I was crossing 34th street at 7th avenue as I do twice daily and I noticed that we cross the street differently. Once the light turns and the mass of humanity ambles across the street on route to Penn Station, people cross while looking or even maneuvering their smart phones. We believe we are safe from cars – there’s often a traffic cop in the intersection keeping the peace between buses, cabs and pedestrians- but we bump into each other. From heaven it must appear like a pinball machine (anyone born after the 80s can google it), with people just bopping off each other ultimately making their way to their destination.

To me, this scenario that certainly replays all over the world, serves as a metaphor for society’s gradual myopia. We are losing context, flavor, color and nuance; the peripheries are blurring and even disappearing. I have even learned that progressive lenses (anyone born after the 80s will too experience it!) now have three compartments: distance vision, reading glasses and sight for staring at a computer screen.

Our sages have noticed that Parshas Vayechi, is a parsha setumah, where a semi-paragraph divider delineates the beginning of this portion and the end of the last. Normally a full literary cadence is employed to distinguish Torah portions. The sages (Rashi and many others on the first verse of the parshah) notice the aberrant literary tool and suggest that the contents of Vayechi are themselves setumah, or hidden. Indeed, upon reflection of the profundity of these last paragraphs of the book of Bereshis, so many ethical, behavioral and religious lessons find their consummation. One of the principal challenges our patriarchs and matriarchs experienced revolved around family dynamics. We find resolution in parshas Vayechi.

Kayin killed Hevel, Cham defiled his father’s honor, Avraham cast away his eldest son and was prepared to sacrifice his younger one. Yitzchak presided over sibling rivalry only exacerbated by Rivka’s divinely ordained subterfuge, and Yaakov could not elude dysfunction with his father-in-law, his wives and his children. He favored the eldest son of his favorite wife, and, well, we know the rest of that story.

So here we are as Yosef presents his Egyptian-born sons to his father, the grandson of the larger-than life Avraham, the five generations of monotheists. Yaakov declares that Ephraim and Menashe will function as two of the twelve tribes (giving Yosef a double-portion as an eldest would receive) and blesses Yosef by invoking his sons’ names when blessing subsequent generations of Jews. So when Yosef sees his father’s right hand on his younger son’s head, giving the more robust blessing to Ephraim instead of Menashe, he speaks up. Abarbanel suggests that he feared this may lead to sibling rivalry, which posed post-traumatic stress to the Egyptian viceroy, who never forgot what his brother’s did to him. Rabbi Zalman Sorotzkin advances that Yaakov understood that in each of the previous generations, the younger bested the older, and saw that precedent continuing with his grandchildren.  

Perhaps the greatest lesson we can garner from this episode is one of parenting or education. Firstly, as advanced by the Me’am Loez who, in turn, cites a Rabbi Chiyon, Yaakov could have asked Menashe and Ephraim to switch places. He was the donor of the blessing. It would behoove the recipients to inconvenience themselves in favor of the benefactor. But Yaakov Avinu, even in his advanced age and degenerative vision, chose to awkwardly switch his hands. He felt it would humiliate the elder Menashe to physically switch places. He therefore switched his hands so as to minimize any disgrace.

Secondly, I’d like to share an insight by Rabbi Yaakov Kaminetzky, whose observations and intuition on education and parenting were sought by large segments of the Jewish community. Rav Yaakov offers a different rationale for the hand-switching drama, one that dramatically references the prophecy of naming children.

Yosef’s first born Menashe’s name references being detached from his home in Canaan: “For God has made me forget all my toil and all my father’s house” (Bereshis 41:51).  Ephraim, who was born later was given a name that thanked the Almighty for the beneficence of his new home: “For God has caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction” (Ibid. verse 52). Menashe’s name connects him to the home of Yaakov, to the holy land of Canaan, Yosef’s birthplace and ultimate spiritual umbilical cord. Menashe was truly the first Egyptian child.

Rav Yaakov also notes that similar to monarchs at the time, the names in the kingdom paralleled the name of the sovereign. Look at the names we know from Egypt. They seem to stress the letters pey, resh and ayin, which are the consonants in the name Pharaoh: Potiphar, (Tzafnat) Paneyach, Potiphar, Shifra and Puah (the Egyptian names of Yocheved and Miriam according to the Midrash). Rav Yaakov even suggests that the Biblical word tzfardeyah (the second of the plagues, in Modern Hebrew denoting frogs) is an Egyptian word (see Emes L’Yaakov on Shmos 7:27). Well, the name Ephraim falls into the same category. Rav Yaakov suggests that Ephraim is really an Egyptian name. I believe this makes a lot of sense both because of the letters and the rationale Yosef offered. For this reason, Yaakov Avinu felt Ephraim needed more of a bracha. He was more assimilated and needed the extra advantage from Yaakov’s right hand. [The Torah in 48:19 does explicitly relate that Yaakov’s rationale for the switch is “but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become a multitude of nations… Perhaps this means that the extra effort of the right hand propelled him to greatness.]

Parents and educators need to make triage and budgetary decisions. Do we support the child whose special needs require advancement and tutoring to help shape a gifted mind or do we focus on the child who can’t keep up. Do we support yeshivot to educate the masses or help out with outreach programs or the outstanding institutions that guarantee each child a Torah education? Rav Moshe Feinstein allegedly quipped that no one consulted him on the issues pertaining to triaging our tzedakah funds. Rav Yaakov Kaminetzky’s answer here is that Ephraim needed more of a push since he was at an inherent spiritual disadvantage. Do we gear our school curriculum towards creating God-fearing laymen or do we try to find the brilliant minds who will lead the Jewish people in the future? When creating the curriculum for Maimonides School in Brookline, MA, my alma mater, Rabbi Soloveitchik made this clear. He sought to create a cadre of committed layman. This was demonstrated from the tractates we learned -all focusing on practical Jewish living not gaining Talmudic expertise - and the absolute requirement for each graduate to demonstrate proficiency in prayer by writing a thesis in our beloved BH curriculum, Rabbi Isaiah Wohlgemeuth zt’l’s Biur Hatefillah (rationale behind the liturgy). This requirement unfortunately ceased prior to my senior year in High School.

I heard a beautiful story (which I simply cannot find anywhere, despite looking extensively during the last day) about a young creative but restless cheder student in Europe. The students were gathered in the synagogue of the school for daily prayers. The Holy Ark was opened as part of the service and out emerged a goat. It was the height of irreverence but the entire student body entered a fit of uncontrollable laughter. The student responsible had to be disciplined harshly. It was not his first offense. He was a trouble maker. The principles decided to expel him from the school. They called him in to the office and informed him. He protested and offered the following defense. “You can expel me from yeshiva because of my behavior. But if you do so you are punishing my future children and grandchildren and potentially withholding from them a Torah education. I believe they were convinced by this student’s argument and he became a great beacon of Torah.

Rav Yaakov teaches us such a great lesson, as does his namesake. There are so many factors that go into child-raising, education and decision making. We are not Yaakov Avinu, with or without Divine assistance. May we all succeed to use both hands to convey our love and hopes and dreams for our children and students. The stakes could not be higher.

Chazak chazak v’nischazek!