Menachem shmei, I thought you missed my comment about the ria”f but then I went over the posts and saw that you did see it. There were so many responses to this thread I didn’t notice all of them.
OK, so whoever wants can look in the sefer eyin yaacov on everything that the Rif wrote on taanus 5 2 and yaacov lo meis.
At first I was impressed that you were able to refer to so many meforshim on this Rashi and Gemorah. But then when you mentioned that you don’t see the part of the rif that I mentioned I realized that it’s copy and paste from some “Chabad Torah” . Sure enough I unearthed a Chabad piece bringing all these meforshim and weaving it into their article titled “A King without a Nation”…in fact, there are many Chabad articles with reference to “Yaacov lo mes” and meforshim on it, taken out of context of course, and I see that this belief that Yaacov “being physically alive in his kever” is very central and important in the worship of the rebbe. It’s mamesh like Yosef Hatzadik feared the metzriim will deitify Yaacov, you are now doing to your rebbe all on the account of the words “Yaacov lo meis”…