Nose to the Grindstone/Head to the Stars • the Love of Grandparents
This week’s parasha is vayehi. “He lived.” Jacob lived seventeen years in the land of Egypt, the Torah portion tells us, after he had migrated there with the rest of his family to be reunited with Joseph—Joseph the eldest son of Jacob’s beloved late wife Rachel, Joseph whom Jacob thought had been killed many years ago, having been told as much by Joseph’s older brothers who had sold him into slavery, so much did they loathe him for being the haughty favored son.
This portion picks up with Joseph hearing that Jacob is ill and at the end of his life. And what is Joseph’s first response, knowing that his father is in his dying days?
Joseph goes to get his own children, Manasseh and Ephraim, to go and see their grandfather.
What transpires formulates a Jewish roadmap for children, parents, grandparents and beyond.
Jacob, alternatively known as Israel, the name he received when wrestling with the divine figure—sar, wrestle; el, Divine—yisrael, summons his strength and sits up in his bed, so moved is he to see his grandchildren.
“V’atah,” he says, “now” “your two sons who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came to you in the land of Egypt,” “li hem.” “shall be to me.” Like dodi li, my beloved is for me. Shall be for me. “Ephraim and Manasseh,” he says, “shall be mine no less than Reuben and Shimon,” my two oldest sons.
Why does he make this gesture at the end of his life?
“I do this because,” he says, “When I was journeying in the land of Canaan, metah alai rachel, Rachel, your mother, their grandmother died, alai, upon me.” I could feel it in my bones. We could never have any more children. Her life was cut short suddenly, she could have no more children in her young life, and I adopt these two children as my own, in honor of her.
Forever after, when they list the twelve tribes of Israel, the people from whom all Israel flow, the list of tribes will include, alongside children born to me, Ephraim and Manesseh, my grandchildren, whom I take on as my children.
Continuing, the Torah says, “Vayomer yisrael el yoseph,” “And Israel said to Joseph, ‘I never expected to see you again and here God has let me see your children as well.” That blessing of grandchildren representing a special chapter in the lives of grandparents.
I say this “formulates a Jewish roadmap for children, parents, grandparents and beyond” because of what happens next. Jacob reaches out his hands and places them on the heads of these boys. Bechah yeveracheh yisrael. By you, Ephraim and Manasseh, shall all of Israel invoke blessings, saying, yesimchah Elohim k’ephraim v’manasseh. God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.
Those who grew up around, or continue, a traditional shabbat table will recognize these words, as the words of birkat habanim, the children’s blessing, when parents reach out their hands towards their children after the shabbat candles are lit or on special occasions like a Bar Mitzvah and say yesimchah elohim k’ephraim v’manasseh. God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh, and go on to say, Y’varechecha Adonai v’yish’m’recha… May Adonai Bless you and Protect You. May the radiance of Adonai shine upon you and show you grace; May the radiance of Adonai lift towards you and grant you peace.
So it turns out this famous Jewish blessing which we’ve come so to associate with parents and children, children and parents, isn’t a parent’s blessing after all, children’s blessing after all. It’s a grandparents’ blessing. A grandchildrens’ blessing.
Why? Why take this moment of all moments in biblical history, when a grandfather and have it serve as the paradigmatic moment through which parents bless children?
Rabbis Lawrence Kushner and Nehemia Polen cite the Sfat Emet, the 19th century Hasidic rabbi Yeudah Aryeh Lieb of Ger, for the notion that this “reminds us of the direct relationship grandchildren enjoy with with their grandparents” and that “through this grandchild-grandparent bond we all possess an unmediated relationship with our ancestors.” And so the blessing evokes a direct line to all previous generations.
The notion of l’dor va’dor, from generation to generation, is invoked so often in Jewish tradition as to become trite. And yet here is an example of that thread connecting us from generation to generation to generation, and the spiritual response that evokes with us. It is one of the ways many of us connect to Judaism most deeply, Children, parents, grandparents, and beyond. God, perhaps, is the presence that connects the generations.
