Vayechi: Blind Eyes and the Dangers of Self-Denial

Rabbi Zweig examines the puzzling Rashi (רש"י) at the beginning of Parshas Vayechi, which explains that the parshah stumah (the absence of space between Vayigash and Vayechi) indicates that "the eyes and hearts of Klal Yisrael were sealed because of the tzaros of the enslavement." This raises immediate difficulties: first, the enslavement did not begin until Levi died—seventy-seven years after Yaakov's death, as established in Parshas Va'era. Second, the stumah appears before the pasuk "Vayechi Yaakov b'eretz Mitzrayim," which discusses Yaakov's life, not his death. The resolution hinges on understanding what "nisht'mu einayim v'libam" (sealed eyes and hearts) actually means. Rather than describing depression or suffering, the phrase describes denial—the Jewish people's psychological response to the gradual infringement of their rights and freedoms. Like Jews in pre-war Germany who refused to see the writing on the wall, convincing themselves that restrictions were merely temporary adjustments leading to "peace in our time," the Jews in Egypt rationalized each new decree. They sealed their eyes and hearts not because they were suffering unbearably, but because they chose not to recognize the enslavement for what it was. Only seventy-seven years later, when children were being drowned and used as mortar, could denial no longer be maintained.