Dear Chevre (Friends):
Last week, I discussed human miracles (as opposed to divine miracles). Today, I would like to discuss human blessing (as opposed to divine blessing).
During our worship, we bless God (“Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe…”) or we ask God to bless us (“May the One who blessed our ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, bless…”) Rarely do we articulate blessings to one another. In this week’s Torah portion, at the close of the Book of Genesis, Jacob gathers his children around him in order to bless them before he dies. His words combine admonishment with encouragement, connect past and future, and situate the individual life stories of his listeners within the larger context of peoplehood. Every week to this day, Jews repeat the words of Jacob’s blessing to their own children just after the Shabbat candlelighting.
Blessing is more powerful than prayer. In prayer, we ask God to accomplish a task that we by ourselves cannot complete. In blessing, we become God’s agent in accomplishing the task. When we embrace our children and recite: “may God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh, who carried forward the life our people,” we are, in fact, pledging ourselves to our children that we will not fail them in the responsibility to carry forward Jewish tradition. By binding the recipient and the giver to a common purpose, blessing strengthens both of them.
My blessing for the JCOGS community is that it may continue to carry forward the life of our people.
Rabbi Brian
rabbi.brian.besser@gmail.com
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