Va-y'chi

Genesis 47:28–50:26

D'var Torah By: Rabbi Charles A. Kroloff; Reprinted from ReformJudaism.org
According to Jewish tradition, on the eve of Shabbat and holidays, before reciting kiddush, parents bless their children.

You can find these blessings in Mishkan T'filah, the siddur (prayer book) of the Reform Movement. There you will see that sons are blessed with these words: "May God inspire you to live like Ephraim and Manasseh."1 Rashi teaches that the blessing for boys is based on Genesis 48:20 in this week's parashah, when Jacob blesses his grandsons, the sons of Joseph.

There is no equivalent blessing for daughters in the Five Books of Torah. But there is a blessing in the Book of Ruth (4:11) that comes close: "May God make the woman who is coming into your house [Ruth] like Rachel and Leah, both of whom built up the House of Israel." And so in many Jewish homes today, one or both parents offer this blessing found in Mishkan T'filah2 to their daughters: "May God inspire you to live like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah."

I remember the first time that I witnessed this ceremony. When we were graduate students in Israel, my wife Terry and I were invited to Shabbat dinner at the home of dear friends in Tel Aviv. I was spellbound as the father placed his hands on the heads of his children and spoke those blessings. At that moment, I felt a profound connection to my Jewish past and future, and to my family. I promised myself in that dining room in Tel Aviv that if we were fortunate enough to have our own children, I would offer those blessings to our offspring.

Beyond my own family, the most powerful moment that I have experienced with these blessings was in 1983 when Terry and I sat in the Moscow apartment of Itzik Kogan, one of the leaders of the refusenik movement in the Former Soviet Union. We had flown to there to bring support to refuseniks: the women, men, and children who were demanding the right to emigrate to Israel in order to lead full Jewish lives. Itzik placed his hands upon the heads of his children and offered roughly the same blessing as Jacob had pronounced. As he did so, this father was saying, in effect: "We will make whatever sacrifices we must in order to live freely as Jews. We are determined that our children will live proudly in the Jewish State."

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