This sheet on Genesis 48 was written by Yael Shahar for 929 and can also be found here
“With you, Israel will bless, saying, ‘May God make you like Ephraim and like Menasheh,’”
And so it is to this day. But what’s so special about Joseph’s sons?
The answer is in the names of Joseph’s two sons and the circumstances of their birth. Joseph had become the prototype of the successful assimilated Jew. He had risen to a position of power in Egypt and married a high-born Egyption wife. He had no reason to think he would ever see his birth family again, and little desire to go looking for them. After all, they had sold him into slavery. Even his father’s role in it was unclear.
Joseph named his first born Menashe as a sign that “God has caused me to forget [nishani] all my toil and all my father’s house,” and his second, Ephraim, for “God has made me fruitful [hifrani] in the land of my affliction.” Joseph’s sons would have been raised as Egyptian noblemen, given an Egyptian education, and grown up rubbing shoulders with the upper crust of Egyptian society. And yet, Jacob later takes Joseph’s sons as his own, giving them an inheritance with his own sons.
We often say: “You are Jewish if your grandchildren are Jewish.” Of all the tests we have to face as a people, none are as difficult as the test of success. More Jews have been lost to assimilation in those countries that welcome Jews than have been lost to pogroms, massacres, and genocide in hostile lands.
Of all of Jacob’s descendants, only Joseph had faced the test of success in a foreign culture. Only he had lived in a secular society and maintained his cultural identity. Perhaps, with the wisdom of old age, Jacob saw that Joseph’s inoculation to the pleasures of Egyptian society had immunized his sons as well; they too would resist the pressures of assimilation and remain true to their heritage.
Only with the assurance that we can live among strangers and remain true to ourselves can we grow from a family to a nation. For this reason, Joseph’s sons, Menashe and Ephraim, represent the future of the Jewish nation.
And this is what we wish upon our own children: that they rise to the challenge of being a light to the nations—living and working in the broader world—but never losing the special connection to their heritage and mission.
Yael Shahar divides her time between researching trends in terrorism and learning Talmud
929 is the number of chapters in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, the formative text of the Jewish heritage. It is also the name of a cutting-edge project dedicated to creating a global Jewish conversation anchored in the Hebrew Bible. 929 English invites Jews everywhere to read and study Tanakh, one chapter a day, Sunday through Thursday together with a website with creative readings and pluralistic interpretations, including audio and video, by a wide range of writers, artists, rabbis, educators, scholars, students and more. As an outgrowth of the web-based platform, 929 English also offers classes, pop-up lectures, events and across North America. We invite you to learn along with us and be part of our dynamic community.
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