This weekend is about endings and new beginnings. Last night, we ended a year, 2009, and began a new one, 2010. This Shabbat, we end the book of Genesis with its last Torah portion, Va-y’chi, and in the coming week, we’ll begin the book of Exodus, with its first portion, Shemot. This time of year calls us, at least in our secular lives, to be more aware of ourselves. Just as at Rosh Hashanah we pledged to be better people, we often resolve at this time of year to be better than we have been over the past year. Our Torah portion teaches us the same lesson.
Parashat Va-y’chi contains Jacob’s blessings for his sons (his daughter, Dinah, markedly absent from his list), but more noteworthy than his sons’ blessings is the blessing he offers his grandsons, Joseph’s boys, Ephraim and Manasseh. Toward the end of our portion, Jacob blesses his grandsons. The text tells us: So he blessed them that day, saying, “By you shall the people of Israel give their blessing, saying, ‘May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh’” (Genesis 48:20). Rashi, the 11th century Biblical commentator, tells us that this verse means that when we bless our sons, we are to ask that God endow them with Ephraim and Manasseh’s qualities. What qualities? What is so special about them that we should hope that our sons turn out like them?
Well, the entire book of Genesis, the book we finish this week, is teeming with sibling rivalry. Here are just a few examples: Isaac and Ishmael have issues from the outset. Jacob and Esau’s hunger for their father’s blessing persists throughout their lives and interactions. Rachel and Leah compete for Jacob’s love. And Joseph clashes with his brothers right up to this week’s portion. In each generation of the Genesis narratives, siblings struggle with one another, but for Ephraim and Manasseh, things are different.
Rabbi Harold Kushner sees the “blessing in the boys’ relationship with each other. He suggests they become a source of blessing ‘perhaps because they were the first brothers in the Bible to get along peaceably, after the conflicts that marred the lives of Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, and Joseph and his brothers.’ So it’s possible the blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh is one of peace and acceptance. When Jacob crosses his hands to bestow the greater blessing on the younger boy, neither boy complains (although their father does). They accept the blessing they are given, and given the lack of a story of brotherly strife, we assume it did not harm their relationship. May we be like Ephraim and Manasseh, at peace with our lot in life and in harmony with those we love. How powerful this ritual could become for our extended families, reminding ourselves weekly to celebrate our relationships regardless of the unexpected twists and turns they might take” (Joshua Rabin, Parashat Vayechi—For the Next Generation, USCJ Hazak Shabbat 2009).
On this Shabbat of New Year’s Day 2010, our Torah text reminds us of the words that Jewish families traditionally speak to their sons each Friday night, at the Shabbat dinner table: May you be like Ephraim and Manasseh. Our prayer for our children contains a hope that they can overcome history and do things differently and better than we have done them in the past. It is a resolution, a resolution to do better in the coming week, month, and year, than we have in the past.
As we reach the end of each book of Torah, it is our custom to announce the words, “Chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek – Be strong, be strong, and together we will be strengthened.” This custom developed over the course of Jewish history connected with God’s first revelation to Joshua after the death of Moses. God says: “Chazak ve’ematz – Be strong and resolute; do not be terrified or dismayed, for the Eternal your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9). Three times in the first nine verses of the book of Joshua, God tells Joshua to be strong (Joshua 1:6, 7, 9). So, three times at the conclusion of a book of Torah, we tell one another to be strong: Chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek – Be strong, be strong, and together we will be strengthened. Our tradition tells us that the Torah is a source of life – eitz chayim hee l’machazikim ba v’tomcheha m’ushar – it is a tree of life to those who hold fast to it, and all of its supporters are happy (Proverbs 3:18). But Torah is also demanding. The Talmud (Sanhedrin 26b) tells us that Torah weakens the strength of a person. It makes demands on our time and energy, it sometimes places us in conflict with values and temptations that contemporary life places before us.[1] Our secular resolutions at this time of year should be ones that are not in conflict with our Jewish values.
On this Shabbat of New Year’s Day 2010, as we resolve to be better people through the secular year ahead, we ask God to help us to be strong, chazak, strong enough to be like Ephraim and Manasseh, brothers who overcame their potential for conflict. We ask God to make us strong, chazak, strong in our New Year’s Resolutions, so that our Jewish principles will be in harmony with them. And we hope to acquire the strength we need together – v’nitchazek – as we turn over a new leaf in Torah and as we begin 2010. Chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek – Be strong, be strong, and together let us be strengthened. Shabbat Shalom. And Happy New Year.
[1] Daniel Goldfarb, “Chazak – Renewing Our Strength When We Finish the Torah,” The Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem.
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