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Teshuvot -- Jewish legal opinions
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Vayetze 5766 This week's Torah portion, Vayetze, goes on to tell us of the blessing that God gives Jacob: And, behold, the Lord stood above the ladder, and said, I am the Lord God of
Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, to you I
will give it, and to your offspring; And your descendants shall be as the dust
of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to
the north, and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the
families of the earth be blessed. "and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed." What does it mean to say that all the families of the earth will be blessed through you? The Radak, a 13th century rabbi says it means that the whole world receives its blessings because of the merit of Israel. Thanks to the descendants of Jacob studying Torah and being faithful to God the whole world is sustained. But there is another way to understand the idea that of "in you," or "through you" shall all the families of the earth be blessed. In parshat Lech Lecha, God tells Abraham "And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing." What does it mean to say "you shall be a blessing?" Rashi explains that it means God is giving Abraham the power of blessing. That up until this point in the Torah, God is the one doing the blessing-God blesses Adam, God blesses Noah, God blesses Abraham himself. But from now on, Abraham is told he is being given the power of blessing. God is telling Abraham you can bless whoever you want. In this week's parsha that power to bestow blessings is extended not just to Abraham, but to all of us. The verse reads through you and your descendants - through all of us - all the families of the earth will be blessed. We have the power to bestow blessings on others. Giving blessings to others is something that is very powerful. We have many examples in the Torah of blessings being offered to other people. Abraham blesses Isaac, Isaac blesses Jacob. Blessings were considered very important and very powerful. Look at the struggle between Jacob and Esau when Jacob intercepts a blessing intended for Esau through deception. Esau's cry to Isaac, "don't you have another blessing for me!?" is one that the rejected child in all us of can relate to. The examples in the Torah are all ones of someone more powerful blessing someone less powerful. God blesses Abraham; Abraham, and other parents, bless their children. The Kohanim, the priests, designated agents for God, bless the people with the priestly benediction. Nowadays, very few Conservative synagogues still have the Kohanim bless the congregation on a regular basis - a development which I think is rather sad, because I've always enjoyed it when I received a blessing from the Kohanim when attending Orthodox synagogues, or synagogues in Israel. It's a great feeling to be blessed by someone. But we do still follow the custom of blessing our children on Friday nights, using that same beautiful priestly benediction: Y'verekhakha Hashem v'yishmerekha May God bless you and keep you Ya'air Hashem panav alekha vikhunekha, May God shine His light on you, and may He be gracious to you Yisa Hashem panav alekha, v'yasam l'cha shalom, May God be kind to you, and grant you peace But must blessings come from only the more powerful the less powerful? Do you have to be a parent or a Kohen to offer someone a blessing? Definitely not. Anyone can bless anyone else, as is illustrated by a couple of beautiful stories in the Talmud: In tractate Brachot we have a story of R. Ishmael b. Elisha who says: I once entered into the innermost part [of the Sanctuary] to offer incense and saw Akathriel Jah, the Lord of Hosts, seated upon a high and exalted throne. He said to me: Ishmael, My son, bless Me!-I find this remarkable: God asks a mortal for a blessing!--R. Ishmael replied: May it be Your will that Your mercy may suppress Your anger and Your mercy may prevail over Your other attributes, so that You may deal with Your children according to the attribute of mercy and may, on their behalf, stop short of the limit of strict justice! And God nodded to me with His head. From this we learn that the blessing of an ordinary man must not be considered lightly in your eyes. The gap between R. Ishmael and God is surely greater than the gap between any two people…yet God still appreciated his blessing. The Talmud gives us another example of how a blessing even from someone of lower status than ones' self is to be cherished. In the Talmud tractate Chagigah the story is told of a time that Rabbi and R. Hiyya were going on a journey. When they came to a certain town, they said: If there is a rabbinical scholar here, we shall go and pay him our respect. They were told: There is a rabbinical scholar here and he is blind. Said R. Hiyya to Rabbi: Stay [here]; you must not lower your princely dignity-Rabbi was the Nasi, the head of the Supreme Court, and R. Hiyya thought it would somehow be undignified for Rabbi to go visit this blind scholar. R. Hiyya said, "I shall go and visit him." But [Rabbi] took hold of him and went with him. When they were taking leave