Sometimes a forgotten bookmark or a single phrase in the Torah can open a window into the deepest truths about loss, strength, and what really sustains a Jewish home.
Begin’s Forgotten Check
In the United States, every president has a library that preserves his history and legacy—like the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. In a similar way, Israel has the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, not far from the Western Wall.
Among its exhibits is Begin’s personal library. Recently, the staff decided to reorganize the books, and during the process someone found a surprising little slip tucked between the pages—a long-forgotten check from the Steimatzky bookstore chain, in the amount of 102,705 old shekels, dated 1983.
It turned out that this was payment Begin had received from Steimatzky for his book White Nights, which they translated and published in English. But Begin never cashed the check. He simply slipped it into a book as a bookmark. That’s how modest he was.
The fact that Begin never bothered to cash the check wasn’t surprising. Material things simply didn’t register for him. For example, for a long time he resisted any attempt to renovate his office. It came to a point where the maintenance staff were worried that the chairs might collapse under the visitors, so over a weekend they quietly replaced all the furniture. They expected him to be upset, but on Sunday he walked into the office and said nothing. He didn’t even realize anything had changed.
He simply had no relationship with money. His wife would give cash to the driver so that if Begin ever wanted to buy a drink, he would have something to pay with. This was the kind of man who could take a check worth over a hundred thousand shekels and turn it into a bookmark.
Begin’s Isolation
The date on the check is October 7, 1982—just weeks after Begin resigned as prime minister and began withdrawing from public life.
What led him to isolate himself so deeply?
A few months before that check was written, Begin had been preparing for a visit to the United States to meet President Reagan, and to attend the annual Israel Bonds dinner in Los Angeles. But right then, his wife Aliza fell seriously ill.
Begin told his aides he wasn’t going. His wife was in such condition that she had tubes inserted into her throat and could no longer speak, but when he told her he was staying home, she wrote him a note—the only way she could communicate—insisting that he must go. It was an important meeting, she said. Reluctantly, he agreed.
He arrived in California before Shabbat, and the big dinner was scheduled for Saturday night. He was already dressed in his tuxedo, ready to leave, when a message arrived from Israel: his wife had passed away.
When they came in to tell him, he broke down in tears, repeating over and over, “Why did I leave her?” He was unconsolable.
Of course, he did not attend the dinner. That night he flew back to Israel. Throughout the sixteen-hour flight, he stayed shut inside the small sleeping compartment and barely came out.
From the moment his wife died, Begin withdrew more and more into himself. She had been everything to him. She had followed him through every hardship, every struggle. She was his anchor. And suddenly, that entire world collapsed.
Among other things, she had been the one who handled all financial matters. So it’s no wonder that after she passed away, Begin took a check worth over a hundred thousand shekels and used it as a bookmark.
In the end, this loss set him on the path that led to his resignation as prime minister and to his complete retreat from public life.
Jacob’s Silence
In this week’s Torah portion, we read the painful story of “the sale of Joseph.” The more we study it—and the more mature we become—the harder it is to understand. How could something like this unfold in the family of Jacob, our forefather?
And it wasn’t only Joseph who experienced a fall. Right after the Torah tells us that Joseph was taken down to Egypt, we learn that Judah, too, was pushed away from the family. The brothers held him responsible for how things turned out with Joseph, since he was the one who suggested selling him. As a result, Judah’s own life takes a complicated turn: he leaves home, marries into a local Canaanite family, and begins a difficult chapter of his own.
What’s more astonishing is that during all those years, we barely hear a word from Jacob. Only twenty-one years later does he finally speak up and tell his sons, “I hear there’s food in Egypt—go down and buy some.” Rashi comments that Jacob “saw with holy insight that he still had hope in Egypt,” sensing that salvation would somehow come from there. But until that moment, Jacob’s voice is completely silent.
What’s going on in this family?
A Window Into Grief
We once heard a powerful insight on this from the Rebbe.
It was in 1988, after the passing of the Rebbetzin. The Rebbe and Rebbetzin had been married for nearly sixty years. She was the closest person in his life. The Rebbe deeply grieved her loss, and thousands of people came to offer condolences, including many rabbis and leaders.
One rabbi tried to comfort the Rebbe by saying something along the lines of, “We must stay joyful.” But the Rebbe responded by quoting the Talmud (Sanhedrin 22a), which teaches: “Everything in life can be replaced—except the wife of one’s youth.”
And then the Rebbe added the words Jacob said when Rachel died: “Rachel has died on me.” (Hisvaaduyos 5748 vol. 2 pg. 616).
What’s the meaning of that verse?
