The Shmuz on the Parsha – Parshas Vayeshev
I Never Forget
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It is difficult to imagine a closer relationship than that of Yaakov Avinu and his beloved son Yosef. In Yosef, he saw wisdom, kindness and leadership; in Yosef, he saw his own life in parallel; and in Yosef he saw his wife, Rochel. He singled him out to be the leader of all the brothers. When Yosef was taken at the tender age of seventeen, Yaakov was inconsolable. He mourned this loss for years, and despite the efforts of his family to comfort him, his grief remained as intense as when he first heard the news.
Forgetting is natural
The answer to this question can be best understood from a different perspective.
Me after I die
The answer to why this fellow should be concerned about his nishomah is because he is the nishomah. Reb Yisroel Salanter teaches us that death is like taking off a coat. If I walk into a room and take off my outer garment, I enter the room. So too, says Reb Yisroel, when I die, my body will be buried, and I will emerge. The same I that thinks, feels and remembers. The same I that tells my arms and legs to move, will live on long after my body is buried.
I am not my brain
Did you ever have one of those brilliant flashes of intuition? Like a lightning bolt, you just realized something. You knew it. Then you had to go through the slow, laborious process of putting that thought into words, of taking that understanding and putting it into a concrete idea.
After my body dies, I live on
For more on this topic please listen to Shmuz #23 I Will Never Die
This Week’s Burst of Inspiration Video
This issue sponsored: Li Ilui Nishmas Shayna Necha Bas Shalom.