VAIEJI 5771
Rabbi Joshua Kullock
It was a sunny day, when a famous doctor received a call from his father: “Aaron, hi, how’ve you been?”, asked the father. “I’ve been waiting to tell you something, but I don’t wish us to discuss it. I’m just telling you this because you’re my eldest son and you have a right to know. I’ve reached a decision; I’m divorcing your mother.” The son, who was extremely shocked by this news, could barely say a word and was just trying to think of reasons that would justify his father’s decision. “Father, you can´t divorce mom just like that. You’ve been together 54 years! What happened?” “It’s too painful for me, my son. I’d rather not talk about it, and I’d rather you told your sister and spared me the suffering of doing it myself.” “But… Where’s mom? May I talk with her?” “No, and I forbid you to talk to her about it, since I haven’t told her yet. Trust me, it hasn’t been easy, these last few days have been a torture, but I’ve reached my decision. I’ve made an appointment with the lawyer for the day after tomorrow.” “Dad,” said Aaron despairingly, “don’t rush this. I’m heading to the airport to take the first plane over there. Promise me you won’t do anything until I get there.” “Ok, son, I promise. Next week is Pesach, so I’ll wait till after the Seder to speak with the lawyer. Please let your sister know that I don’t want to talk about it with anyone.”
Thirty minutes later, the daughter calls her father to let him know that both she and her brother have bought airplane tickets for two days later. “Aaron has told me that you don’t want to talk about it over the phone, but promise me you won’t do anything until we’re both there.” Her father agrees and no sooner has he hung up the phone than he looks at his wife and says: “Well, it worked, but we’ll have to figure something out to make them come for Rosh Hashanah dinner.”
Relationships between fathers-sons and mothers-sons have become very well known clichés through our history. The “yiddishe mama” is a picture that has accompanied us for decades, through jokes, stories and comments alluding to her image, which at times reflect a break or lack of communication between generations. One of those famous jokes talks about the answering machine of a good Jewish mother –Ashkenazi or Sephardim- saying “This is Doctor Goldstein’s office number. Leave your name and number and hopefully he’ll call you back soon, because me, his own mother, he never calls back”. The same way, it wouldn’t be surprising to find written on her headstone “You see I wasn’t lying when I said I was sick?” Jews have definitely made their mark in the guilt culture.
Have relationships between parents and children always been like this? Is the gap between generations a Jewish problem or is it a problem in modern society? Maybe we could find answers by reading the last Parashah of Sefer Bereshit. As you know, Sefer Bereshit is the Jewish book of preference to learn about family relations. Ten out of the twenty parashiot of the book of Genesis, talk about the life of our matriarchs and patriarchs, and in almost all the chapters we will find different edges which will form different areas in family relations. The stories about Jacob and his twelve children offer us strong points, difficult scenes and worthy reconciliations which are worthy of being repeated by us. Jacob, the ancient patriarch, lives beside his family of shepherds on a land far from the Egyptians. Josef, instead, is the master and lord of Egypt, and lives in the capital, and is part of the pharaoh’s reign. He married the daughter of a pagan priest and his two children were raised in the most important metropolis of the time, with no contact with the Jewish customs.
The Torah tells us that Jacob gets sick and that death is close. Josef, his son, abandons his imperial jobs and goes to visit him with his sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. When Jacob sees the children he asks Josef: “My Ele? Who are they?” Let us remind ourselves that Jacob has lived the last 17 years in Egypt, and he can’t even recognize his own grandchildren. It seems that those children looked exactly the same as every other young man in the pharaoh’s palace; therefore it was hard for their grandfather to recognize them.
Josef and his family are, therefore, the paradigm of the assimilated family, impossible to recognize as Jews at first sight. Furthermore, the lack of recognition of his descendants also seems to indicate that the socialization between generations was not done very often nor was it intense.
And even so, Jacob is giving his grandchildren a very important blessing, which will leave its mark in the history of our people. Our patriarch’s words are the ones chosen by our tradition to be used by parents to bless their children every Shabbat. Once we have sung the Shalom Aleichem, and before reciting the Kiddush, fathers and mothers lay their hands over their sons and recite: “Y'simeyh Elohim k'efra-yim v'hi-mena-sheh… May God make you as Ephraim and Manasseh.” Daughters are blessed as well, hoping God will make them as our matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah.
So… Why should we bless our children today in the hope they will be as Ephraim and Manasseh? Do we perhaps want our children to become small Egyptians, serving the Pharaoh of the moment? What did Joseph’s sons do, to deserve the honor of this blessing?
There are several answers to this question. One of these explanations underlines Joseph’s role in this story: our patriarch deeply understood the idea that an action is worth more than a thousand words, and therefore, by taking his children to visit their dying grandfather, he taught them the value of bikur cholim, visiting the sick, helping the weak and caring for the needy. When we bless our children asking them to be as Ephraim and Manasseh, what we are doing is asking God to help us be parents and teachers that, like Joseph, know how to teach through example and action.
Other scholars talk about Ephraim and Manassseh as the paradigm of those who, despite living in the cradle of a different society, never lost their particular identity. It is true that Joseph’s sons probably dressed according to the latest trends of Egyptian fashion, and listened to the music and read the literature that the rest of their classmates listened to and read. And even so, their Jewish identity remained strong and was never weakened. By blessing our sons and praying for them to be like Ephraim and Manasseh, what we are doing is working towards an open Jewish tradition, which has no fear or qualm of dialogue with other currents and traditions, acknowledging itself as full of force and intensity.
The last answer I want to share with you was told to me by my teacher and rabbi Manes Kogan. According to him, the key to understanding the importance of the blessing of Joseph’s sons lies in the fact that those two children later formed two of Israel’s tribes. We all know that the tribes were meant to be named according to Jacob’s sons, and nevertheless, Joseph’s sons achieved a status that did not seem to belong to them. This being so, Ephraim and Manasseh serve as a reminder that, according to our tradition, nobody is condemned to be the prey of destiny or nature. Just as they were able to rise and aspire beyond their lot, we can follow their example and struggle to be better people, better brothers, better Jews. While Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were chosen, and fulfilled a founding role in our people, Ephraim and Manasseh teach us that each and every one of us can make a difference, since you don’t have to be born special to be special.
They found their blessing in their ability to overcome the circumstances that surrounded them. May God grant us that each and every one of us be able today to accept the challenge of setting oneself in blessing, being able to rise above the futile, taking our place among the faithful and proud descendants of Jacob, Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh.
Shabbat Shalom u’Meborah!
Rabbi Joshua Kullock
