Vayechi
Abraham Joshua Heschel on Parashat Vayechi, read on Shabbat Vayechi · Sefer Bereshit closes — with one of this week's three questions for the two of you.
Yaakov on his deathbed gathers his sons and blesses each of them — not with generic kindness, but with specific, sometimes piercing, sometimes glorious vision. Reuven, you are my firstborn... Yehudah, your brothers shall bow to you... Yosef, the blessings of your father exceed the blessings of my ancestors. Each blessing names not who the son was in that bedroom, but who the son — and the people that would come from him — would become. Heschel's understanding of prayer and prophecy comes close to this. To bless someone is an act of vision into the future. It is to see further than the present moment allows, to name what is not yet visible, and to speak it forward into being. To bless your spouse is to see what they could become and say it, gently, out loud, while there is still time.
What is one quality you see in me that I have not yet fully grown into — that you could name as a blessing, out loud, tonight?
The full week — the passage itself with its source, the other two questions, and the closing verse of hope — lives in the app. Together Tomorrow on the App Store.