Rachel: The Heart of the Home
At the end of Bereishis, as Jacob nears the end of his life, he calls for his son Joseph. He asks him not to bury him in Egypt, but to bring his body to the Land of Israel and lay him to rest in the Cave of Machpelah.
Then Jacob continues by talking about the fact that he did not bury Rachel, his beloved wife and Joseph’s mother, in the Cave of Machpelah, even though they were close by. He tells him: “As I was returning from Padan, Rachel died on me in the land of Canaan… and I buried her there on the road to Efrat, which is Bethlehem” (Genesis 48:7).
Jacob seems to be apologizing to Joseph about it, but the text doesn’t actually include an explanation or apology! On the surface, Jacob is just stating the facts. He doesn’t seem to explain why he buried her there on the roadside.
But the Sages, who pay attention to every word of the Torah, noticed something. Jacob didn’t say, “Rachel died,” but rather, “Rachel died on me.” Why use that expression?
The Talmud explains: “A wife dies only to her husband”—meaning, the rest of the family mourns and eventually moves on, but a spouse feels the loss day after day, hour after hour. The pain settles deep into the core of their being.
This is exactly what happened with Jacob. On the verse “Rachel was barren” (Genesis 29:31), the Midrash comments: “Rachel was the mainstay of the home… everything depended on her” (Bereishis Rabbah 71b). Meaning, even though Jacob had three other wives, Rachel was the true akeret habayit—the foundation of the home, the backbone of the entire family.
She gave Jacob his strength. She was the reason Jacob came into Laban’s house in the first place, and his bed—his place of comfort and closeness—was always in Rachel’s tent.
Jacob became Jacob largely because of Rachel. She gave him the emotional power to survive all the hardships he endured under Laban. As the Torah tells us, the seven years he worked to marry her “felt to him like just a few days because of his love for her.”
When Rachel died, everything collapsed for Jacob. From that moment on, we find no divine revelations to him. The presence of G-d did not rest upon him anymore, because he sank into sadness—and the Shechinah, the Divine Presence, only dwells where there is joy.
But when he heard that Joseph was still alive, the Torah says, “the spirit of their father Jacob revived,” and the Divine Presence returned to him after so many years.
Why did the Shechinah return? The next verse tells us: “Israel said: ‘How great—my son Joseph is still alive!’” Rashi explains: “Great for me is this added joy and happiness” (Vayigash 45:29). He had found joy once again.
This is the “secret” Jacob revealed to Joseph before his passing. He wasn’t just apologizing for burying Rachel on the side of the road. He was revealing the emotional truth behind everything that had unfolded in the family. It’s all contained in those few words: “Rachel died on me.”
If Rachel had still been alive, perhaps Joseph would never have been sold at all.
Akeret HaBayit: The Real Jewish Power
In modern Hebrew, “akeret habayit” sounds like “a homemaker,” a woman who runs the household. But in the Torah, the expression means something much deeper. The woman is the essence of the home—its foundation, its center.
The Rebbe would often explain that the entire spiritual atmosphere of a Jewish home depends on the woman.
If the kitchen is going to be kosher, that depends entirely on her. A husband may want a kosher home, but if his wife is not interested, it simply won’t happen. On the other hand, if she wants a kosher kitchen, the husband’s hesitations don’t really matter—it will happen.
The same is true when it comes to raising the children—everything depends on the mother.
If a woman wants to connect with Chabad, even if her husband isn’t interested at first, eventually the whole family will come along—and he’ll follow like a good soldier. But if she is not interested, he can come to Chabad for twenty years and it still won’t affect the home. Everything comes down to the “akeret habayit.”
The Women of Chanukah
We see the same with the story of Chanukah.
The Greeks who ruled Israel at the time didn’t seek to kill the Jews. That wasn’t their goal. They wanted to erase Jewish faith—“to make them forget Your Torah.” They wanted the Jews to become like them, to embrace Greek culture. So they banned Shabbat, outlawed circumcision, prohibited Jewish holidays, kosher food—everything that made Jews distinct.
And the men at the time were not exactly eager to fight back. Each time a new decree was announced, they shrugged and surrendered. “What can we do? The Greeks are the world superpower—we have no choice.”
But it was the women who refused to surrender. They pushed their husbands to rise up and fight the Greeks to save the Jewish people.
This revolt was initiated by women, carried by women, and ultimately won because of them.
That is why, during the lighting of the Chanukah candles, Jewish women traditionally pause from work—because “they too were part of the miracle.” In truth, it is because of the akeret habayit—the spiritual strength of Jewish women—that we have Chanukah at all.
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