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Like Ephraim and Manasseh

1/10/2017

 
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You may know that there is a traditional blessing that parents recite over their sons and daughters on Friday nights and on the eve of festivals. The blessing takes a different form for boys than it does for girls. For boys, the blessing begins:

ישימך אלהים כאפרים וכמנשה
"May God make you like Ephraim and like Manasseh."

For girls, the blessing begins:

ישמך אלהים כשרה רבקה רחל ולאה
"May God make you like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah."

The girls' blessing makes obvious sense. It is natural that we would bless our daughters with the wish that they grow up to have the values and accomplishments of the four matriarchs. Sarah was a woman who endured anguish as a barren woman yet faithfully persevered. Rebecca was the clever "power behind the throne," who skillfully manipulated events to assure the best outcome for all. Rachel was the patient woman who stood up against her uncle Laban's deceptions and triumphed in the end. Leah was the unloved but strong-willed wife who kept true in her devotion. These women have been praised for their strength and piety since ancient times. There is even a classical midrash (
Seder Eliyahu Rabbah 25) that says that God rescued Israel from Egypt only because of the merit of the matriarchs (but not the patriarchs). 

In contrast to these great women role models, why do we wish our boys to be like, of all people, Ephraim and Manasseh? Who were Ephraim and Manasseh, anyway?

The answer to these questions can be found in this week's Torah portion (Vayechi). The portion at the end of the book of Genesis completes the story of Joseph, the second-to-the-youngest of Jacob's twelve sons. He was his father's favorite, but that favoritism led to tragedy. Jacob's older brothers resented and hated Joseph. They sold Joseph into slavery and deceived their father into thinking that he was dead. Nonetheless, Joseph rose up from slavery and imprisonment to become the viceroy of Egypt, Pharaoh's second-in-command. When Jacob found out that his long-lost son was still alive, he went down to Egypt to see his son again in his final days.

Joseph had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, when his father came down to Egypt. Upon seeing them, Jacob told Joseph to bring the boys to him "that I may bless them" (Genesis 48:9). Joseph carefully arranged the boys so that Manasseh, the older son, would be opposite Jacob's right hand and Ephraim, the younger, would be opposite the left. This was the proper arrangement for Jacob to give the superior blessing of the right hand to the older son. 

However, Jacob had other plans. The Torah says that Jacob "stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim's head, though he was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh's head" (Genesis 48:14). In this strange posture, with his arms crossed, he blessed the two boys.

When Joseph saw what his father was doing, he tried to correct him by putting each of Jacob's hands on the head of what he considered to be the correct son. But Jacob just said, "I know, my son, I know. He (Manasseh) too shall become a people, and he too shall be great. Yet his younger brother (Ephraim) shall be greater than he, and his offspring shall be plentiful enough for nations" (Genesis 48:19). 

Isn't it interesting what each of these two men – the long-separated father and son – imagined the other one was thinking? Joseph thought that his father was repeating the same mistake he made when Joseph was a child by favoring the younger son over the older. Jacob assumed that Joseph, now a powerful and privileged ruler, was trying to protect the privilege due to his older son. Jacob reassured Joseph that the older son would get his due, but that the younger would be the greater.

When we read this story, we frequently see Jacob's crossed arms as the final example in the book of Genesis of the younger son triumphing over the older. It is a theme that recurs throughout the book. It is the repetition of Abel being favored over Cain, Isaac being chosen over Ishmael, Jacob displacing Esau, and Joseph ruling over his ten older brothers. We think of Jacob's blessing as yet another case of the Genesis' favorite theme: younger brothers who take the place of older brothers.

However, a close reading shows that Jacob's switcheroo with Ephraim and Manasseh is different from the triumph of the other younger brothers in Genesis. Neither of Joseph's sons would rule over the other. (In fact, Ephraim and Manasseh would become the progenitors of the two most powerful tribes in ancient Israel, closely allied to each other, not rivals.) This is not the story of overthrow; it is a story about shared mutual success among peers. Here, at the end of the book of Genesis, we have a story that embodies the famous verse from psalms: "הנה מה טוב ומה נעים שבת אחים גם יחד," "See how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell together" (Psalms 133:1).

This is what Jacob had in mind when he ordained that Ephraim and Manasseh would be the model for blessing Jewish children. He said of them, "By you shall Israel invoke blessings, saying, 'May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh'" (Genesis 48:20). 

The book of Genesis ends with a moment in which the persistent themes of parental favoritism, fraternal resentments, and family dysfunction are finally resolved. Parents mellow in their old age and turn their old bad habits into love. Children learn that they don't have to fear passing down the scars of their own upbringing onto the next generation. In time, we learn to correct our mistakes in life, not by rejecting our past, but by transforming it.

Just as Jacob said we would, we still bless our sons with the wish that they be "like Ephraim and Manasseh." We wish for them a life in which success is not the product of rivalry and resentment, but the outcome of peaceful and loving coexistence. Our best blessing for our children is that they enjoy each other's successes without seeing them as a threat to their own success. We wish our children the ability to get along with each other and to know that they are blessed – just as they are.


Other Posts on this Topic:
Vayechi: Repair of the Dysfunctional Family
​
Toledot: Letting Go of the Struggle

We Can Be the Storm

1/4/2017

 
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This is the keynote address I gave today at the Ninth Annual State House Vigil of the Rhode Island Interfaith Coalition to Reduce Poverty. Other speakers included Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo and Senate President M. Teresa Paiva Weed.

They say that storm clouds are looming over America. They say there is a darkness coming that will banish our cherished hopes for the future. They say that the coming storm will wash away all of the progress we have made in recent years – the progress we have made for justice, the progress we have made for bringing comfort and sustenance to the impoverished, the progress we have made to make real the pledge that America is a nation offering “liberty and justice for all.” They say that the storm clouds of fear and hatred will now take the place of those dreams.

