The Blessing of the Unexpected

So often, I get to talk with someone on Shabbat about the joy of seeing so many children crowded under our giant tallit for a blessing. “To think,” people often tell me, “we used to think that tallit was comically large, and now it seems we’re going to need an even bigger one!” It is such a blessing to be in a community so overflowing with babies and children that it’s hard to be upset at the crowding, even if it does sometimes seem a little rowdy under there (or in the back of the Sanctuary.)

On Friday nights, as our children gather under this tallit, we sing a blessing that comes from this week’s parashah, Vayehi:

הַמַּלְאָךְ הַגֹּאֵל אֹתִי מִכׇּל־רָע יְבָרֵךְ אֶת־הַנְּעָרִים
May the Angel who has rescued me from all evil bless these children…

As his end nears, Jacob asks Joseph to bring his sons, Jacob’s grandsons, to be blessed. Jacob decides they will be counted among his progeny, and then crosses his hands so that his right hand, understood to be the more powerful blessing, lands on the head of Ephraim, the younger son. “No, Father,” Joseph calls out, when he sees what Jacob has done, and goes to move Jacob’s hands from their crossed position. “The other is the firstborn, put your right hand on his head.” 

“No,” says Jacob. “I know what I’m doing…and someday our people will invoke blessings like them, like Efraim and Menashe.” We do as Jacob said, and every Friday night we bless the children among us using his words. Unsurprisingly, we don’t tend to mention the blessings Jacob offers his sons, which read mostly as bitter and angry, but we retain this moment when two of Jacob’s grandsons stood before him and received a blessing they may not have expected to receive, in a way their father certainly didn’t expect them to be blessed. 

We who live Jewish lives and also inhabit the secular world have the blessing of two New Years, two calendar-based invitations to consider our lives and the ways we hope to spend our time. I love the way a New Year’s resolution, whether at Rosh Hashanah or on January 1, can prompt us to set goals for how we want to grow, and give us a measuring stick to help us stay accountable to our priorities. But no goal can ever replace the experience of living. 

This year I failed myself, at least on paper. I like to set goals for myself each Gregorian year, and I could see by mid-December that I was unlikely to hit my goals, at least according to Strava and Goodreads (apps for tracking running and books, respectively.) 

But I feel no regret or negativity over missing the mark. I know that I failed to meet my goals because I chose to extend myself toward the kinds of goodness I couldn’t have anticipated until it was right in front of me. I spent less time reading because I spent more time doing things I had forgotten that I love, like dancing and making art. I spent more time at services and programs, talking to many of you and sharing stories and jokes with you and your children. I spent more time on the phone and on FaceTime, allowing some of my closest friendships to bloom and blossom in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. 

There is joy and blessing in chasing down a goal and meeting it, but there can also be blessing in embracing the unexpected. Jacob, on his deathbed, could not possibly have anticipated that someday, dozens of children would crowd under a multi-colored garment, in a community called after another of his names, and hear dozens or even hundreds of his descendants singing his words. 

Whether your focus is on striving for something important or allowing your life to unfold in unexpected ways, may the places you direct your energy return as blessings for you. 

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Deena Cowans