A Blessing on Your Head

Joseph enters with his two sons, Menashe and Ephraim, to visit with the bed-ridden patriarch, Jacob (Genesis 48). Jacob inquires as to who is accompanying Joseph. Joseph responds that it his two sons, and then Jacob asks that they come closer so he may bless them.

Before continuing with the blessing, the Biblical narrative seems to go out of its way to mention that Jacob had trouble seeing. Jacob proceeds to kiss and hug his grandchildren and then in what sounds like somewhat elaborate maneuvering, Joseph extricates his sons from Grandpa Jacob’s embrace, so that they may now bow down to receive the formal blessing.

Biblical commentators give a range of interpretations to the above actions. Rabbi Ovadia Sforno however, takes the narrative at face value. Jacob had trouble with his vision, Sforno explains. In order to properly bless the boys, he had to see them; hence, his request to bring them closer.  The loving Patriarch kisses and hugs them, which Sforno says was so “his soul may attach to them and his blessing to them should come to pass”.

Jacob then gives them blessings that are included in the blessings many traditional Jews pronounce to their children to this day on Friday nights (“May God make you like Ephraim and Menashe. May God bless you and safeguard you. May God illuminate His face for you and be gracious to you. May God turn His face to you and establish peace for you.”)

Sforno then provides other examples of vision being a critical component of blessings, such as Moses viewing the entire land of Israel.

However, just a few verses later, after having just given his thesis as to the need to see in order to bless, Sforno makes an about-face. In the same visit Jacob blesses Joseph as well. Sforno, who understands that Joseph is not close enough for Jacob to really see, states that Jacob blesses and can bless Joseph without having to touch him, be near him or even see him.

Sforno seems to be implying that while the common way to bless is to see the person or object one is blessing, people have the power to also bless at a distance without even seeing the party being blessed. Perhaps it was the strong and loving nature of the Jacob-Joseph relationship that enabled this more powerful connection, bypassing the common method.

May we always be both recipients and deliverers of blessings – and may they all come true!

Shabbat Shalom,

Bentzi

Dedication

To our friends, neighbors and relatives; sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, who are fighting in Gaza (and now to the North as well). May God keep them safe and return them home whole and uninjured.

Unfamiliar terms?

Drawn from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priestly_blessing

The Priestly Blessing, (translit. Birkat Kohanim), also known in Hebrew as Nesiat Kapayim, (lit. Raising of the Hands), is a Jewish prayer recited by Kohanim during certain Jewish services. It is based on a scriptural verse: “They shall place My name upon the children of Israel, and I Myself shall bless them.”^[1] It consists of the following Biblical verses (Numbers 6:24-26):

May the Lord bless you and guard you –

May the Lord shine His countenance toward you and be gracious to you –

May the Lord lift up His countenance toward you and give you peace –

This is the oldest known Biblical text that has been found; amulets with these verses written on them have been found in graves in dating from the First Temple Period, and are now in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem.

In the mid-1960s, actor Leonard Nimoy, who was raised in a traditional Jewish home, used a single-handed version of this gesture to create the Vulcan Hand Salute for his character, Mr. Spock, on Star Trek. He has explained that while attending Orthodox services as a child, he peeked from under his father’s tallit and saw the gesture; many years later, when introducing the character of Mr. Spock, he and series creator Gene Roddenberry thought a physical component should accompany the verbal “Live long and prosper” greeting. The Jewish priestly gesture looked sufficiently alien and mysterious, and thus was television & science fiction history made.