from the blind scholar, he said to them: 'You have visited one who is seen but does not see; may the one who sees but is not seen visit you.' Rabbi said to R. Hiyya: If I had listened to you, you would have deprived me of this wonderful blessing! What does it mean to give a blessing? What power do we people have to bless other people? The tradition tells us that when we offer a blessing, we are really "channeling" for God. The blessing ultimately comes from God-the person saying the blessing is just a vehicle, drawing God's presence down for another person. This is alluded to in the continuation in the Torah of the Priestly Blessing. After God tells Moses the formula of the blessing He continues "And they shall put my name upon the people of Israel; and I will bless them." Which makes clear that ultimately it is God doing the blessing. For this reason, we don't need to worry about the qualifications of someone who is blessing us. This puts to rest fears that some people had about possibly receiving the priestly blessing from someone who is not worthy or suitable to give a blessing. In the Yerushalmi Talmud they bring a teaching which says, "Where do we learn that one should not say "How can John Doe, who is a fornicator and murderer, bless me? God says, "Who is blessing you? Isn't it I, God, that blesses you, as it says, 'And I will bless them.'" Despite all of these examples of the power and importance of blessing others in our tradition, it's a custom which has sadly fallen into disuse in the Jewish community. This was really brought home for me when I had my hospital chaplaincy course in rabbinical school. In the chaplaincy course I made the rounds with a rabbi who is a full time chaplain at UCLA medical center. He visits both Jewish and Gentile patients. The Jewish patients almost never ask for a blessing, and sometimes they seem a little awkward if we offer a mishebarach, a prayer for healing. On the other hand, the non-Jews we visited would frequently say, "say a prayer for me." I was very impressed watching Rabbi Winnick make up a blessing on the spot, one that used traditional elements so it was clearly a Jewish form of blessing, but one that also dealt with the specific situation of the person he was talking to. The recipient inevitably was very appreciative. Having seen this, I have made it my custom to always offer to say a mishebarach when I visit someone who is sick. The person I'm visiting almost ALWAYS says yes, they would like a blessing. One person I blessed a while ago commented that in all the times he's been in the hospital, and all the times people including clergy have visited him, it was the first time he was offered a blessing. So it's not just lay people that have gotten out of the habit of offering blessings to others. Maybe we've gotten out of the custom of offering spontaneous blessings to each other because we've gotten too used to relying on the siddur, the prayerbook, for all of our spiritual needs. Spontaneous blessings and prayers are not part of the daily synagogue ritual. But in some places, they used to be. A Chasidic story explains how it works. When we say our prayers during services, the yetzer hara, our evil inclination, is doing it's best to distract us. It's hard to stay focused on our prayers, so our minds wander and drift, and our prayers don't really amount to all that much. But after services, the Chassidim sit together, raising their glasses in L'Chayim, and pouring their hearts in blessing. "Yankel, you should find a proper shidduch for your daughter," exclaims one. "Beryl, your business should have have customers like the eyes on a potato," exclaims another. The Yetzer Hara, regales in his victory over having confounded the prayer of a congregation of Jews. Seeing them eating and drinking, he concludes that their prayer is finished for the meantime, and he retires for the morning. Now, it is a Halacha in the Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law), that prayer or blessing can be said in any language that one understands. (Orach Chaim 62:2) Therefore when Jews gather to say L'Chayim and to bless one another from the depths of their hearts, it is the real Tefilah, the real prayer, and it goes straight to the heart of the Master of the World. The most beautiful spontaneous blessings I've ever received were from my kids. On Friday night at the Shabbat table, we always bless our children. One time a couple of years ago Katherine said, "you should have a blessing too," and she got up, put a hand on my head, and said "baruch ata hashem, elokeinu melekh haolam (Blessed are you, the Lord our God, ruler of the universe), I love Abba." What a fantastic blessing! Which shows that blessings don't need to be long, or complicated, or written in the siddur to be meaningful. You can do it to. You can bless your children, you can bless your parents. You can bless your friends. You can bless a stranger who needs a blessing. I encourage you to give it a try. Give someone a blessing today. You can offer your blessing in any kind of format that works for you-using some traditional language, or completely in contemporary English, whatever feels comfortable for you. May God bless us all with the power to bless others, Amen |