And they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, which is beyond the Jordan, and there they wailed with a very great and sore wailing; and he made a mourning for his father seven days.
English: R’ Shmuel bar Nachmani said in the name of R’ Yonatan: We searched the entire Scripture and found no place called Atad; rather, what is Atad? These are the Canaanites who were fit to be threshed with thorns, yet they were saved by virtue of “And the inhabitant of the land, the Canaanite, saw the mourning in the threshing-floor of Atad.”
On the daf / in context: The absence of a geographic Atad leads to a reading of the name as a description of the Canaanites and of the merit that protected them.
Type of Learning
Derash of the place-name that yields a teaching about merit.
What Is Learned
The Canaanites were spared harsh judgment because they showed honour to Yaakov at the place of mourning.