they will
draw their hope and faith in the difficult years to
come: "G-d will surely remember you, and bring you up
out of this land to the land of which he swore to
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."
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