Midreshet Amit

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At the end of Yaakov's life he gathered his sons to tell them what’s going to happen at the end of days. He was going to reveal to them when Moshiach will come and what will happen “at the end of days”.. Suddenly, he loses the divine inspiration and no longer knows when Moshiach will come. Picture the scene: everyone is gathered for this big secret…and it isn’t revealed! Why did Yaakov want to reveal this secret in the first place? Perhaps revealing the secret would give the Jewish people hope that Moshiach will come eventually. This would help them maintain their Jewish identity in Egypt. Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky explains that Yaakov was afraid that as the exile drags on, the Jews will give up hope, which is only natural when a long awaited event doesn’t arrive. Throughout Jewish history great Rabbis have tried to calculate when Moshiach will arrive, but time and again those dates have passed without moshiach arriving. In Parshat Vayechi, Yaakov is now in an awkward situation where he called his sons together to reveal something and he no longer has the ability to reveal it. In the absence of the revelation, he has to come up with something to give his sons genuine hope. He decided to tell his sons, by way of Brachot, their mission as future shvatim for the Jewish people. Each son receives an individually crafted bracha based on their personal strengths. This bracha doesn't just affect their personal mission but rather the shevet as a whole.

In our lives we don’t have absolute certainty, we don’t get the bracha of knowing what our mission will be, and it’s up to us to journey to self-discovery of our strengths and potential in this world. This is part of what I am doing in amit this year, figuring out who I am and what I can bring to the Jewish people as a whole. Shabbat Shalom.