Day: 16th January 2025

One of the inspirations for the 1960’s Simon & Garfunkel hit song “The Sound of Silence” was Garfunkel’s close friendship with Sandy Greenberg. When Greenberg, as a college student, was watching a baseball game, his vision descended into a blur. Initially, he was told that it was merely conjunctivitis, but when he completely lost his vision, he learned that he had glaucoma and would never see again. As a result, he became reclusive and left college in a slump of depression.

Throughout the Torah, we, the Jews, are known by the title “Bnei Yisrael”, the “sons of Israel”. The reason is that we are the descendants (bnei) of Jacob, who was later renamed “Yisrael”—Israel. In Parashat Vayechi that we read this week, however, we are told that Joseph made “Bnei Yisrael” swear that they will carry his bones to the Land after the Exodus from Egypt (see Genesis 50:25), and in this case, as well as others in Genesis, the term refers specifically to Jacob’s immediate family, not to the entire people of Israel.