In early November, I sat in the women’s balcony of an Orthodox synagogue in Rome and witnessed a bar mitzvah ceremony from very far away. Here I was, half way across the world, in segregated seating with women who spoke Italian, and yet I felt at home.
I opened a chumash (Torah commentary) to the portion of the week, Lech Lecha, and followed as the bar mitzvah boy read the entire parasha in a beautiful trope. I loved hearing Avraham (Abraham) pronounced with an Italian accent.
I saw the boy’s classmates sitting all together on a bench, socializing with each other from time to time, as they followed the service. They reminded me of our own b’nai mitzvah students who sat together a couple of weeks later on Shabbat morning — also socializing as they followed along. (Of course in the Orthodox setting, it was only boys in this group.)
Toward the end of the service, I observed something I had never seen before, but I quickly realized what it was. Intergenerational groupings suddenly formed in the men’s and women’s sections, and elders put their hands on the heads of the younger as they recited a blessing.
Teenage girls who had been sitting together by themselves near me went to their mothers, and the mothers, in turn, huddled near their mothers, as hands were placed on heads and the younger generation was blessed.
The same scenario played out below in the men’s section. Groupings below were much larger, and white tallitot (prayer shawls) were spread out like huge wings to encompass several sons at once or grandfathers over their sons, whose tallitot were spread, in turn, over their own sons, in progressive waves of blessing, all enveloped in white cloth.
Surely this was recitation of the family blessings we say at the Shabbat dinner table.
On Shabbat, we are taught to bless our sons that “they should be like Ephraim and Menasseh,” the sons of Joseph who were raised in Egypt. And we bless our daughters “like our matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah.”
The blessing over boys comes from Torah portion Vayechi, which we will read on the first Shabbat in January. The portion describes how Jacob gave a blessing to all of his sons, but he gave a double blessing to Joseph for his two sons.
At the end of this passage, we read: “So he blessed them that day, saying, ‘By you shall Israel invoke blessings, saying: God make you like Ephraim and Menasseh’” (Genesis 48:20). These words have become the formula for blessing sons on the Sabbath.
A beautiful interpretation of this instruction to bless boys by invoking the names of Joseph’s sons highlights how these young men clung to the traditions of their ancestors in spite of outside influences.
The Midrash Yalkut Yehudah explains that Ephraim and Manasseh grew up in Egypt in a non-Jewish world. And still they retained their faith and did not assimilate into Egyptian society.
Assuming that his progeny would be similarly challenged by the issue of assimilation in generations to come, Jacob provided this blessing as a perpetual encouragement to Jewish children to retain their faith wherever they lived, as did Ephraim and Manasseh.
Later, a Shabbat blessing was provided for daughters: To be blessed by invoking the names of the matriarchs. As a default blessing for women, one can never go wrong with the matriarchs.
And yet, if the goal in blessing girls is to send the same message about remaining true to one’s heritage in a foreign culture, the biblical women named in this prayer might be others.
At this season of the year, as we delve into the Book of Exodus, we might want to consider Miriam and Yocheved as the role models we want our daughters to emulate in this regard.
In the portion Shemot, which we read the week following Vayechi, we find the story of Moses’ birth and upbringing in the palace of the Pharaoh.
One of the key figures in this story is Miriam, who follows Moses’ basket on the Nile and suggests to Pharaoh’s daughter that she acquire a Hebrew nursemaid for him while he is raised in Pharaoh’s palace. Miriam brings her own mother, Yocheved, as that nursemaid.
I believe there is a midrash that tells us it was Yocheved who revealed to her son his true identity and taught him about this heritage as she cared for him in his youth.
Hence, if it were not for Miriam and Yocheved, Moses would not have known that he was an Israelite and would never have cared about the suffering of his people.
In this way, Miriam and Yocheved can be seen as the ones who preserved Jewish identity in a foreign land, leading to the redemption of their people.
It is a beautiful tradition to bless our children on Shabbat with a prayer and a wish that they will cherish and carry on the traditions of our people. When we bless our sons “like Ephraim and Menasseh,” why not bless our daughters “like Miriam and Yocheved”?
Rabbi Dena A. Feingold is spiritual leader of Beth Hillel Temple in Kenosha.
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