Father, Bless Me! 

I’m Glad I’m Not A Rabbi!  

Anyone who is not a rabbi ought to recite every day the blessing “Baruch [Hashem] that He didn’t make me a rabbi.” Being a rabbi does not mean you are a ruler; being a rabbi is a severe form of slavery – you are enslaved to Hashem’s nation, as the Gemara says¹. And one of the most difficult aspects of being a rabbi is that one must listen to people telling you all their troubles. 

Some of the most distressing stories one hears are about children who are “off the derech”, and have not only left the straight path but have also broken all contact with their parents. Or vice versa – stories about parents who have cut off relations with their children due to a spiritual decline. It is not for nothing that the Gemara says that a child who rebels against his or her father is like the war of Gog and Magog at the end of days.² 

The real tragedy is that sometimes everyone is right and has done the right things. For example, the father had to scold his son and drive him away somewhat, and the son had a very big yetzer hara (evil inclination). So what should a parent do? How stubborn should one be? How much should one relax and let go? All parents today are searching for the correct balance between ‘the left hand driving away’ and ‘the right hand bringing close’³. How can one know when to make demands while at the same time  transmit  the critical feeling to the children that the parents always love them?  

Such a question cannot be answered in writing, but one can mention one important point that in itself is very powerful. All parents should know: There are mistakes that one is forbidden to make! Forbidden! 

Rising to the Occasion 

Every child and youth – at any age – has times when he needs his father. Even if you are very angry at your son, and even if you are one hundred percent right, when your son needs you as a father, you must put everything else aside! Everything! Set aside all the anger and all the complaints; you must now be a one hundred percent loving father and listen to your son and  try to help him with maximum mercy,  maximum love.

One of the critical times for this is Friday night. When you return from shul, you must bless all the children with maximum love. Even if all day or all week the child annoyed you and you fought with each other, you must put it all aside and hug and bless with love! This is the time to place your love above all. 

Dear father, when your relationship with your child is volatile, there are two problems here: a small problem and a big problem. The small problem is the child’s behavior and the reason for the fight. Even if the son did something very serious, it is only the small problem. 

But the big and terrible and dangerous problem is for the child to think that his father doesn’t love him. When a child thinks that his father doesn’t love him, this thinking is not merely dangerous – it is an existential, spiritual danger. It is actually a problem in emuna (faith)! A child like that will find it very difficult – almost impossible – to truly believe in Hashem. There is a danger here of losing all of one’s connection with the child, and there is a danger that the child will drop out of Judaism completely. 

If you cannot put the fight aside, that proves to the child that there is a very serious problem with your love for him. And conversely, good is greater than the bad, for if you can rise to the occasion and put the fight aside, you prove to the child that you are first and foremost a loving father! You have no idea and you have no way of assessing what you are doing by acting that way! Even if you will not see the results immediately, in the long run you are simply saving the child and his emuna – and your relationship with him! 

Even if They Don’t Deserve it 

We learn this from our holy forefathers, who not only teach us emuna, but also teach us what a father is. In this week’s parsha, Yosef arrives with his two sons to be blessed by his father Yaakov. Yaakov promises Yosef that the two grandsons, Efraim and Menashe, are part of the Tribes; they are like his direct sons, “Like Reuven and Shimon they will be to me.”⁴ 

And yet, the moment when Yaakov is about to bless the children, Rashi says in the name of Chazal, that the Shechina (Holy Presence) left him, since wicked people will come from both Menashe and Efraim. And so he asks: “Who are these?”⁵ and Rashi explains: “Who are these who are not worthy of being blessed?” 

And Yosef replies: “They are my sons that G-d has given me here!”. Yosef prays to Hashem until Yaakov relents and says to Yosef: “Please bring them to me so that I can bless them.”⁶ 

The Ohr Hachaim Hakadosh wonders how Yaakov can ask, “Who are these?” Doesn’t he recognize his grandsons? The Ohr Hachaim explains the question in this way: “Yaakov meant to awaken the love of the father for the son before he would bless them so that the blessing would be given with the greatest amount of love and affection. And that is why he asked, “Who are these?” – so that he would hear from his favorite son, “they are my sons” and he will long for them and that is the secret of ‘whenever I speak of him… I will show him great compassion’.”⁷ 

This works out very well with the course of events after this. Before the blessing, Yosef presents the sons to Yaakov, and the holy grandfather, Yisrael, hugs and kisses them. We see that before the blessing Yaakov Avinu wants to awaken the love in every way possible, because a blessing is the result and revelation of a great love, and it is particularly love that gives the blessing its power. This is explained also in the Ha’amek Davar. 

