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.


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As a congregational rabbi, I know that there is one prayer that will make people feel compelled to come to the synagogue. they won't come because they need to say the T'filah (also called the Amida or Sh'moneh Esrei). They don't come just to say Sh'ma. The prayer that consistently brings Jews to the synagogue is the Mourners Kaddish.

The people we love who have died remain a powerful force upon us. The things they said and did continue to matter to us, and they continue to shape the things we say and do, long after they are gone. We want them to be present to us and we use prayers like the Kaddish to remember them even when remembering hurts.

This week's Torah portion (Vayechi) includes the death of Jacob and Joseph, but there is much earlier death that hangs like a shadow over the story.

When Joseph learned that his father, Jacob, was on his deathbed, he brought his two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, to visit him. Jacob summoned his strength to sit up to give a blessing to the boys. But before he did, he told Joseph that he was adopting them as his own. He further explained that he was doing this because "when I arrived from Paddan, Rachel died by me while I was journeying in the land of Canaan ... and I buried her there on the road to Ephrat" (Genesis 48:7).

There is a mystery. Why did Jacob adopt Joseph's sons? What does it have to do with the death of Rachel, Jacob's favorite wife and Joseph's mother? Why does Jacob say that Rachel died "by me" or "upon me" (in Hebrew, עלי)?

It may be, as midrash teaches, that Jacob was responding to Joseph's desire to know for certain that his Egyptian-born children from an Egyptian mother would be included in the covenant of Abraham. It may be that Jacob sought to claim the boys as compensation for the many years he thought that Joseph was dead. It may be that he thought of Ephraim and Manasseh as the sons he would have had with Rachel if she had not died so young.

Ephraim and Manasseh were not just grandchildren to Jacob. They seem to have had deep symbolic meaning to him. They were, perhaps, reminders of the greatest grief and losses of his life. They were symbols he wanted to claim as his own, even as he approachedhis own death, to keep his lost love close in his memory and heart.

Jacob said that Rachel died "by me" or "upon me," and the seemingly superfluous word is the greatest mystery of all. It could mean that Rachel literally died at his side, that he was attending her at the moment when she succumbed during childbirth. It could be a statement of the depth of his sorrow -- as if he wanted to say how much the weight of grief was still "upon me." It could be an expression of guilt -- an acknowledgment that she may have died "on my account" because of the curse he unwittingly placed upon her (Genesis 31:32) when she stole her father's idols (Genesis 31:19).

So much happened between the time of Rachel's death and Jacob's blessing of Joseph's sons -- a passages of some 40 years or more. Joseph was sold into slavery and was presumed dead by his father. Joseph went from being the chief steward of a noble house, to being a forgotten prisoner in a dungeon, to being the second in command of all Egypt. A famine threatened the life of Jacob's entire family, forcing him to put the life of his favorite son at risk. The family was reunited and saved.

Through all of that, they never forgot Rachel. Her memory, her love, the trauma of her death, and the guilt associated with it, all of these clung to Jacob and Joseph through the decades. It was impossible for the two men to inaugurate a new generation of the family without invoking her name.

And that is what I hear when Jews come to the synagogue to recite the Kaddish. They invoke the names of parents, siblings, spouses and (God forbid) children despite the pain. There are no simple and clear reasons why. There is memory and love, sorrow and duty. There is sometimes regret and guilt. To the core of our being, we know they are with us and shape us, even decades after they are gone.


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Vayechi: Cloverleaf

The book of Genesis ends with the death of Joseph, the Hebrew boy who was sold into slavery and rose to become Egypt's second-in-command. On his deathbed, Joseph told his brothers, “I am about to die. God will surely take notice of you and bring you up from this land to the land that God promised on oath to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob” (Genesis 50:24). 

Thus, the book of Genesis ends (and this week’s Torah portion, Vayechi, also ends) on a note that foreshadows the transition to come. Things were good for the sons of Jacob in Egypt, but their happiness would not last long. Eventually, an act of God would be necessary to bring them back to the land of Israel. 

Sorry for the spoiler. 

In a way, the whole last fourteen chapters of the book of Genesis, comprising four weekly Torah portions, is one big example of foreshadowing and transition. From the perspective of pure storytelling technique, Joseph’s story serves a simple function. For the Torah to continue, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob have to get to Egypt. 

