Divrei Simcha on Parshas Vayechi 5767

In American life, one of the most important days every year is your birthday. When there is a national holiday to honor someone, the holiday is almost always on his birthday (i.e. Martin Luther King Day, President’s Day). Judaism is the exact opposite. In Judaism, we rarely celebrate birthdays. Actually, the only birthday party that is mentioned in the Torah is Pharoah’s in Parshas Vayeshev. We remember a person on their Yahrzeit (anniversary of the day they passed away). Are we a religion obsessed with death — is that why we honor people on their Yahrzeit’s instead of their birthdays?

Heaven forbid! I’d like to share two possible reasons why we honor people on their Yahrzeits instead of their birthdays. Oznayim L’Torah, a commentary on every Parsha, offers one answer. He says that in the Torah, there are two parshas that speak of the death of tzadikkim (righteous people): one is Chayei Sara (when Sara passes away); the other is this week’s, Vayechi (when Yaakov passes away). He points out that these parshas both start with a form of the word “Chaim”, which means life. Why does it use the word “life” if we are talking about their deaths? The answer is that for tzadikkim, after they pass away, their true life really begins. Therefore, the real joy for tzadikkim is on their Yahrzeit.

The second reason I’d like to offer is a metaphor offered by our Sages. They say that life is compared to a boat. When it is leaving, you never know if it will fulfill its mission, so everyone is sad. When it returns, everyone is happy because it fulfilled its mission. The same thing is with life. We remember people on their Yahrzeit because at that point we realize they fulfilled their mission. When a person is born, we never know what will happen and it may not be until the very last moments of their life that they change.

I’d like to summarize a story from the Gemara Avodah Zara of Elazar ben Durdaya. Elazar was a low life. He did evil things his whole life. One day, he paid a large sum of money to travel a long distance to commit a terrible sin. At that place, a person told him that he was not going to get Olam Haba (life in the afterworld). Elazar began blaming his environment, his parents, and anything else he could blame as the reason for his losing Olam Haba, but realized they were not the problem. He began crying and came to the conclusion that he was an evil person only because of himself. “It is all my fault,” he cried numerous times and then passed away. A voice from Heaven came out and said Rabbi Elazar ben Durdaya got Olam Haba. It is because he did true repentance that he got life in the afterworld. Not only that, though, he now became a Rabbi! This is because he taught how to properly do teshuvah (repentance). A man who was a low life his whole entire life, gained the title Rabbi and got Olam Haba at the very last moment.

Here is a man whose birthday we would have never celebrated, but after he passed away, he became a hero. His Yahrzeit is a cause for celebration, not his birthday. That is why we commemorate the day people pass away. Furthermore, I am sure that Rabbi Elazar ben Durdaya is now living his real life in Olam Haba. That’s why we have Yahrzeits.

Good Shabbos!

-yes

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By Rabbi Yaacov Seltzer
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(305) 652-0186