Our sacred Scripture has something different to say. The prophet Isaiah taught, “הנה חזק ואמץ לאדני כזרם ברד שער קטב,” “Behold, my Lord has something strong and mighty, like a storm of hail and a shower of destruction.” And what is it that the Lord shall do with that storm? “ושמתי משפט לקו,” “I will use justice as a measuring line, and righteousness as the measure of weight. Hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies. The rising of the waters shall drown their hiding places” (Isaiah 28:2,17).

If we believe ourselves to be in a time of an approaching storm of fear-mongering and lies, we should not think that storms can only bring injustice and grief. We who uphold the classical values of biblical righteousness – shelter for the homeless, food for the hungry, care for the sick, freedom for the captive, dignity for the orphan and widow, comfort for the oppressed, love for the despised – we can be the storm and not just hapless victims to be blown about by somebody else’s ill winds.

We can take action to set justice as the true plumbline by which we measure our public policies. We can speak up, and speak out, to make righteousness the standard measure by which we weigh our laws and our direction as a state and as a nation. This is what we are fighting for, and we can only do it together.

Over the last year, we have seen how divisions have been sown into our national discourse, like weeds mixed in with the good seeds. We have been told that we can have more good jobs and security in America … but only by deporting some and keeping others out of our borders based on religion and race. We have been told that America can be great again, but only if we are willing to go back to a time when the powerful maintained rigid control of their privilege, when women were expected to defer to men, when gays and lesbians were kept in the closet, and when People of Color knew how to keep in their place.

Divisions like these will not create good jobs, will not keep us safe, will not make our country great. They will only keep us frightened, angry, and unwilling to live up to our own highest values of liberty and justice for all.

Liberty and justice for all means that we work together. It means that we rise above the voices of division, exclusion and the privilege of one person over another. It means that we see each other’s struggles as our own. It means that Christians, Muslims and Jews see how a threat to one faith is a threat to religion as a whole. It means that people of all races and heritages are united in our common humanity. It means that justice is not a zero-sum game in which my group can only gain if another loses. Liberty and justice for all means that your suffering is part of my suffering and my suffering is part of your suffering. It means that your freedom is my freedom, and my freedom is your freedom.

We are here today, in the rotunda of the State House under its magnificent dome, to remember and to repeat the values upon which the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations was founded. No boasts of birth and blood.* No sanction for bigotry. No assistance to persecution.** Liberty and justice for all.

Today, in this monument to freedom, we offer blessing and prayers to our governor, our lawmakers, and public servants. We are proud to show them what we are fighting for. Hold up your signs everyone.

We are fighting for Christine Tate who spoke at Temple Sinai in Cranston last September to tell us her story. Christine worked as a Certified Nursing Assistant for 30 years before getting injured, requiring two back surgeries and a hip replacement. She now relies on Social Security disability insurance, and she relies on Rhode Island Public Transportation’s no-fare bus pass for the elderly and people with disabilities to do her marketing. We are fighting for Christine because the no-fare pass program is scheduled to expire at the end of this month, forcing Christine to pay money she doesn’t have just to put food on her table and to stay connected to the community. We are here to tell the General Assembly to restore the full no-fare bus pass program.

We are fighting for Rodrigo Pimentel, a young man whose family moved to the United States when he was ten months old. His visa expired when he was still just a child and he has been an undocumented immigrant ever since. Rodrigo is a student at URI and he has a promising future ahead of him, but still he worries constantly about his status and whether he will be allowed to stay in the U.S. Rodrigo worries also about the thousands of undocumented immigrants in Rhode Island and across the United States who work for a living, pay their taxes, and contribute to our society, yet take a huge risk every time they do something as simple as driving a car to work, knowing that if they are stopped without a valid drivers license, they could lose everything. We are here to tell the General Assembly to keep our roads safe and to allow people to live in dignity by granting drivers licenses to undocumented immigrants.

We are fighting for Ricky Mercado, a food service worker from Providence, who says, “Increasing the minimum wage would mean that I could save for my own car and not have to rely on friends or family for a ride to work. It would mean that my girlfriend and I could save and move out of our basement apartment at her father’s place into a place we could call our own. It would open up so many opportunities for me to make a better life for myself instead of feeling like I’m always stuck in the same place I started. Nobody wants to feel like they’re stuck in a job where they aren’t valued or given what they’re worth. It’s time our employers invest as much in us as we invest in them.” We are here to tell the General Assembly to significantly raise the minimum wage in Rhode Island so that thousands of workers like Ricky can work in dignity for a wage they can live on and build a future for themselves.

We are fighting for decent, safe and affordable housing for everyone. We are fighting for adequate food and nutrition for every family in the state. We are fighting for affordable and quality healthcare. We are fighting for education for our children in schools where they have the resources and safety they need to learn. We are fighting for decent jobs that pay enough to live and that give dignity and meaning to our lives.

We do not fear a coming storm. We are the storm. Our storm is called liberty and justice for all. In our unity and in our shared vision for our future, we will work together to bring about that vision. Black, Latina and White, Jew and Moslem, Gay and Straight, Protestant and Catholic, men and women. We are united together, setting the measuring line for justice. Hear us. Be with us. Thank you.

______________________
* Roger Williams, founder of the state of Rhode Island, A Key into the Language of America, 1643
"Boast not proud English, of thy birth and blood
Thy brother Indian is by birth as good.
Of one blood God made him, and thee, and all.

As wise, as fair, as strong, as personal."

** George Washington's Letter to the Jews of Newport, Rhode Island, 1790

"For happily the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens."

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