leave the Holy Land.[299] He said, "How can I leave the land
of my fathers, the land of my birth, the land in which the
Shekinah dwells, and go into an unclean land, inhabited by
slaves of the sons of Ham, a land wherein there is no fear of
God?"[300] Then he brought sacrifices in honor of God, in
the expectation that a Divine vision would descend upon
him and instruct him whether to go down into Egypt or
have Joseph come up to Canaan. He feared the sojourn
in Egypt, for he remembered the vision he had had at
Beth-el on leaving his father's house,[301] and he said to God:
"I resemble my father. As he was greedy in filling his maw,
so am I, and therefore I would go down into Egypt in consequence
of the famine. As my father preferred one son to
the other, so had I a favorite son, and therefore I would go
down into Egypt to see Joseph. But in this I do not resemble

 
Chapters | Home | Hanukah.com
Previous | Next page 288