In this week’s parsha, Yosef brings his two children to his father Yaakov for a bracha [blessing]. Yaakov gave Yosef’s children a tremendous bracha: “By you shall Israel bless saying, ‘May G-d make you like Ephraim and like Manasseh'” [Bereishis 48:20]. What a bracha! In the future, whenever the Jewish people would bless their sons, they would invoke the prayer that they should be like Yosef’s two sons: Ephraim and Menashe.
A very obvious question is asked. Yaakov had twelve illustrious sons. Why didn’t Yaakov say, for example, that the perennial Jewish blessing would be “May you be like Yehudah and Yosef” or “like Yissachor and Zevulun”? Why did Yaakov single out these two grandchildren to be the prototypes of blessing?
Several meforshim [commentators] offer the following explanation, which I saw most recently in the works of Rabbi Eliyahu Munk, zt”l. Yaakov saw a special quality in Ephraim and Menashe that he did not have the opportunity to see in his own children. Yaakov’s own children were raised in the best of environments. They lived in the Land of Israel, in the house of the patriarch Yaakov, insulated from any bad environment. Granted, it is not trivial to raise good children even in the best of circumstances. However, there is nothing novel in the fact that Yaakov’s own children turned out well. It is no surprise if a child who is raised in Bnei Brak or Meah Shearim grows up as an observant Jew. However, if people raise a child in a city such as Sioux City, Iowa – where their family is, perhaps, the only observant Jewish family in town – and the child is subject to foreign influences from all of his surroundings, and nonetheless, the child turns out a faithful Jew, that is truly a great accomplishment.
The patriarch Yaakov, perceiving that generations of Jews would spend so much of their time in Exile, formulated the greatest blessing that the Jewish people could give over to their children. “May they be like Ephraim and Menashe.” Ephraim and Menashe were raised in the Sioux City, Iowa of their time. They were the only Jews in the entire country! They had to grow up knowing that many things that they saw around them were not right, not the way things should be. Despite this, they turned out just like Yaakov’s own children. This is the special blessing that the Jewish people would need – the ability to be raised in a non-Jewish environment and yet turn out to be good and honest Jews.
Do you know what an assimilated Jew is? Someone who thinks that the world is stronger than Hashem, than Yiddishkeit, than the Torah. Hopefully, you and I know the truth: When you really want to do something, the whole world respects you. So this is the story:
At the end of the First World War, when Russia lost the war and needed a scapegoat, they said, “Why did we lose the war with Germany? It’s very simple. It's because the Jews speak Yiddish. Yiddish is like German, so all the Jews are German spies, and they gave over all the secrets of Russia to Germany. So because of the Jews, we lost the war.”
So in all those little shtetlach where the goyish peasants were angry that Russia lost the war, they had a little custom; every Friday afternoon they would hang ten Jews and say, “These are the ten spies.” The Holy Amshinover Rebbe, the heilige Amshinover, sent messengers all over the area to redeem those Jews, because for a hundred rubles, the police would let a Jew go. So one of the closest disciples of the Holy Amshinover went Friday morning to a village to redeem the ten Jews who were supposed to be hanged, and he succeeded in getting them released. He was on his way back to Amshinov through a forest, and suddenly the wheel broke off his wagon. It was late, almost Shabbos. He was desperate. Suddenly he heard Cossacks coming. I don’t have to tell you, friends, the way Cossacks drive their horses – at a crazy pace. But the chassid wasn't afraid; he placed himself in the middle of the road, blocking the way so that the Cossack had to stop.
The Cossack stopped and said to him, “Jew! What do you want?” The chassid said, “I’m stuck here in the forest. I have to get to Amshinov before Shabbos. I’ll be happy to pay you 100 rubles to take me back to Amshinov.” The Cossack said, “No! I’m not taking a Jew in my carriage.” The Cossack attempted to make his horses go and continue on his journey, but this chassidishe Yid of Amshinov was a farmer and he knew how to handle horses. He put his hand on the horses, and they stood quietly, not moving.
Now the Cossack was stuck. The Cossack said, “Let me tell you something, I know the Jews, there is nothing they are more afraid of than Cossacks. But let me ask you; how much are you afraid of Shabbos? How much does Shabbos mean to you? Enough so that because of Shabbos you’re not afraid of Cossacks? I'm impressed” And so then the Cossack said, “If Shabbos means that much to you, let me have the privilege of driving you back for free.”
So the chassid arrived in Amshinov in time for Shabbos. That night, as he was sitting next to the Rebbe, he told the Rebbe the story about the Cossack. I heard the story from the Chassidim and they said, “It wasn’t really clear anymore: Was it really a Cossack that drove the chassid back to Amshinov, or was it Elijahu HaNavi?”
