<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; min-height: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18px; ">Next week's Torah reading is named Vay'chi — “And he lived” — although it speaks of Yaakov’s death. </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px;">As the events of the reading demonstrate, Yaakov’s life was one of connection to God that transcended </span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px;">material settings. And since he shared this quality with his descendants, it was perpetuated beyond his mortal lifetime. </span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="5"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 18px;">As our Sages say: “Yaakov, our ancestor, did not die. As his descendants are alive, he is alive.”</span></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 16px/normal Times; "><b>Excerpted from Chabad</b></div></body></html>