Imagine if the Jews who lived through the Holocaust or the Khmelnitsky pogroms had learned that Mashiach would not come in their time. What would they have felt?

Vayechi: Illuminating Exile

Likkutei Sichos, Volume 15, Vayechi 2

By The Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson

Ephraim and Menashe can be seen as prototypes for two types of Jews,. Menashe is the Jew for whom “his father’s house,” the old country, is a reality, while Ephraim knows only “the land of my oppression,” the new land into which he was born and in whose culture he lives.

Vayechi: For Darkness to Become a Candle

Likkutei Sichos, Volume 10, Vayechi 1

By The Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson

The Baal HaTurim states that the best years of the life of Yaakov were spent in Egypt. Yaakov was a man whose entire life was focused on holiness. How could his best years have been those that he spent in Egypt, a place of impurity and spiritual darkness?