Yaakov Avinu’s last words recover a maternal and conservative ethic of guidance, inheritance, and restraint. Parshas Vayechi is not a loud parsha. It does not announce itself with fire or spectacle.

But the more they were oppressed, the more they increased and spread out, so that the [Egyptians] came to loathe the Israelites. What exactly did the Egyptians feel about the ancient Israelites, or ...