blessings Archives - Rachael's Centre

Parshat Yitro: The Blessed Event at Miami Beach

Picture it…Miami Beach, any year before 2020. The sun is beating down, the sky is clear, and you are lying on the beach absorbing the rays, thoughts floating wherever they choose, and an older Jewish couple makes their way to the water. You lazily watch as they walk slowly across the sand and enter the ocean. They get into the water until it almost touches the bottom of the bathing suit (just before that spot where we all gasp), and each will now bend to splash a bit of water under the arms and onto the back of the neck. It looks so mundane but it’s actually a very Jewish moment. What makes it so Jewish is the very next thing that happens. If you’re lucky to be close enough, you will hear the words: ‘What a mechayeh, oy a broch!’

The Jewish words we have used to express ‘what a life-enhancing moment, oy what a blessing!’ The life-enhancing moment is easily understood, since the sun is truly beating down mercilessly and no one wants to cook. Why it’s a blessing is a bigger question.

As Jews, we have always said brachot (blessings), and true to who we are, we have always argued about what it means to say a bracha.

The word itself comes from the Hebrew word for ‘knee’ –what we would think of as ‘bend the knee’. If we were to only look at the word itself, a bracha would be uttered in a moment that brings us to our knees. A moment of such magnitude that we are unable to stand in that instant, we are so humbled, so overwhelmed. Yet, most of our ‘bracha moments’ are mundane. When I make a bracha over a piece of fruit, no matter how much I may love that fruit, I’m not sure it brings me to my knees. And there are moments when I am overwhelmed and feel weak at the magnitude of the meaning of the moment, marriage, birth (to name two)…and yet, no bracha. So the meaning of the word helps but doesn’t really open our understanding of a bracha.

One of the first disagreements about the meaning of a bracha sits in the intention of the words. When I say, ‘Baruch ata Adonai’, am I stating a fact (God is blessed), or am I actively doing the blessing (I bless God)? If I don’t bless God, is God still blessed? If I am stating a fact about God, where is the action within my blessing? Both questions prompt contrary views, and both views have their good arguments. However, all opinions agree that a bracha is an expression of God as the source of all things –regardless of whether I am acknowledging it or actively blessing God for it.

We also agree that we should say a bracha when we feel we have been blessed by God, and God’s blessings always anchor through something that exists. Jewish law tells us that when we are saying the Grace After Meals (Birkat haMazon), there should be bread on the table since God blessed us with a meal, and our answer to God (our blessing) acknowledges the physical anchor represented by the bread. Every bracha opens layers and layers of awareness.

Our mystical Jewish selves will connect to the numerical value of the word bless (b-r-kh) noticing each letter is an expression of the number 2. ‘Beit’ = 2, ‘Reish’ = 200, ‘Khaf’ = 20, making the full word equal 222. In Judaism, the number one represents singularity (think singing ‘Who Knows One’ at the Seder), and the number two represents plural, amplification. Now one of the layers of saying a bracha includes the subtle request to keep the good things coming.

With all those wonderful layers and meanings of a bracha, why not say them all the time, at every moment? This is where Jewish text and structure begins to have a voice. We are very careful about when we should say a bracha, because within the words is the invocation of God’s Name –and there’s the rub. As told explicitly in this week’s Torah reading, parshat Yitro, which includes the Ten Commandments, we are never to take God’s Name in vain. It’s the third commandment, and it doesn’t mean we should never curse, it means we should always intend the seriousness and relevance of invoking God’s essence into our human moments. Because we must be aware of that intention, there are important moments in our lives when we minimize saying a bracha. I once asked a rabbi why a person does not say a ‘Shehecheyanu’ bracha the first time they are sexually intimate. The bracha itself thanks God for sustaining us long enough to arrive at an important moment in our lives. We are told to say it even for mundane things such as wearing a new garment for the first time, because it is a tiny moment of achievement and joy. How could we justify not recognizing the threshold of first sexual intimacy? The rabbi asked me if I thought such a person has the ability to form intent at that moment. I loved the truth of the answer, and I loved that he answered my question with a question.

Usually, when we think of the Ten Commandments, we think of the huge, world changing insights about monotheism, family structure, Shabbat, and the social contracts of societies. We don’t often think that the third commandment, the one about God’s Name, is actually in our lives far more often than is the reality of crimes such as theft, murder, adultery or coveting. The third commandment challenges us to recognize the amazing moments of each day. What do we do when we feel blessed?

Today, the world is rolling out vaccines to keep everyone safe from Covid 19. Israel is currently leading the world in its vaccination numbers, and it has opened the Jewish discussion about whether the person being vaccinated should say a bracha. Most Jewish leaders around the world are in agreement that a bracha (or several) should be said by the recipient. True to form, they disagree about which brachot to say. There is agreement that a ‘Shehecheyanu’ is needed, but they disagree whether it should include God’s Name. Some say the bracha for wisdom should be said, others say that after full immunization is reached, the bracha for being saved from danger should be said. Wonderful discussions are being had about thanking God for putting the cures into nature before putting the diseases in, while we should also thank God for giving us the skills to look for the cures, and recognize them when we see them. Of course, these arguments wouldn’t be complete without the follow-up arguments over which bracha should be said first. People in Israel are saying brachot when they receive the vaccine, they’re not waiting for all rabbis to agree since the moment has already arrived.

