After 22 years Yaakov finally is reunited with his son, Yosef. At that moment the first thing that Yaakov does is say Kriat Shema, as quoted by Rashi (46:29) from the Midrash Aggadah.
It is a mitzvah deorita that every Jew must recite Kriat Shema twice a day, once at night and once during the day. In fact, the first mesechta in Shas, Brachot spends its first perek just discussing Kriat Shema (as well as parts of the second and third perek). What about Kriat Shema makes it so important?
Kriat Shema starts off our commitment to accepting the yoke of heaven. By stating "Shema Yisrael: Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad" we are saying that Hashem controls the world and everything that happens is from Him. This is the same thing we discussed last week with the brothers when they were trying to figure out why all of those bad things where happening to them. Well, from this week's parsha it is clear where the brothers learned their emunah from.
Yaakov, after 22 years of mourning for the death of his son, sees his long "dead" son standing before him. Yaakov now looks back at the the events that have led up to this moment and he can now see how every event was perfectly orchestrated to allow the Jews an honorable descent to galut. The midrash tells us that Yaakov was really supposed to be brought into galut in chains. It was only after Yaakov saw that the last 22 years were a set up to bring him and his children to mitzriam with honor. What seems bad at the time was all done to help Yaakov. By having Yosef go down first it made it possible to allow the Jews to live in Goshen, separate from all of the influences of the people of mitzriam. On top of that, Yehuda was able to go down first and set up Yeshivot to make sure that Judaism could last through the galut ahead.
It was only after seeing the big picture that allowed Yaakov to see how Hashem had planned it all out perfectly, and at the moment Yaakov had no other thought but to announce his emunah in Hashem.
Have a good shabbat!
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