• | Print |
•  Email

Parshat Vayechei
By: Rabbi Moshe Goodman, Kollel Ohr Shlomo, Hebron

בס"ד

לשכנו תדרשו

Discovering the Holy Presence in Our Holy Land

ויקברו אותו במערת שדה המכפלה

“Blessed are You HaShem our God... Who created you with judgment... and will revive you with judgment... Blessed are You HaShem Who revives the dead” (Prayer upon visiting a cemetery).

In this weeks Torah portion, our forefather Yaakov dies, and to fulfill his final wish, his sons bury him in Ma'arat HaMachpela in Hebron. In the past we have noted that Hebron is one of the choicest places of burial upon earth, championing even with Jerusalem in this regard. The reason for this is due to Hebron being the Threshold of the Garden of Eden where souls ascend to the afterlife. This matter also explains why Adam and all the Patriarchs and Matriarchs wished to be buried here.

In general, the accepted custom is to bury the dead with their feet in the direction of Jerusalem. However, the great Rabbi and Kabbalist R. Eliyahu Mani asked that he and his wife be buried in the direction of Ma'arat HaMachpela. Indeed, one can notice how Rabbi Mani, the chief Rabbi of Hebron, is buried with his feet in the direction of Ma'arat HaMachpela, when visiting the ancient cemetery of Hebron today.

Interestingly, the ancient cemetery of Hebron lies adjacent to the Admot Yishai neighborhood of Hebron today. Admot Yishai - ‘the Lands of Jesse’ - is named such after the tomb of Jesse at the outskirts of this neighborhood. Jesse is strongly connected to the Messiah as described by Isaiah: ‘a bud shall sprout from the trunk of Jesse.’ Our Sages in Talmud Sanhedrin describe the period of Messiah as a revival of the dead, as in the ‘dry-bone’s episode’ of Ezekiel. In other words, just as a severed trunk sprouts again with renewed life, and just as the ‘dry-bones’ are revived, so too the Exiled People of Israel are and will be revived in the Holy Land.

In this way Hebron highlights, on numbers of levels, both the afterlife/the revival of the dead, ‘the revival of the trunk of Jesse’, and the renewal of Jewish life in the Holy Land. We may say that it is this potent connection of Hebron, between the souls of Israel and the Holy Earth through burial, which ultimately sows the seeds of the Revival of the Dead, the seeds of Redemption. Yes, it is you, our dear reader, by your devotion to this holy city and the Holy Land at large, who are watering these seeds of Redemption.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Real Stories from the Holy Land #203

“After shopping at the supermarket my wife told me to go back to get another item. However, I was already on the bus far away from the supermarket I had just shopped at. Nevertheless, I thought to myself that HaShem must be showing me something in this request, so I decided to go the supermarket close to my planned destination (not the previous supermarket). I looked for the item my wife asked me about and found it there for about half of the original price.”

Sources: Gesher Hahaim p. 299

Comments, questions, and/or stories,email  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.