Whether in Israel or not, we have arrived at the question of what do I thank God for first when there is so much to be grateful for. That is a moment that brings me to my knees.

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Parshat Chayei Sarah: A Blessing on Your Head…I Think

Two old men are sitting on a park bench together one afternoon watching the people walking by (stop me if you’ve heard this one). A group of young girls stroll by chatting. One old man leans to the other and says ‘I can’t believe how short their skirts are, you can see everything, including their pupiks!’ The second man turns to his friend and says, ‘I agree! What a bracha…I mean a broch!’

For non-Yiddish speakers, the punchline is the second man saying ‘what a blessing…I mean a disaster!’

As much as we believe that a blessing would be a universal thing, the truth is that blessings are usually quite subjective. They are layered with assumptions and expectations that we then project onto each other almost without thinking. When I was growing up, if I was at a wedding it would be only polite for women to wish single women ‘Mirtzem bi-you’, (God willing this should happen to you). The assumption is that every woman would want to be married and that single women should not feel envious of the bride because we have prayed that God should make her a bride soon. We don’t say that so much anymore, I hope that’s because we have understood that blessings have the power to communicate more than we intended.

Judaism views blessings as double edged swords. The very general, non-specific ones are great. We bless each other with happiness and long life. I have had occasions to sit with family members discussing insurance policies a few times over the years. Most of those occasions involved insurance agents who were Jewish (once it was a friend of ours who is a Lubavitch Rabbi). The conversation took much longer than it needed to. Life insurance discussions would always involve following any example with ‘you should live to 120’; disability insurance policies were explained with every other sentence being ‘you shouldn’t know from this, not you, not your family, not anyone we know’. After signing the policy with our friend, the Lubavitch Rabbi, he reminded us that he is also a sofer (scribe) and set aside time to check all our mezuzahs. Once, I sat in such a meeting with a non-Jewish insurance agent —I couldn’t do it. I kept wanting to say ‘God should keep us all safe and healthy (amen)’.

Blessings are powerful and empowering moments we offer each other, but we’re not often taught how to do that. When someone sneezes, we may offer the traditional ‘God bless you’. Historically, that is not because we are worried the sneeze indicated they were getting sick, but because during the instant of sneezing they were left unaware and that’s when Satan can enter the soul. We protect them by invoking God’s name. The Hebrew sneeze response, ‘livriyut’, means ‘to health’, more of a Jewish response —the offer of a blessing. Even when we say goodbye to each other, most of us forget that the word ‘goodbye’ is a short form for the original phrase ‘God be with ye’, the blessing we offered each other before departing and encountering danger on the roads (God forbid). In Yiddish, the traditional parting phrase is ‘zei gezunt’, ‘be healthy’ —another blessing offered to each other.

While we all exchange and feel positively about the general blessings we offer each other, the specific ones are when it can get tricky. Offering the blessing of an upcoming marriage to a single woman assumes she would want that for herself; offering the blessing of children to a woman who has suffered a recent miscarriage is well intentioned but often times painful to the recipient. There is an art to crafting a blessing, but most of us are not taught the technique.

In this week’s parshah, Chayei Sarah, the upcoming matriarch, Rebecca, has chosen to leave her home, her family, and marry Isaac, sight unseen. Her family offers her a blessing: “May you become (the mother of) hundreds of thousands and may your seed inherit the gates of their enemies.” It’s a beautiful blessing, who wouldn’t want hordes of descendants and to inherit gates of enemies? If I inherit their gates, it means I outlived them. I didn’t have to battle them, I simply endured longer than they did —I waited them out. What could be the problem?

The midrash points out that this blessing is a double edged sword. For me to inherit the gates of my enemies, I must accept the inheritance and claim their cities. What if they don’t live near me? What if I don’t want what they had? What if their things are a constant reminder to me of the suffering experienced at their hands? What if I want to close that chapter, feel relieved that they’re gone, and never have to think of them again? Why would I want their past constantly in my present and speaking into my future? What if I don’t think it’s a blessing?

Then the midrash points out that these sentiments were also expressed to the patriarch, Isaac. Now what has been offered to Rebecca is her own legacy of blessing to bring to her marriage. She will not fulfill her future by trying to find ways to enter the blessings of Isaac. That’s what happened to Sarah, that’s how Abraham ended up with Hagar, fathering Ishmael.

Between the first generation of ancestry and the second generation, we watch the balance of blessings be introduced between patriarch and matriarch. The blessing sits in the balance.

It’s not so easy to bless each other. We must always be careful of nuance, personal preferences and the appropriate opportunities to offer someone our most heartfelt prayer of something beautiful. We’ll never learn the skill if we don’t take a risk and start offering a blessing to each other.

May we all stay healthy and well, and may God bring wisdom to those seeking cures and vaccines. Amen.

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