For many parents, the highlight of the Friday evening home celebration and meal, indeed the highlight of the entire week, is the moment when they bless their children. However, even this could be tension producing if one's son suddenly wants to know why his sister is blessed to grow up like Sarah, Rebbecca, Rachel and Leah, while he has to settle for

Is it possible that boys are getting the short end of the blessing?

Ephraim and Menashe, Joseph's Egyptian-born sons, instead of the patriarchs. Is it possible that boys are getting the short end of the blessing?


I believe the reason can be found if we study Genesis from the perspective of family psychology. Sibling rivalry constantly surfaces as a powerful motif, love-hate relationships that end up more bitter than sweet. Right from the opening pages in the Bible, Cain is jealous of Abel, whose offering to God was found more pleasing than his own. Before we know it, Abel is dead, killed by his own brother - the Torah's first recorded murder.


Things get worse. Jacob spends 22 years away from home because he's afraid Esau wants to kill him. Upon returning from his long exile, richer, wiser and head of a large household, he makes all kinds of preparations to appease his brother. If that should fail, he devises a defense strategy should Esau's army of 400 men attack. And all of this hatred came about as a result of Jacob having deceived his father, at the behest of his mother, in order to wrest the birthright and blessings away from his less deserving brother.


Jacob's own sons live through aspects of their father's sibling experiences; since Jacob felt unloved by his father, he lavished excessive favoritism upon his beloved son, Joseph. As a result of the bitter jealousy that the brothers harbor toward Joseph, they take the radical step of slow but inevitable death by casting their defenseless brother into a dangerous pit. Had Judah's last minute advice to sell the boy to a caravan of Ishmaelites been ignored, Joseph would have been torn to death by some wild animal.


When the Torah commands "Do not hate your brother in your heart" (Leviticus 19:17), it could have easily used the word "friend" or "neighbor." But the word "brother" is deliberate; the people we are most likely to hate are the ones closest to us. If the natural affection between brothers backfires, the very same potential for closeness turns into potential for distance. No silence is more piercing than brothers who refuse to speak to each other because of a dispute. Unlike a feud between strangers, family members don't bury the past - they live with it. Indeed, there is even a custom, retained by many old Jerusalemite families, that children should not attend their father's funeral. And one reason may very well be that if the children are going to fight over the inheritance, it should not begin at the gravesite.


There is, however, one remarkable exception to the pervasive theme of sibling hatred in Genesis. In contrast to their ancestors, Joseph's sons, Ephraim and Menashe, do not fight when Jacob bestows the younger brother, Ephraim, with the double blessing.

Ephraim and Menashe do not fight when Jacob bestows the younger brother... with the double blessing.

Joseph even tries to stop Jacob. "That's not the way it should be done, Father.... The other one is the firstborn. Place your right hand on his head." (Genesis 48:18) Jacob knows what he is doing. "The older one will also become a nation.... But his younger brother will become even greater...." (Genesis 48:19)


As a result of this seeming rejection, one might expect a furious reaction from Menashe, lashing out like Cain. But Menashe overcomes his personal feelings. He understands that the birthright is a function of merit and that Jacob's choice testifies to Ephraim's greater merit, or least to Ephraim's expertise in the highest Jewish vocation.


The Midrash fills in the gaps regarding the characters of each of these sons of Joseph. Menashe is the worldly brother, the viceroy's assistant in running affairs of the state, a talented linguist with a PhD in languages and political diplomacy from the University of the Nile. He serves as his father's interpreter and right-hand assistant in all important affairs of state (Genesis 42:23, Rashi, ad loc). Ephraim, on the other hand, is studious, devoting his time to learning Torah with his old and other-worldly grandfather, Jacob. In fact, when we read in this week's portion, Vayechi (Genesis 48:1), of how Joseph is brought news of his father's illness, the text does not reveal the messenger's name. Rashi identifies him as Ephraim returning from Goshen, where he's been studying with his grandfather.


Menashe, the symbol of secular wisdom, also receives a blessing, will also achieve greatness, but it is Ephraim the Torah scholar who must receive the birthright of familial leadership. Both branches of wisdom much compliment each other, secular wisdom and international expertise on the one hand and the Divine Torah with its ethical and moral direction on the other, and they must even be combined together in the educational and personality makeup of each Jew: "May G-d make you like Ephraim and Menashe, but he placed Ephraim before Menashe." (Genesis 48:20)


When parents bless their daughters to be like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah, what's being evoked is the very bedrock of Jewish existence - our matriarchs. But when they bless their sons to be like Menashe and Ephraim, the blessing evokes the long slow process of Genesis, which finally finds fruit with the sons of Joseph, the only brothers who overcome sibling rivalry in order to achieve the unity that will lead to redemption.