Vayechi: The Courage to Bless Imperfectly

This week’s Torah portion brings us into one of the most intimate scenes in the Torah. Jacob gathers his children and speaks what the text calls blessings. Many of the words do not sound like blessings at all. Some are critiques. Some feel harsh. Others seem to lock a child into a fixed identity. It is easy, as readers, to imagine that Jacob is describing an unchangeable future for each tribe.

A different reading opens up something much healthier. Jacob is not giving destiny. He is giving his perspective. He is describing his sons as he understands them, through the lens of his own experience. That perspective is real. It is often insightful. But it is still human. It is partial. It is not the final word about who these children are, or who their descendants will become.

Once we recognize that truth, the blessings look different. Reuben is not eternally unstable. Simeon and Levi are not forever trapped inside rage. Judah is not only royalty. Joseph is not only success. These are the parts of them Jacob is able to see. Torah allows us to listen to Jacob, while also reminding us that every person carries more possibility than any one observer can name.

That message matters. All of us live with names, labels, and expectations that came from others. Some were caring. Some were unkind. Some were spoken by people who believed they were speaking accurately. Judaism teaches that no human voice, even one recorded in Torah, can define the fullness of another life. The covenant does not trap anyone inside a single description. Change remains possible. Surprise remains possible. God continues to write.

And there is one more layer. This moment is not only the end of Jacob’s story. It is also the end of the book of Genesis. A reader might expect that an ending like this would close the book on who these children are allowed to become. Instead, the Torah does something different. It names this ending honestly, then moves forward into Exodus. Endings in Torah do not erase the past, but they do not freeze the future either. They honor what has been, while making room for what has not yet arrived.

That is the invitation this portion gives us. We learn to read Jacob with compassion, and with perspective. His blessings belong to his moment, but they are not the whole story. The same is true in our lives. No label, no early narrative, no single moment of judgment can claim to be the final word. There is always more story to come. So we close this book, we take strength from what it has given us, and we prepare to continue.

Hazak, Hazak, ve-nithazek.