Chevre, this week’s parsha is Vayehi (וַיְחִ֤י). This is the final parsha of Sefer Beresheit (Genesis) and we can really feel things coming to a conclusion. Yaakov blesses Menashe and Efraim and then gives blessings to all of his sons one by one. Yaakov dies and is buried in Hevron. There is a funeral procession from Egypt to Hevron and then everyone goes back to Egypt. The brothers are worried that Yosef was waiting for his father to die before taking retribution against them for selling him into slavery, but there is no retribution. And finally Yosef dies.

While it feels good to close out a project, there often is also a sense of loss. In the case of the Parsha folks are actually dieing, but it’s also turning over the reins (or control) to the next generation. At AWS this year, we had this migration from Adam to Matt as CEOs. And we see this occassionally as folks either move on to other companies or migrate between roles inside the company. The lesson we must learn from Yosef here, however, is that we don’t want to “burn bridges.” The tech world is small, especially in Israel, and you will see and possibly work with, these folks again. Yosef is considered reliable and responsible inside Egypt and this is why he was put in charge of the wellfare of the entire state and maintained that for so long. Shabbat Shalom.