“Thus, Israel settled in the land of Egypt in the region of Goshen…” (47:27)
In Darash Moshe, Rav Moshe Feinstein asks: Why does the Torah state here that Yisroel settled in Egypt when we know from the preceding verses that Goshen was a region in Egypt? He answers that perhaps the Torah is teaching us that even though our destiny is to be exiled among the nations, we must do everything in our power not to intermingle with our gentile neighbors, and to avoid emulating their lifestyle and values. We see this in the fact that even though our ancestors were forced to sojourn in Egypt, they kept to themselves in a separate district, the region of Goshen.
Another lesson in this is that whatever land we live in, we are still required to study Torah and to serve Hashem with the same high degree of dedication and loyalty. Even though the region of Goshen was in the land of Egypt, the home of sorcery and idolatry, Yaakov and his family continued to observe the Torah’s mitzvos with the same fervor they had felt in Eretz Yisroel.
