VAYECHI 1985

In this week's Torah portion we learn about how Jacob blesses his
grandsons, Ephraim and Menashe, and later blesses his own sons.
This Torah portion concludes with telling us about the death of Joseph.
In this Torah portion we really have the key to why the Jewish people
were enslaved in Egypt, and also the key to understanding most of
the first book of the Bible.  The rabbis tell us that the Jewish
people were enslaved because they did not treat each other well.
Brothers let their rivalry turn into hatred.  This hatred even sometimes
spilled over into violence like when the brothers sold Joseph to
Egypt.  The sons of Leah did not treat the sons of Bilah and Zilpah
correctly.  They thought they were better than the sons of the handmaidens.
The Jewish people had to learn how to be a compassionate people.
They had to learn how to stifle their ambitions so their ambitions
would not run amok causing them to hate and destroy their brothers.
In Egypt a Jew learned how to have Rachmones, how to be a Rachum, and not to just Morachaim.  Morachum is a person who cannot help but be compassionate.  A Morachaim is one who just has a potentiality to be compassionate, but he may or may not be compassionate.  Hitler accused us of being a sentimental people because we are always moved by tears and the plight of the weak.  That's what the slavery in Egypt taught us.  The whole book of Bereishis is really a story about rivalry among brothers.  Abraham was a younger brother and did not get along very well with his family.  He was told to leave by G-d. Ishmael and Yitzchak did not get along, neither did Yitzchak with Abraham's other six children.  Yaacov and Esau did not get along, and we know the story of Joseph and his brothers.
Jacob, at the end of his life, blesses Ephraim and Menashe, and then he blesses his own sons.  It is interesting to note that the blessing

that he gave to Ephraim and Menashe is a blessing which we still use to this day.  Parents, when they bless their children on Friday night, say, "May G-d make you as Ephraim and Menashe.” We do not say "May G-d bless you as Judah and Shimon or Reuven and Levi" but as "Ephraim and Menashe".  In fact, when Jacob blesses Ephraim and
Menashe it says "and he blessed Joseph and he said, ‘the G-d before whom my forefathers walked, Abraham and Isaac, and the G-d who shepherded me from my birth until now, the angel Who saved me from all evil,
He will bless the boys and let my name be upon them and the name of my forefathers, Abraham and Isaac.’" Why does it say here that he blessed Joseph?  He did not bless Joseph.  He blessed Ephraim and Menashe.  And why is it that when we bless our children we bless them with the names of Ephraim and Menashe, not with the sons of Jacob, themselves?
The reason the rabbis give is because Ephraim and Menashe knew how to get along.  They were of all the brother combinations the first ones who knew now to limit their ambitions so they would not hurt their brother.  They did not let their own need to achieve lead them to harm their brother.  That's why Jacob blessed Joseph, because Joseph succeeded where all the others failed.  He was able to raise children who respected and loved each other enough so that they would not let their natural sibling rivalry get out of hand.  The proof of that is when Jacob put his right hand on Ephraim and his left on Menashe, Menashe did not complain even though Menashe was the oldest.  Menashe loved his brother so much that he thought that if his grandfather thought Ephraim deserved the major blessing, let him have it.  Joseph protested but not Menashe.  Why, though, did Jacob prefer Ephraim to Menashe?

Perhaps we can see the answer in the names that the brothers had. Menahse means “to forget".  Ephraim means "to be fruitful".  In any relationship we need to forget the faults of the other one.  Give me half an hour and I can break any marriage.  All I have to do is remind one of the spouses of the other spouse's faults and just hammer and hammer away until the spouse becomes infuriated and says things he should not say.  In order to have any viable relationship between spouses, brothers, friends, members of the community we have to forget each other's faults, soft-pedal them.  Know that they are there but also realize who we are dealing with and compensate for them.  The most important thing in any relationship is not forgetting the faults but concentrating on the good things, remembering the loving moments you had together, the moments you had together, the moments of care and concern.  We should always concentrate on the good things and forget about the bad things if relationships are to succeed.
Menashe and Ephraim were able to get along together because they accentuated the positive and de-emphasized the negative.  This is what we have to do to make relationships work, and this is what the Jewish people had to learn in Egypt.  Slavery was meant to teach them that they we had to learn how to help each other no matter what, and to this day that has been the trait of a Jew:  his willingness to help another Jew no matter what even if we disagree.  We may completely disagree with each other, but we still know that each has a claim on us and we have to treat each other as brothers.
I am reminded of the story they tell about a Jewish fellow who went to a small southern town and tried to stay at a hotel.  The hotel manager was very anti-Semitic and would not let him stay.  The innkeeper
said, "You don’t understand.  I only rent to quality people.  My great-great-grandfather fought with Washington, my ­great-grandfather fought with Lee, my grandfather fought with Pershing, and my father fought with MacArthur.  Now do you understand?"  The Jewish fellow answered, "You sure have some family.  They can't get along with anybody.  They fought with everybody." We have to learn how to get along and not fight.