I speak to this connection of grandchildren to grandparents as a foundational Jewish experience because I’ve felt firsthand in my own life. In the wake of my father’s death when I was seven years old, and my younger sisters were four years old and four weeks old, respectively, I swear my father’s father, my grandfather Armon, Z”L, like Jacob, would have asserted li hem, would have taken us on as his own, if my mom would have let him, like Jacob, having a loved one whose life was cut short, and wanting to step in.
I say God is the presence that connects the generations. We’re invited in feeling the links between the generations, to feel God’s presence within them.
I have often cited a passage in the Reconstructionist prayer book, attributed to my father, which cites the blessing in the amidah we just read which says adonai zocher hasdei avot v’imahot, Adonai, God, “zochers,” remembers, the “hesed,” the love of fathers and mothers. As I’ve shared, the passage attributed to him goes on to say, “The legacy each generation gives to its children inevitably contains within it pain and hurt, a sense of inadequacy and of task unfulfilled.” “Some children,” it continues “are hurt when parents are taken from them too early, others by parents who did not know how to show their love. We say that God zocher chasdei avot v’imot, God ‘remembers the love of parents;’ God is the one who sees to it that the love as well is remembered, even when parents are unable to transmit it.”
That love can show up in many forms. Sometimes—often, in many communities, including our own—it can show up in the form of a loving grandparent. I don’t know how many of you can relate that notion, but I invite you to reflect for a moment on the presence of a loving grandparent, someone who sees to it that intergenerational love is transmitted to you, a presence that helps us feel loved in this world, that channels divine love to us.
Shabbat is a moment to experience that love. When we invoke this blessing over our children, yesimcah elohim k’efraim v’kmenaesseh on shabbat, in essence we are saying, may god make you like ephraim and menasseh, who were blessed to experience the love of parents, grandparents, and beyond. May you, whatever your relationship with your family, be blessed with love, like they were.
This past week, with our Hebrew School returning from winter break, we engaged the whole congregation present for Shabbat services in a vibrant discussion about the week’s Torah portion, vayehi, wherein the dying patriarch, Jacob (also known as Israel), blesses his children and grandchildren.
As he is on his deathbed, his beloved Joseph, from whom he had been separated for years and whom he feared dead, brings him his grandchildren, Manasseh and Ephraim (see below for a fuller discussion of this episode).
Manasseh is the elder son, and so Joseph places Manasseh at Jacob’s right hand—the right hand in ancient times being associated with strength—presuming that Jacob would want to place his right hand on the head of his older son, and places Ephraim at Jacob’s left hand.
To Joseph’s surprise, Jacob crosses his hands in order to bless Ephraim with the right hand and Manasseh with the left. Dumbfounded, Joseph asks his father what he is doing; Jacob in turn assures Joseph that it is for the best.
Generations later the great Hasidic Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk (1717-1787) suggested that Ephraim and Manesseh represented two different types of tzaddikim (righteous actors), both of which are necessary in this world, the first type, “one who will always contemplate the higher worlds and meditate on mystical unifications, in order always to augment light in the higher spheres”—in other words, someone who’s head is to the stars; who dreams; who is engaged with the life of the spirit. The other type “who thinks about the needs of this world, the people in need of sustenance and blessing and life”—in other words, someone grounded, focused on this-worldly needs: food, shelter; providing practical benefits.
In placing Manasseh at Jacob’s right hand, Joseph assumed that Manasseh, the dreamer; more spiritual type, was more worthy of the stronger blessing; Jacob, meanwhile, wanted to ensure that the spirit wasn’t over-emphasized: as our Torah study participants recalled, Joseph was a dreamer; and Jacob, too, was associated as someone who’s head was to the stars. Perhaps to help balance things out, Jacob extended the “stronger” blessing to the son—Ephraim—who was more grounded and this worldly-focused, focused on the pragmatic needs of those around him.
Jewish tradition recognizes the central need for both human impulses, and the tradition reflects the ongoing struggle to make sure both get their due and serve their purpose in this world.