And even when you are having problems with your children, you must set them all aside and awaken the love, like Yaakov Avinu, and bless your children with the greatest love and affection! 

The Bigger the Fight, the Greater the Love 

This provides yet another explanation for Yitzchak’s wish to bless Esav⁸. Everyone asks: How could it be that Yitzchak Avinu didn’t see that Esav was evil? According to what we brought here, one can say that it was because Yitzchak knew who Esav was that he wanted to bless him. What happened here is that Yitzchak Avinu wanted to increase his love for Esav in every way possible, and therefore he asked Esav to prepare him a tasty meal. Note that in this meeting with Esav, the words ‘my father’ and ‘my son’ appear many times, and before the blessing he wants to kiss his son. 

And even when Esav discovered that he had lost the blessing, Yitzchak didn’t bless him immediately, but, rather trifled with him until Esav cried out, and only then did Yitzchak bless him. If he could have blessed him, why didn’t he bless him right away? But Yitzchak wanted to awaken his own feelings of rachamim (mercy) towards him, and only when Esav cried did these feelings arise in him and he blessed him.  

We find an interesting dialogue between father and son in the story of the Akeida, when Avraham Avinu and Yitzchak were on their way there. Yitzchak wishes to ask his father about the whereabouts of the animal to be sacrificed, but before that he addresses Avraham and says to him, “My father,” and his father replies, “I am here, my son.”⁹ It is difficult to understand why the Torah bothers to mention this exchange. 

One can say that even at such a difficult moment, when Avraham and Yitzchak are walking towards the fulfillment of the Akeida, it is important to prioritize the unconditional love between father and son. 

The Divrei Yisrael provides an amazing explanation for this and says that this is a sign for all future  generations.  This dialogue between Yitzchak and Avraham is eternal: whenever a Jew turns to Hashem and says to Him, “My Father,” Hashem will respond immediately with “I am here, My son.” And it won’t matter who is doing the asking and what he has done; Hashem will fulfill his wishes with mercy! 

It is so important to say this every morning, at the beginning of the prayers¹⁰, to remind us that during our prayers we are meeting a Father who loves us in any situation. 

Advice That Saves Souls 

We learn from Yaakov another way to awaken one’s love for one’s children — to judge the person favorably, as Yosef says: “They are my sons whom G-d gave me here”⁶. Look at what I have raised here in Egypt. And if you see something bad in them, it is not in them per se. Rather, it is just bad because they are in Egypt. But they themselves are ‘my sons’, as righteous as I am. 

And just like every Friday night we bless our children with the blessing that Yaakov gave Yosef’s sons, so too whatever Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov did, we all must do. When a child comes to you and says “Abba,” even if he doesn’t actually say the word “Abba”, but he expects you to bless him or to hug him – you must put everything aside and awaken your utmost love as father to child in any way you can, until you can bless him wholeheartedly. 

This advice alone can save families and save souls. It can give our children the resilience, complete  emuna, and the strength to overcome all the evil inclinations of this generation and to grow up to be  tzaddikim, chassidim, and true lovers of Hashem. 

Editor’s Notes: 

¹ Tractates Sotah 47a and Sanhedrin 107b  

² Tractate Berachot 7b  

³ Tractates Sotah 47a and Sanhedrin 107b (Baraita of Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar) 

⁴ Bereishit (Genesis) 48:5 

⁵ Bereishit 48:8 

⁶ Bereishit 48:9 

⁷ Yirmiyahu (Jeremiah) 31:20 

⁸ Bereishit 27 

⁹ Bereishit 22:7 

¹⁰ The Akeida (Bereishit 22) is recited after Birchot HaTorah