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In this week’s parsha (Vayechi), the saga of Yoseph and his brothers draws to a close. Yoseph’s father Yakov takes sick and realized that his time to depart from this world was drawing near. He called his sons to his bedside to bless them, and additionally, the sages tell us, to reveal the date on which the meshiach (Jewish messiah) will arrive. However, as Rashi tells us, the shechina (God’s presence) departed from Yakov, and he was unable to reveal the date of arrival of the meshiach to his sons.
The Chassidic master, the Ilana deChaya (R’ Menachem Mendel of Rimanov) asks the following question: If God did not want Yacov to reveal the arrival of meshiach, why did He not just tell Yacov not to reveal it to his sons? Why was it necessary to remove the shechina from his presence? In other words, since Yacov was our forefather and a tremendous tzadik or righteous person, upon whom God’s presence rested continually, why was it necessary to remove His presence? He could have merely instructed Yacov not to tell his sons, even if Yacov himself knew…
The Ilana deChaya answers by referring to the well known verse, “I am the Lord, be’ita (‘in its season’) achishena (‘immediately’).” From this verse, the sages tell us that if we deserve the meshiach, then he will arrive achishena – “immediately.” But, if not, then he will arrive be’ita – “in his own good time,” so to speak. And this was exactly the situation that Yakov faced at that time. If the sons deserved, then meshiach would arrive immediately, and there would be no need to announce when he would arrive. And if they did not deserve, then it would be inappropriate to tell them that. In fact, it would be disgraceful, and that is why the shechina, or God’s presence departed from Yacov – for otherwise it he would have been forced to reveal to his sons that they did not deserve the arrival of meshiach.
However, we know that all the sons of Jacob were themselves tzadikim and fully actualized, righteous men. And if so, how is it that they did not deserve the arrival of the meshiach? To this, the Maharam Teitelbaum (the Yismach Moshe, R’ Moshe Teitelbaum) answers that Yacov’s intention was to draw his sons together, so that the power of their unity would bring the meshiach. That is, if all the brothers would come together, complete in their hearts with one another, then that itself would provide the power to bring the meshiach. (This might be compared to the giving of the Torah, during which the Jews camped together at Mt. Sinai, “like one man with one heart.” It was partly their complete unity that facilitated the giving of the Torah.) However, as things turned out, the brothers were not completely at ease with each other. They still harbored various resentments and jealousies within – or at least some of them did – and therefore there was not complete unity among them. And that is why meshiach could not come at that time.
There is a lesson for us here, and that is regarding the power of unity. Even though as individuals we may not deserve and we may not be capable of certain spiritual achievements, our unity with other Jews may lift us up to levels that we are not capable of on our own. That, for example is one reason why we pray with a minyan and why we learn with others – although on our own we may not be deserving, when we combine our efforts with those of others, we may all be successful!