The family is the basic framework in which we are formed as a person, learn values and life principles, learn how to live and how to face the world.  We learn to be loved and to love, learn to be respected and to respect.  As well as we learn life principles we also absorb negative aspects.

            Consciously or unconsciously we receive commandments that come from our ancestors, and they are repeated constantly from generation to generation.  Each family has its own commandments.

            It’s very interesting, in Psychology a genogram is made, a generational family study, where we see how some stories are repeated.  How a family member relapses into conflicts not solved by a previous generation’s member.

            Something similar happened with our forefathers.  On this Shabbat we complete the book of Bereshit and, by making an inventory of the stories we’ve been reading and analyzing, we can see certain repetitions from one generation to another.

            A good example is the urge parents have to favor the youngest son, creating enmity among brothers.  Abraham favored Itzjak by expelling Ishmael from their home.  Itzjak blessed Iaakov; and Eisav wanted to kill his brother.  Iaakov preferred Iosef among his brothers and they put him in a well and afterwards, sold him.

            Even in this parashah, when Iaakov blesses his grandsons, Efraim and Menasheh, the children of Iosef, he tricks them and puts his right hand over the younger son and his left hand over the older one.

            The interesting thing is when this book ends as do these repeated stories end, a small change appears.  Iosef does not accept this commandment, transmitted from generation to generation, and realizes this provokes great harm to his family and so he tries to stop and reverse his children’s future.     

            The Torah tells us:  “And when Joseph saw that his father was laying his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, it displeased him, and he held up his father’s hand to remove it from Ephraim’s head unto Manasseh’s head.  And Joseph said unto his father:  Not so, my father, for this is the first-born; put thy right hand upon his head.”  (Bereshit 48:17-18).

            Iosef suffered a lot during his life from the hatred of his brothers, and he was reluctant that his children suffer the same.  He didn't want favoritism nor envy and hatred between brothers.  Iosef tries to put an end to such generational commandments, and that’s how the Bereshit stories end.

            Iosef taught us that the commandments are not eternal, that we receive them unconsciously.  But there’s a possibility to reject them, if we understand that they harm us and harm our family and loved ones.

            Several generations went by until Iosef could comprehend and try to make a change.  It is possible to change direction and reverse our future and our children’s futures.

            May G-d make us able to recognize and identify which commandments, conflicts, and symptoms we have received from our family and that we repeat without realizing it.

            May G-d make us able to change such repetitions which definitively harm and damage us, may we reflect and change our family course.

            May G-d grant us to deliver the best in us to our family, and may we accomplish to live in peace, harmony and love.

Back to top
Back to Home

 

Address:  700 meters West of Pops in the Sabana, on the old road to Escazu, corner building at your left. Tel. 231-5243  /  Fax:  231-5787  /  E-mail:  congbnei@racsa.co.cr