Parashat Vayechi: Ya’acov’s Blessings as Spiritual Nourishment - How Do Ya’acov’s Blessings Nourish the Inner Character of the Tribes?

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Parashat Vayechi: Ya’acov’s Blessings as Spiritual Nourishment 

How Do Ya’acov’s Blessings Nourish the Inner Character of the Tribes? 

Are our Aspirations for our Children Limiting or Blessings of Elevation? 

I was well fed as a child; there was never any physical lack in my family. Yet I also grew up nourished, for better and for worse, by how my parents perceived me. Their vision of who I was became a form of sustenance for my character. They had clear expectations for their three daughters, noting our different strengths and weaknesses. As we grew into adults, the way they saw us as children slowly turned into reality. Perhaps this was because they genuinely recognized our inner essence, or perhaps because, through their words and attitudes, they subtly ‘programmed’ us to develop according to their visions. 

I was always jealous of my sister, who was labeled ‘the artistic one.’ According to my parents, I was endowed with a different set of gifts, celebrated as the most intellectual in the family. My youngest sister was always ‘the baby’ – the cute, charming one – and she later became a belly dancer and a circus princess. Today, I am the only one of the three sisters who is not a yoga teacher, even though I have practiced yoga for nearly fifty years and can still stand on my head! My artistic sister did indeed express herself through ceramics, silk painting, piano, and other creative outlets, yet she also surprised us all with her intellectual sharpness. What is striking is that all three of us turned out to be both intellectual and creative. It is as if our parents’ visions, though differentiated, ultimately unfolded in an all-inclusive way. 

With our own two sons, however, things turned out quite differently. We had envisioned our eldest becoming a Torah scholar, perhaps even a dayan serving on a Beit Din, yet he chose a secular education and became an accountant. Our younger son, whom we imagined as a Torah teacher and therapist, became a passionate follower of Rabbi Nachman and works in a supermarket. These experiences taught me that while our aspirations for our children can be nourishing, they can also be limiting when they confine a child to a narrow box. When our hopes are offered with love and openness, allowing room for unexpected paths, they can become blessings of elevation – guiding our children not toward our dreams for them, but toward the fullest realization of who they are meant to be.  

Seen through this lens, Ya’acov’s blessings of his sons take on new meaning. He did not impose a single destiny upon them, nor did he measure them against one another. Instead, he spoke to the unique essence of each son while leaving space for that essence to unfold in ways that could not be fully foreseen. By including all of Israel within every blessing, differentiation itself became a source of unity rather than limitation. 

 

What Kind of Nourishment Is Hidden Within Ya’acov’s Final Blessings? 

Parashat Vayechi opens at a moment when physical hunger has already been resolved. Yosef continues to sustain his family, just as he sustained the entire world throughout the famine, yet the Torah now deliberately turns our attention away from food and toward something far more enduring. As Ya’acov approaches the end of his life, he gathers his remaining strength not to eat, but to bless. His final vitality is invested in words that transmit identity and destiny rather than sustenance: “Then Ya’acov called his sons and said, ‘Gather, and I will tell you what will befall you at the end of days’” (Bereishit 49:1). Parashat Vayechi thus reveals a form of nourishment that no longer comes through food, but through blessing itself. The Torah concludes Ya’acov’s words by emphasizing that “He blessed them… each one according to his blessing” (Bereishit 49:28), even though the blessings themselves sound strikingly different. Some are words of strength, others of rebuke; some expansive, others restrained.  

Rabbi Tuvia ben Eliezer explains that although Ya’acov assigns different symbolic strengths to each tribe, the Torah warns us not to read these differences as measures of greatness. We shouldn’t assume that the lion’s might is superior to the deer’s swiftness or the ox’s strength. Therefore, Scripture emphasizes that he blessed them all, equally included within the whole. Nourishment here is not competitive; it does not depend on receiving ‘more’ than another. Rather, blessing flows through all the tribes together, so that each one both gives and receives nourishment within the collective body of Israel (Pesikta Zutarta, Bereishit 49:28). When the body weakens, the soul’s capacity to nourish others can actually intensify – and blessing itself becomes the deepest form of sustenance. 

 

Why Does Each Soul Need a Different Form of Blessing? 

The Torah concludes Ya’acov’s blessings by stating:  

ספר בראשית פרק מט פסוק כח
 כָּל אֵלֶּה שִׁבְטֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל שְׁנֵים עָשָׂר וְזֹאת אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר לָהֶם אֲבִיהֶם וַיְבָרֶךְ אוֹתָם אִישׁ אֲשֶׁר כְּבִרְכָתוֹ בֵּרַךְ אֹתָם: 

“All these tribes of Israel are twelve, and this is what their father spoke to them, and he blessed them, each one according to his blessing” (Bereishit 49:28).  

