1) "And as for me, when I came from Paddan, Rochel died on me
in the land of Canaan along the way, when yet there was but a
little way to come to Efrat, and I buried her there on the
road of Efrat, that is Beis Lechem" (Bereishis 48:7).
Rashi (ibid.) explains, "`When I came from Paddan' --
although I am troubling you to bring me to be buried in the
land of Canaan, and this is something I did not do for your
mother. Since she died near Beis Lechem I buried her there,
and did not bring her even to Beis Lechem. I knew you were
offended by my doing that, but I want you to know that Hashem
had told me to do it, so that she will be [on the way to Beis
Lechem] to help her children . . .."
This needs to be explained. Why did Yaakov Ovinu a'h,
when requesting his son Yosef to bury him in Eretz
Yisroel, find it appropriate to apologize for burying his
mother Rochel on the way to Beis Lechem and not in the city
itself? Did Yaakov Ovinu think that because he did not bury
Yosef's mother in the city, Yosef would not fulfill his
request?
Furthermore, Yosef's resentment at his father's not bringing
his mother Rochel to the city is irrelevant altogether to
Yaakov's request to be buried in Eretz Yisroel and not in
Egypt. Even if he did not have to bury Yaakov in Eretz
Yisroel, Yosef would anyway have had complaints because of
Yaakov's burying his mother on the way.
Let us study the continuation of the parsha:
"Moreover, I have given to you one portion more than your
brother, which I took from the hand of the Emori with my
sword and with my bow" (v. 22). Rashi (ibid.)
explains, "since you troubled yourself to see to my
burial, I too gave you an inheritance: to be buried there.
And what is it? Shechem. This is as is written, `And the
bones of Yosef, which the children of Yisroel brought up out
of Egypt, they buried in Shechem" (Yehoshua 24:32).
Why did Yaakov Ovinu give Yosef a grave site to be buried in
later? Could Yaakov not have given Yosef some other gift for
taking care of burying his father? Why a grave site, of all
things? Is this perhaps a matter of "a measure for
measure?"
We can understand the depth in this episode by first studying
a ruling of the Rambam's (Hilchos Oveil 14:1): "It is
a positive mitzvah to visit the sick and to console mourners,
to deal with the dead, to help a kallah marry, to
escort guests [on their way after their visits], to see to
all burial needs, to carry [the departed to his grave] on
one's shoulder and walk in front of him, to eulogize him and
dig [the grave] and bury [him in it]. . . Even though these
mitzvos are of rabbinic origin they are included in
[the Torah mitzvah of] `You shall love your neighbor as
yourself' -- anything that you would want others to do for
you, you should do for those who are your brethren in Torah
and mitzvos."
We see from the Rambam that although burying a dead person
and providing the other needs of burial is only a rabbinic
mitzvah, one also fulfills thereby the mitzvah of the Torah
of, "You shall love your neighbor like yourself." This
posuk teaches us that everything you would want others
to do for you when you are buried you are obligated to do for
them.
Before Yaakov Ovinu asked Yosef to bury him and bring his
body from Egypt to Eretz Yisroel, Yosef could not have
resented his father's burying Rochel on the way and not in
the city proper. It was only after Yaakov Ovinu's request --
after seeing that he himself loathed being buried in Egypt --
that Yosef's resentment about Yaakov's burying Rochel where
she died would awaken.
The Rambam explains to us that the foundation of the
halocho to engage in burying a person stems from, "You
shall love your neighbor like yourself" -- everything you
would want others to do for you when you need to be buried,
you are obligated to do for them. Therefore when Yaakov
requested that his corpse be carried to Eretz Yisroel, Yosef
understood that Yaakov did not want to be buried where he
died, and so Yosef's resentment might have been kindled: "If
now you do not want to be buried where you die, why did you
not bring my mother to be buried inside the city? According
to the halochos of burying people, everything you
would want others to do for you when you are buried, you are
obligated to do for them!"
Until that moment Yosef could have believed that Yaakov
wanted to be buried where he died, but now it was clear that
this was not so. Yaakov therefore revealed to Yosef that
Hashem had commanded him to bury Rochel at the roadside, so
that no contradiction existed between his asking Yosef to
bury him in Eretz Yisroel and his burying Rochel on the
way.
Now we can also reconcile our question about Yaakov saying to
Yosef, "Moreover I have given you one portion more than your
brothers," which Rashi explains thus: "since you troubled
yourself to see to my burial, I also gave you an inheritance:
to be buried there." We asked, Why did Yaakov decide to give
this particular present to Yosef?
Yaakov wanted to obligate Yosef because of hilchos kevuras
hameis to carry his corpse to Eretz Yisroel. Since now,
after Yaakov's present, Yosef himself had a grave-plot in
Eretz Yisroel, and when he died he would surely want to be
buried in Eretz Yisroel and not in Egypt, he was therefore
obligated according to halocho to bring his father,
too, to be buried in Eretz Yisroel.
Someone who contemplates deeply will see a
pivotal principle being taught about how a person should live
according to the Torah's way. We would think, according to
how a person normally thinks and feels, that Yaakov Ovinu
a'h did not act properly in burying Rochel at the
roadside. It was an apparent belittling of his wife's honor,
which she rightfully deserved.
Nonetheless, Yaakov did not feel any need at all even to
explain to Yosef why he had done so, until he himself asked
to be brought to Eretz Yisroel to be buried. It seems, also,
that Yosef himself did not feel any resentment until Yosef
requested not to be buried in Egypt, although it should have
been quite natural for him to be terribly offended. Only
after Yaakov's own request, when according to the
halocho there was a justification for resentment, did
Yaakov explain why he had acted the way he did.
As long as according to the halocho there was no
reason to complain about his actions, Yaakov did not feel any
need to explain what he had done, and Yosef himself actually
did not feel even the slightest resentment. Without a firm
halachic basis to have a complaint no bitterness existed
among them.
In our times too, we frequently see that people innovate new
"halochos" and modes of behavior which have nothing to
do with the halocho, but are altogether based on
feelings and reasoning. These people, however, claim that
this is how Judaism teaches them to act.
It is obvious from all the above that as long as there is no
halachic source, although according to the yardstick of a
person's feelings a certain act seems beneficial or the
opposite, we should not have anything to do with it. We must
embrace only the halocho that has been transmitted
down through the generations.
HaRav Sholom Ber Sorotzkin is the rosh yeshiva of
Ateres Shlomoh in Beis Shemesh
