Vayechi
Where do the blessings go?
Reflection by Ariel Yisraelah Hendelman, the Or HaLev Team:
"This week’s Torah portion finds us on Yaakov’s deathbed. The title however, Vayechi, in typical mysterious Torah fashion, means `and he lived.` Yaakov’s life has not been what one would call easy, but it has been a life fully lived. Yaakov has loved, lost, learned about subterfuge and truth, blessing and wrestling; he dreamt the primordial dream of expanded consciousness, received his true name (which is our legacy as Am Yisrael to this day), and was able to be reunited with his beloved son Yosef, and even Yosef’s children. We might say that Yaakov’s life resembles the archetypal hero’s journey in that it has three main phases: separation (from his family of origin), initiation (with the trickster Lavan) and return (reuniting with Esav as well as Yosef later on).
Yaakov’s life was not always easy, but in the end, he learned everything he was meant to learn – in the end, he loved and lived fully. What more can one ask for? Perhaps this is why Yaakov’s deathbed scene is the only one in all of Torah. And it has an uncanny resemblance to a scene from earlier in his life when he usurps the blessing of the eldest son meant for his brother Esav from his aging father Yitzchak. We find in Vayechi that Yosef asks Yaakov/Yisrael to bless his grandsons, Ephraim and Menashe:
`Now Yisrael’s eyes were heavy with age, and he was not able to see.
He brought them close to him,
and he kissed them and embraced them…
But Yisrael stretched out his right-hand and put it on the head of Efrayim—yet he was the younger!—
and his left-hand on the head of Menashe;
he crossed his arms, although Menashe was the firstborn` (48:10-14).
Just like Yitzchak, Yisrael is described as having failing vision. Just like Yitzchak, Yisrael is described as blessing the younger son over the firstborn. However, this time, Yosef speaks up in order to correct what he thinks is his father’s mistake. Yisrael responds by saying, `I know, my son, I know—he too will be a people, he too will be great, yet his younger brother will be greater than he, and his seed will become a full-measure of nations!`(48:19)
This might be Yaakov/Yisrael’s final tikun, showing that blessings go where they are meant to go, and where they are most needed, even if they sometimes have to take circuitous routes to get there."