Parent’s Blessing

The weekly parent’s blessing is the highlight of the week for me as a parent — it’s my chance to tell my child that no matter what happened this past week, I still love her unconditionally.

 

There are two ways to do this blessing and they are not mutually exclusive.  One way is to come up with your own words of blessing and/or love (when you have multiple children you can individualize this or not for each child).  The other way is to use the traditional language.  Most people who do both use the traditional language first and their own language after that, but there are no rules.

 

The traditional language for a boy is:

May G-d make you like Ephraim and Menashe.

 

This language comes from Jacob’s blessing to his grandchildren in the Book of Genesis.  One explanation is that these were the first two siblings to have a non-dysfunctional relationship in the Bible.

 

The traditional language for a girl is:

May G-d make you like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah.

 

These women were the matriarchs of the Jewish people, strong women who passed their identity down to the next generation.

 

For all our children we say:

May G-d bless you and guard you.

May G-d shine the Divine face toward you and be gracious to you.

May G-d lift the Divine face toward you and give you peace.

 

This is the blessing that the priests gave the people in the Book of Numbers.  After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE many of the things the priests did moved into the home on Shabbat evening (like candles, grape juice, challah, and even salting the challah).

 

I encourage you to consider trying this at home if you haven’t already!  If you want an excuse you can tell your kids I gave you homework 🙂   And if you want to talk through trying this in your setting, please be in touch (dschwartz@wsthz.org).

 

David