Dvar from the PTA
by Eve Schranz
On Friday evenings there is a beautiful custom to bless the children. When blessing the sons the father says, “May Hashem make you like Ephraim and Menashe.” When blessing the daughters the father says, “May Hashem make you like Sarah, Rebbeca, Rachel and Leah.” Why do we bless our children to be like these great people?
There is a Midrash that tells us that Ephraim and Menashe grew up in an assimilated environment. Despite the fact that they were surrounded by rampant idol worshipping and immorality, they remained holy and became righteous individuals. When Yaakov was on his death bed and was bestowing blessings on his sons, he included Yosef’s sons, Ephraim and Menashe, therefore giving them equal status of the rest of the tribes.
How could the Jews resist such powerful temptations that constantly bombarded them from every which way? The Torah states, “And Yehuda went up (lehoros)…”( Genesis 46: 28) This is in reference to when Yaakov’s family first moved down to Egypt to escape the ravages of the famine. Why did Yehuda go ahead of everyone, and what did he prepare? The Midrash tells us that the word lehoros can also mean to teach. Yehuda had went ahead to establish a house of study. The first priority of a Jewish community is to establish a source of Torah education.
Similarly, in today’s society there are many things that surround us and give us mixed messages. How are we supposed to assimilate these messages in a proper way? The answer is through the guidance of Torah. What a better way to give the foundation of Torah to our children by giving them the proper education filled with Torah, teaching them proper middos and derech eretz. Torah Day School does an excellent job imparting these most important values to the next generation of Torah leaders, our precious children.