In the Torah portion Vayechi we learn how Jacob becomes ill and he sends for Joseph. Joseph comes with his two boys and he blesses Joseph's two boys, Menasha and Ephraim. From the text it is obvious that Jacob knows that Menasha and Ephraim are with Joseph. However, after Jacob had explained that Menasha will be like Reuven and Shimon to him, the text says, "And Israel saw the sons of Joseph and he said, “Who are these?”  The rabbis ask, "How could Jacob have asked this?" He knew who these boys were.  He had just been talking about them a few seconds earlier.  Rashi explains that Jacob is not referring to Ephraim and Menasha, themselves, but he was referring to some of their progeny who would turn how to be evil.  He was asking the question, "Who are these who are going to be descended from Ephraim and Menasha?" He was referring to Yerovom Ben Rovot who split Solomon's kingdom in two and to Yahu and his family who would be descended from Menasha.  The text then continues by saying, "My sons they are who G-d gave me B'Zeh, with Z’eh."  Z’eh means, the rabbis tell us, "Z’eh Kalee Von Vayhu, This is my G-d and I will adorn Him."  Joseph was telling to Jacob, "Jacob, do not look at a few bad people who may come from my sons.  Look at the total picture.  Look at how many in their generation will say, 'Look at my G-d and I will adorn him.1" Jacob listens to Joseph and he takes Ephraim and Menasha and blesses them.  Jacob knows that you have to look at the whole spectrum.  The rabbis tell us that the difference between truth, Ernes, and falsehood, Shecher, is the difference between looking at the whole picture and just looking at a particular thing with a narrow focus.  The letters for the word "Ernes", Aleph, Mem, Tof, run the span of the entire alphabet.  Aleph is the first letter, the Mem is the middle letter, and the Tof is the last letter.  The word Shecher, on the other hand, comes from just the last part of the alphabet.  Kuf, Raysh, Shin are letters which form Shecher.  The difference between truth and falsehood is that falsehood is not true but that every falsehood has some truth in it.  It is that its range is too small on the spectrum.  It does not encompass enough.  What was Yerovom Ben Rovot's sin?  His sin was not splitting the kingdom.  G-d had already told Solomon that his kingdom was going to be split because he allowed his foreign wives to worship in Jerusalem.  His sin was that he refused to let the Jewish people go up to Jerusalem to the Temple.  He set up a golden calf in ^Jan and in Beth El for the people to make pilgrimage to.  He refused to let them go to Jerusalem.  He, of course, had a very good reason for this.  He felt that if he allowed the people to go up to Jerusalem they would in time declare allegiance to the King of Judah and not to himself. It is not sure that they would.  After all, in our own day Catholics in America consider the Vatican to be their spiritual capitol but Washington, D.C. their political capitol. Yerovom Ben Rovot had a very good reason not to let the people to up to Jerusalem and, from his perspective, it was politically true.  He did not want to take a risk.  The trouble was he did not look at the total picture.  He did not look at the people's spiritual needs.  In our day, too, we make terrible errors because we keep our focus way too small.  The Jewish family today is hanging by a thread.  We all know how it is threatened.  Some people think or thought in the past that Jews had good families because there was something in the Jewish blood or genetics which made it so, but I can tell you that it is not true.  We know that the Jewish family was a wonderful and positive institution because a lot of work went into strengthening it.  That’s what this whole Torah portion is about, how Jacob set standards for his children and expected them to live by these standards, but did not reject them if they did not.  He did not ignore their lapses either, but he worked hard, always pointing out to his family that there were standards.  In our day there are many people who adopt standards which are totally destructive of the family.  They do it because of a narrow focus.  The CRC just issued a statement whereby they oppose discrimination against homosexuals in hiring. Nobody is quarreling with that.  However, in the same statement they say, "We do not endorse any particular life style." How can they say that? We Jews are pro-family. It does not mean that we reject people of other views, but we do not honor and respect these views either.  From this pulpit you will never hear me say that assimilation and intermarriage are good, but many people do anyway.  We do not reject these people out of hand, but we do not tell them that what they have done is right and good.  We stand for something.  We have standards.  There is a difference between standards and punishment.  We stand for Kashruth and Shabbos and Jewish family.  Many do not keep these things, but we are not going to tell them they are right for not keeping them. A Jewish community which, for narrow political reasons, says they do not stand for family or endorse any particular life style is committing a Shecher, a falsehood. By focusing on such a narrow band we distort the truth.  Jacob, we know, blesses Ephraim with the right hand and Menasha with the left hand.  He blesses both boys.  In fact, later on we say when we bless our boys every Friday night that they should be as Ephraim and Menasha.  We do not just say Ephraim, but Ephraim and Menasha.  Ephraim was a Talmud Chochum.  He stood for standards.  Menasha stood for the masses.  He had more children than Ephraim.  We need both standards and to be compassionate to the masses, but standards come first.  Any Jewish community which does not have standards will not last, will not be respected, and will destroy itself.  I am reminded of the story they tell about a man who was carrying two big heavy suitcases in an airport.  A lady came up to him and said, "Can you tell me what time it is?"  The man set the suitcases down slowly, looked at his watch, pushed a button and said, "Sam, can you tell me what time it is?" Sam answered, "Joe, I’m glad you called.  We have a caller from Alaska about an account. Can you take a conference call now?" Joe said he could.  During the conversation the client said, "Can you show me what you are talking about?" Joe pushed a button on his watch and a television screen popped up.  After the conversation was finished he said, "Sam, tell me what time it is.  The lady here wants to know."  Sam said it was 2:30.  Joe turned to the lady and said it was 2:30.  She was enthralled by what had happened.  She said, "I must have that watch."  Joe said, "It’s very expensive.  It will cost you $10,000."  She took out traveler's checks and paid him.  She took the watch and walked off.  As she left, Joe, struggling with the heavy suitcases, said, "Hey, lady, don’t you want the batteries?  It won't work without the batteries."  The Jewish family will not exist by itself.  It needs the batteries.  It needs standards. It needs working for standards.  True, you have to be compassionate for those who do not make the standards, but you must have standards.