If there were no Joseph story to bring the brothers to Egypt, there would be no need for God to deliver them from slavery. No Moses. No Ten Commandments. No wandering through the wilderness. No redemption. The Joseph story is an artistic masterpiece and it is filled with great spiritual lessons, but it also is the literary equivalent of a highway cloverleaf — a way to exit one road and enter another. 

And, yet, there is also a spiritual truth in this literary structure. Life is filled with such cloverleaves — moments of painful change that we might mistake for the highway itself. Life is also filled with times of transition — moments when we think we are “just passing through” — that turn out to be great journeys unto themselves. 

Do you remember the time when you suffered a terrible situation that unexpectedly turned out to be all for the best? Most of us do. Most of us have suffered setbacks that, in retrospect, seem like the best things that ever happened to us. When we consider the stories of our lives from the distance of time, we think, “It felt terrible when it happened, but if it had not happened that way, I would not be where I am today.”

I’ve got moments like that: The job I left twenty years ago that sent me on the path toward rabbinic school. The unpleasant breakup that allowed me to meet my future wife. The years of uncertainty that the two of us had to endure before the birth of our child. Over and over in my life, I have experienced painful setbacks that led to miracles. 

How about you? What were the moments of despair that turned out to be your transitions to renewal? What were the cloverleaves that turned out to be the journey?

Remember where the story of the Torah is taking us. Joseph was thrown into the pit so that he could eventually save his family from starvation. The children of Israel were slaves in Egypt so that Moses could lead them to freedom. The Israelites suffered hardship in the wilderness so that God would redeem them and transform them into a great nation. 

This is life. Our life. We travel a long journey along a twisted highway to discover our own redemption. 


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Vayechi: Repair of the Dysfunctional Family

That is why, when Jacob died, the brothers went to Joseph and told him:

"Before his death your father left this instruction: So shall you say to Joseph, 'Please forgive, I urge you, the offense and guilt of your brothers who treated you so harshly.' And now, please forgive the offense of the servants of the God of your father." 

The Torah tells us that Joseph cried when he heard these words (Genesis 50:15-17). 

Why should Joseph have cried? He already forgave his brothers when he told them that it was not they, but God, who had determined that he be sold into slavery (Genesis 45:8). Perhaps his tears were in recognition of the fear that his brothers experienced because of his power over them.

Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshischa (1765-1827) had a different interpretation, one that is fitting to the brand of loving and forgiving Chasidism that he taught. He observed that Joseph's brothers knew about their family's legacy. In previous generations, there always was one son who was the appointed successor and the other brothers were cast away and rejected. Isaac, their grandfather, had been chosen as Abraham's successor and his brother Ishmael had been cast out into the wilderness. Their father, Jacob, succeeded Isaac as God's treasure, and his brother, Esau, was rejected and regarded as a villain. Jacob's first ten sons thought they would share Ishmael and Esau's fate when they recognized that Joseph would be the successor of Jacob.

This is why they came to Joseph with a plea that can be divided into two parts, each introduced by the words, "Please forgive." First they acknowledge how wrong it had been for them to throw Joseph into the pit and to sell him into slavery. They offer no excuses or rationalization for their behavior, and so Rabbi Simcha Bunim regards their apology as sincere. It is only after this that they again say, "Please forgive," and ask Joseph to recognize them, too, as "servants of the God of your father." They were pleading not to be rejected or left out of the story of the Jewish people.

According to the teaching, this is why Joseph cried when he heard the words of his brothers. He recognized what they were asking for. He recognized that, at this point in their lives, all they wanted was not to be discarded and to be given a place as inheritors of the covenant with God. Since this was exactly what Joseph, too wanted, he cried to hear their righteous words.

It is interesting that Simcha Bunim sees no hint of deception or self-serving motives in the words of Joseph's brothers. That would be the obvious interpretation of brothers who made up a deathbed plea from their father to save their skins. Simcha Bunim would rather give the brothers the greatest possible benefit of the doubt and see them as motivated by the highest, not by the lowest.

This loving and forgiving approach was the hallmark of Simcha Bunim's approach and it continues to have resonance in the branches of Chasidic Judaism. I was reminded of that today as I walked through Tzfat (also called Safed in English), which is regarded as one of the four holy cities of Judaism (along with Jerusalem, Hebron, and Tiberias) and it is the city most identified with Jewish mysticism. 

