A vort from the Rebbe on this week's פרשה, פרשת ויחי. Towards the end of the parshah, the parshah tells us that Yaakov Avinu passed away, but the pasuk uses the words ויגוע ויאסף אל עמיו. He expired, and he was gathered to the his nation, to his people. And Rashi says, ומיתה לא נאמרה בו, but it doesn't say the word meit, it doesn't say the word that he died. And Rashi says, ואמרו רז״ל, the chachamim told us, that יעקב אבינו לא מת, that Yaakov Avinu did not die. That's actually taken from the Gemara in Taanis דף ה׳ עמוד ב׳. But there the Gemara asks a question on this: וכי בכדי ספדו ספדניא וחנטו חנטייא וקברו קברייא? So what does that mean? For no reason did they eulogize him? For no reason did they embalm him? For no reason did they bury him? That means that In other words, the pasuk tells us that they did all these things, how could you say he didn't die? And the Gemara answers, מקרא אני דורש. We have a pasuk, and from the pasuk we learn out. Pasuk mentions the word zerao. Pasuk says, כי הנני מושיעך מרחוק ואת זרעך מארץ שבים. It talks about Yaakov and it mentions his children. So the Gemara says, מקיש הוא לזרעו, the pasuk compares him to his children. And therefore, מה זרעו בחיים, just like his children are alive, אף הוא בחיים, he's also alive. And there are different explanations, commentaries, what the Gemara means with its answer, but the Maharsha learns that the Gemara means to tell us that when it says יעקב אבינו לא מת, that Yaakov didn't die, doesn't mean physically that he didn't die. The truth is, his body actually died. And therefore they buried him, they embalmed him, all the things that they did. But what it means is the life of his neshamah. The neshamah life of Yaakov, that's eternal forever, and there's no mitah there. And that's the Gemara's answer, that biruchniyus he's alive.

But we have to understand, the Rebbe says, in that case, what's the chidush by Yaakov Avinu? It says יעקב אבינו לא מת, יעקב אבינו didn't die. By all the tzaddikim we find that. The Gemara says in Berachos, that צדיקים אפי׳ במיתתם קרויים חיים, even when they are they die, they're still called alive. Because their real life is the life of ruchniyut, which is eternal. And as it says in Tanya, in Iggeret HaKodesh, that חיי הצדיק אינם חיים בשרים, the life of a tzaddik is not the physical life, the bodily life, the life from his flesh, but it's emunah, ahavah, v'yirah, all these things. And that part doesn't die. So it's by all the tzaddikim. So what's the specialty by Yaakov, where it says יעקב אבינו לא מת, he didn't die, if it only means beruchniyut?

And the Rebbe explains it like this: It says in Tanya that the neshama of Yaakov is a נשמה כללית. And the lashon is, כלולה מכל הנשמות של ישראל מעתה ועד עולם. It includes all the neshamos of the Yidden forever. So Yaakov's neshama is includes all the neshamos of all the Yidden. That means, in other words, that the neshama of Yaakov is found in every single Yid. And that's the difference between Yaakov and all the tzaddikim. True, all the tzaddikim, the spiritual life of the tzaddikim, even when he passes away physically, is netzchi, is forever. But after that passed away, we're only talking about the spiritual life. The spiritual life is stuck and not there in the physical body. It's there and it has all kinds of hashpaot and things like that, but nevertheless it's not in the physical body. By Yaakov Avinu, on the other hand, even after he passed away, he's still found in a physical body. Actually not his own physical body as it was before, that was buried, but the physical body of every Yid who is a descendant of Yaakov has Yaakov in him. U'memela it comes out that Yaakov is alive in a physical sense. And that's what the Gemara means: מה זרעו בחיים אף הוא בחיים. If his children are alive, he's alive. That means, since the children of Yaakov are alive, and that we know that always the children will be alive, there will always be Yidden, and there will be always Yidden who מקיים תורה ומצוות, who are alive and do what Yaakov wants them to do, so Yaakov's neshamah is found in all these bodies. And therefore it comes out that he is actually alive in the physical sense, which is different than all the tzadikim, which their life continues, but only in the spiritual life. And again, even though the spiritual life of every tzadik has a hashpaah, an influence on the people, but it's still from a ruchniyus'dike perspective. And here we're saying, it's in every single Yid, we find the neshamah of Yaakov in every single body of every Yid. And that makes the connection to Yaakov much stronger, that Yaakov's neshamah is there in the body of every single Yid.