 

Rabbeinu Bachaya deepens the teaching that there is no hierarchy among the tribes by explaining why the presence of all twelve tribes is indispensable. The Torah’s mentioning all twelve tribes at this moment is deliberate. Even though Ya’acov rebuked Reuven, Shimon, and Levi, the verse emphasizes “all these are the twelve tribes of Israel” to teach that none were excluded from blessing. On the contrary, the world itself depends on their completeness. The number twelve reflects the very structure of existence, with twelve spiritual channels above corresponding to the twelve tribes below. Through this complete structure, Divine flow is sustained in the world. Blessing, then, is not a personal reward granted to the most refined but a structural necessity through which all of creation is nourished.  

On the phrase “…This is what their father spoke to them” (Bereishit 49:28), Rabbeinu Bachaya uncovers a deeper layer. The word זֹאת /zot – “this” does not merely introduce Ya’acov’s speech. It is not a stylistic introduction, but a term that signifies a channel of transmission. Rabbeinu Bachaya connects zot – ‘this’ to other appearances in the Torah where it designates an entry point for holiness. Throughout the Torah, zot appears at moments of transition into holiness, such as “This is the Torah,” “This is the offering,” and “With this Aharon shall enter the Sanctuary.”  In this context, zot refers to the collective root of Israel through which blessing is drawn down and distributed. Ya’acov, having attained this level, places this zot upon his children, ensuring that each tribe receives nourishment according to its unique role, while remaining bound to the shared source. This explains how blessing can be both differentiated and collective at once (Rabbeinu Bachaya, Bereishit 49:28). 

 

How Does Inner Connection Sustain Life Even in Mitzrayim? 

Sforno explains that each tribe received the specific blessing it needed for its unique function, whether leadership, Torah, service, or material support. Blessing is therefore not distributed evenly, but precisely, according to the inner role each soul is meant to fulfill. Ohr HaChayim adds a crucial dimension to this understanding by teaching that even words of rebuke are future-oriented blessings, because they reveal the path through which rectification and growth will come.  Nourishment in Vayechi is thus not uniform, but it is inclusive. Each tribe is sustained according to its essence, and precisely through this differentiation, the unity of Israel is preserved (Sforno; Ohr HaChayim, Bereishit 49:28). 

The chassidic sources deepen this understanding of blessing by revealing its inner work beneath the surface. Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter of Ger, drawing on the Zohar, explains that true vitality depends not on external conditions but on inner attachment to one’s spiritual root. This is the meaning of “Ya’acov lived in the land of Egypt” (Bereishit 47:28): even in constriction and concealment, life can be sustained when connection remains intact. Nourishment, in this sense, flows from inner unity rather than external conditions. Rav Tzadok of Lublin carries this insight further by returning us to the phrase “each one according to his blessing.” He explains that Ya’acov did not bless each tribe in isolation but included all of Israel within every individual blessing. Through this inclusion, the tribes were empowered to repair the most vulnerable point of physical existence: eating itself. The serpent’s corruption entered the world by distorting desire through food, fragmenting nourishment from holiness. By embedding collective unity within each blessing, Ya’acov restored the capacity for eating to be an elevated experience rather than a self-serving one. Rav Tzadok teaches that this rectification becomes especially accessible on Shabbat, when all Israel are likened to Torah scholars, and eating is reconnected to covenant and source. In this light, Ya’acov’s blessings are revealed not as abstract destinies, but as the spiritual infrastructure through which physical nourishment itself can be healed (Pri Tzadik, Vayechi 13). 

 

How Does Blessing Return Nourishment to its Divine Root? 

Parashat Vayechi thus reveals that the deepest form of nourishment is not found in what we eat, but in how eating itself is held within blessing. Yosef sustains bodies so that life can continue, but Ya’acov sustains the inner structure through which life retains meaning. His blessings do not distribute portions of food, yet they determine whether food will enslave desire or become a vessel for holiness. By including all the tribes within each blessing, Ya’acov heals the fragmentation introduced at the root of eating and restores nourishment to its original purpose: to bind body and soul, individual and collective, earth and heaven. When eating flows from this inner unity, even exile cannot sever life from its source. Nourishment then becomes more than survival. It becomes a quiet act of faith, a continuation of blessing, and a means through which the physical world itself is gently returned to its Divine root.