In the 16th century, Tzfat was the city where Rabbi Isaac Luria reignited Kabbalism and transformed Judaism in ways that are still with us. (The Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat service, including the song L'cha Dodi, was an invention of Luria's followers). Today, some of his spiritual successors continue to make Tzfat a city that takes pride in being a center of Kabbalah and Chasidism.

But we sometimes lose sight of the fact that the heart of Chasidism in its original form was not just mystical introspection, it was about loving people. The primary energy of Jewish mysticism is outward, not inward. Rabbi Simcha Bunim taught a foundational teaching of Jewish mysticism, that we are to search for the holiness that exists in each person, not to judge them or to assume the worst about them. Joseph cried, he says, cried for joy when he recognized that spark even in the men who had sold him into slavery.

The Jewish people need to embrace this truth. We often appear to be a people divided into conflicting segments, more and more removed from each other by our harsh judgment, distrust and 
resentments. Imagine the tears of joy that would flow if we could see the holy spark within each other.


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The most repeated theme in the book of Genesis is of older sons who are forcibly displaced by younger, more favored sons. Isaac, the second son, is beloved, while Ishmael, the firstborn, is driven into the desert with his mother. Jacob, the second son, steals the birthright and his father's blessing, while Esau, the firstborn, is left rejected and weeping. Joseph, the eleventh-born son (!), is the apple of his father's eye, while the older brothers are driven to murderous jealousy. 

It's not a pretty picture. At the beginning of the Jewish story, we see a family caught in a spiral of serial dysfunction, each generation repeating the parental favoritism and brotherly hate of its predecessor. Yet, in this week's Torah portion (Vayechi), Genesis ends with a more hopeful view of how families can overcome their cruel habits and find healing.

Joseph places his two sons in front of his father, Jacob, so that they can receive the old man's blessing. Joseph carefully places the older son, Manasseh, in front of Jacob's right hand for the superior blessing, and he places the younger son, Ephraim, in front of Jacob's left hand. Even after four generations of painful consequences, Joseph is repeating the old habit of playing favorites with his children. What does Jacob do? He crosses his arms to place his right hand on Ephraim's head and his left hand on Manasseh's head. 

Joseph tries to correct his father, but Jacob shushes him and says, "I know, my son, I know. He, too, will become a people and will be great. But, his younger brother will be greater and his descendants will be a full nation" (Genesis 48:19). What in previous generations had led to tragedy, Jacob turns into comedy. With his arms crossed and his son confused, Jacob brings the story of Genesis to its conclusion. There is no need to pick favorites and firstborns—both sons become the fathers of great tribes of Israel, neither is excluded.

The same is true, in fact, of all of Jacob's children. Unlike other first-borns of Genesis—Cain, Ishmael and Esau—none of Jacob's sons will be rejected or left out of the family tree. That theme will carry over next week in the first chapter of Exodus when the descendants of Jacob will be called, for the first time in the Torah, Am b'nei Yisrael, "The nation of the children of Israel" (Exodus 1:9). Never again will a child be left out of the nation.

What does this reading of Torah have to say to us, especially those who have suffered from a youth spent in dysfunctional families? The very fact that the Torah acknowledges the existence of families that carry the burden of hurtful, and even malevolent, behavior is helpful. We can find our own stories in the Torah. By showing how one generation can repeat the sins of the previous generation, the Torah gives us insight into human behavior and challenges us to recognize and break the cycles of abuse that each generation inherits.

Most important, I think, is the lesson that birth does not equal destiny. Jacob's crossed arms are a symbol of the overthrow of the law of primogenitor, the rule that gives special privilege to the firstborn. From now own, each person stands or falls on his own merits, not the accident of the circumstances of birth.

That is a lesson that we can carry into our lives today. We continue the lesson of Jacob when we overthrow preferred treatment based on race and gender. Today, we choose to treat our daughters as we treat our sons. There is no special blessing, hope or expectation that we grant only to one sex. In a generation that flourishes with Jews of every color of skin under heaven, we welcome everyone without preferences based on birth.

We can further expand the principle in the way we treat people of different sexual orientations. God makes some people straight and some people gay. Jacob's crossed arms mock the idea that we should honor one more than the other. Torah teaches us not to toss people out of our family tree.

Family dysfunction is as old as the Torah and, of course, older. The Torah should open us to recognize the pain of our pasts, hope for healing, and repair that which was broken.


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