Mishpetei HaRav Kook / Parashat Vayechi

This week's Torah portion holds the closing image of the book of Bereshit, which is also called the Book of the Upright. Yosef brings his sons for his father's blessings. He places the firstborn, Menashe, on the right, and the second, Ephraim, on the left. Yaakov chooses to cross his hands and to bless Ephraim with his right and Menashe with his left. Yosef, shaken by the situation and by the memory of the wars of blessings that had been in the family in the past, tries to switch his father's hands, but Yaakov refuses. This is the closing image of the "Book of the Upright" and of the change of reality that the fathers of the Israelite nation bequeath to the world. Their statement is that, alongside the cyclicality of the world and of life and the need to give the firstborn a double portion, there is also uprightness — the essence of life and the path a person chooses. And in their conception, it is not the chronological order that determines, but rather a person's deeds and his choice. Despite fate, Judaism says, we dictate and determine our lives.