“May they multiply greatly in the midst of the earth” (Bereishis 48:16).
These words conclude the famous “Hamalach hago’el” blessing that Yaakov conferred on Menashe and Ephraim. The text is very familiar to us, but how many of us have given thought to the word Yaakov uses for multiply: yidgu? The root of this word only appears otherwise in the word for fish, dag. Why allude to fish, though, when blessing one’s grandchildren?
Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch suggests that fish actually “express the whole depth of the intenseness of Yaakov’s blessing.” How so? He explains:
“In a different element, quietly, at a depth unreachable by the eyes of men, do fish live their lives. Thoughtlessly do people stand on shore and have no idea what a happy, fresh, joyful, undisturbed life goes on down below in rich abundance from generation to generation.”
Yaakov blessed his grandchildren with a similar existence. “B’kerev ha’aretz, in the midst of the earth are the generations of Yaakov to live and achieve their own quiet happy lives in their own separate element” with “the world around them…hav[ing] no conception of what such a life means.”
Non-Jews occasionally feel bad for us. We bear the “burden of the law” and sometimes suffer from discrimination. But those who pity (or mock) us have no idea how spiritually rich our lives are. The inner contentment and beauty that comes with observing Shabbos, for example, is only known to those who keep it.
And perhaps that’s how it should be. We live “in the midst of the earth” but flourish in a realm of own – one that others cannot begin to appreciate.
Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808-1888) – head of the Jewish community in Frankfurt, Germany for over 35 years – was a prolific writer whose ideas, passion, and brilliance helped save German Jewry from the onslaught of modernity.
Elliot Resnick, PhD, is the host of “The Elliot Resnick Show” and the editor of an upcoming work on etymological explanations in Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch’s commentary on Chumash.
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