“And Yaakov called his sons and said, ‘Gather around and I will tell you what will occur to you in the end of days.’” (Bereishis 49:1)
The Gemara (Pesachim 56a) says that Yaakov wanted to reveal when Mashiach would arrive. The Shelah says he therefore told his children to assemble, since the Redemption can only come if all Jews are united in one group.
Yet it seems Yaakov is repeating himself. In this pasuk, he says “hei’asfu — assemble,” and in the next he says, “hikavtzu — gather.” The Malbim explains that “kibbutz” and “asifah” are not synonymous. The word kibbutz means gathering together, while asifah is a gathering at a later stage, ushering into a designated place. Therefore, kibbutz should come before asifah. Yet Yaakov says it conversely.
Why? Since Yaakov’s original intentions were to tell his sons about the Final Redemption, he commanded them to band together as a unified “asifah” — a level of spiritual unity, higher than physical “kibbutz.” Only with such unity could they prepare themselves for the Geulah.
However, when Yaakov sensed that the Shechinah had departed from him, he understood that the Jewish People would eventually be torn with machlokes and internal strife, thus making it impossible for him to reveal the time of the Final Redemption (Rabbi Mordechai Appel, OU Torah).
If you’re anything like me, your inbox is always swamped. There are work emails and messages from friends and family, and of course the groupie emails you’ve never signed up for but they “gotcha!”
Who has time to sort through all that? So I now have the dubious distinction of having 200K+ unread emails in my inbox. (In case I haven’t gotten back to you recently, now you know why.)
The Chiddushei HaRim adds that Yaakov was prompting a suggestion for how to bring about the Geulah. Hence, he called out once more, “hikavtzu,” for when Jews are unified, that will speed up the Final Redemption.
There’s a well-known (albeit cynical) vertel that explains the words of the famous song which we say in davening: “Acheinu — our brothers, all of Beis Yisrael, who are in distress and captivity….”
When is it that all of Klal Yisrael are brothers? When, nebach, there are terrible tzaros happening. So we conclude that tefillah and ask, “Hashem have rachamim…” Please make it that friendships aren’t only in times of strife and dark times, but even in good times, because this will take us from the exile to the Geulah.
It was Erev Shabbos, two weeks into the war, and, as I usually do, I was shutting down my computer early Friday morning. But it was taking longer than usual, as numerous emails kept pouring in, leaving me jotting down names for tefillah, names for refuah sheleimah, and oh, so many names of the missing/abducted.
I was feeling heavyhearted when I came across the following email. I don’t know the original poster, but it read like this:
