A Parent’s Blessing

Many years ago, I was teaching a class for parents of B’nei Mitzvah students. In preparation for the blessing that parents would offer their children during their B’nei Mitzvah service, we invited the parents to reflect on what their hopes and dreams for their children were. One mother left the room in tears. When I asked her what was wrong, she told me she couldn’t do the assignment. “How can I get up on the bima and say that I hope he’ll grow up and get married and have a job and live a normal life?” she said. Her son was on the autism spectrum, and when she thought about what she could realistically expect for him and his life, she felt hopeless. Her question – essentially, how can I bless this child – broke my heart. It broke my heart because of the pain she felt, the worry and grief and despair she was experiencing, especially in contrast to the many other parents who were anticipating their children’s B’nei Mitzvah with joy and pride. But it also broke my heart because I knew her son, and while he was certainly not your typical 12-year old, he didn’t seem hopeless to me. Granted, his mother knew him a lot better than I did, and she had to live with the many challenges I’m sure he faced. But to me, he was a child full of energy and curiosity and creativity and humor. I could imagine a good life for him, maybe not one marked by typical milestones of graduating from college or getting married, but a life of love and happiness and purpose all the same. In the months that followed, I helped the boy’s mom write a Bar Mitzvah blessing that honored her son for who he was, and I do think that over the next few years, she came to have more optimism about his future. But she had to face a challenge that so many parents face: how to balance our hopes and aspirations for our children with an acceptance of who they are and the choices they make.

This week’s Torah portion, Vay’chi, addresses our problem. Jacob, on his deathbed, summons his twelve sons to him. He says, “Come together that I may tell you what is to befall you in days to come.” (Gen. 49:1). Jacob says he is going to give them a prophecy, but in fact, his final words to his sons are a strange combination of description, rebuke, praise, blessing, and a little bit of prophecy all mixed together. For example, Jacob says to Reuben, “Reuben, you are my first-born, My might and first fruit of my vigor, Exceeding in rank And exceeding in honor. Unstable as water, you shall excel no longer” (3-4). Of Shimon and Levi, Jacob says, “their weapons are tools of lawlessness…. For when angry they slay a man, and when pleased they maim an ox. Cursed be their anger so fierce, and their wrath so relentless. I will divide them in Jacob, scatter them in Israel” (5-6). Imagine those being the last words your father spoke to you! Jacob, true to form, does treat some of his sons better, offering the most positive words to Judah and Joseph (of course). Jacob declares that Judah’s offspring will be kings, and Joseph will be granted even greater blessings than his ancestors. 

And then, at the end of Jacob’s speech, the Torah says, “This is what their father spoke to them as he blessed them, each according to the blessing appropriate to him” (28). If this seems incongruous to you, you’re not alone. How can “You shall excel no longer” be a blessing? Our modern JPS translation covers over the problem, rendering the verse instead, “This is what their father said to them as he bade them farewell, addressing to each a parting word appropriate to him.” The medieval commentators have other ways of solving the problem. Ibn Ezra says that Jacob also offers blessings to the sons he rebukes, but that those blessings just aren’t recorded in the Torah. Another commentator suggests that the rebukes are in fact blessings, in that they help the sons overcome their faults. 

Our Sages try mightily to give Jacob the benefit of the doubt, finding creative ways to spin his final words to his sons so that they fit our notions of what a deathbed blessing should sound like. Today we have the freedom to ask outright, was this the right moment to rehash old transgressions and offer rebuke instead of praise? Maybe not. But one thing that does seem right to me is that through his last words, Jacob shows that he sees and knows each of his sons. He sees Reuben’s honor but worries about his instability; he sees the strength of Shimon and Levi’s brotherly bond, but also the danger of their fierce anger. As Jacob says goodbye to his sons, he remains true to his character: he has always been an imperfect father with imperfect children. Jacob, like most parents, loves his children deeply, wants the best for them, thinks he knows what’s best for them, and is sometimes disappointed when they choose another way. Until the end, Jacob struggles to both accept his children for who they are and to guide them towards becoming something even greater.

Jacob’s last words to his children are instructions to take his body back to the Land of Canaan and bury him in the cave of Machpelah, alongside his grandparents Abraham and Sarah, his parents Isaac and Rebekah, and his wife Leah. With this dying wish, Jacob offers one final blessing to his children: the reminder to hold onto who they are and where they come from. Each brother now has to find his own path, to reckon with his faults and make the most of his strengths. But together, they can fulfill Jacob’s deepest hope: that even after he dies, B’nei Yisrael – the Children of Israel – will live. 

1. Or HaChaim to 49:28.