Vayechi

When Yosef heard that Yaakov was sick, he brought his two sons to get a bracha from Yaakov. The posuk states, וירא ישראל את בני יוסף ויאמר מי אלה, then Yaakov saw Yosef's two sons and said, “who are these?” Rashi explains this question to mean, where did these children, that are unfit to bless, come from? However, this question is a little hard to understand. Yaakov had been with Ephraim and Menashe for the last seventeen years, why did he suddenly find them unworthy?

Reb Zalman Sorotzkin explains that certain types of behavior, while appropriate for the average person, do not befit one who is prestigious and refined. One who occupies a position of leadership must set an example and maintain higher standards. Therefore, while Ephraim and Menashe were just Yosef's sons, they were fine. However, now that they were given the elevated status of being one of the tribes, they were held to a higher standard.

We see a similar concept by the bracha that Yaakov gave to Yissachar: יששכר חמור גרם, Yaakov gives the analogy of a donkey when he blesses Yissachar. הגר”צ מרקוביץ explains why he's compared specifically to a donkey. When a horse finishes his work, one has to take off everything from his back and then he can run free and relax. However, for a donkey to rest, all he needs is a corner to sit in. One can leave everything still loaded on him; he just needs a quiet corner to rest.

The tribe of Yissachar was the tribe that was supposed to be the masters of Torah, the ones that would sit and learn all day and teach others. One of the challenges of a true Torah Jew requires him, even at a time when he’s on break and has rest from the normal schedule, to still carry the load of the Torah and act in a way that is befitting a Torah Jew. He must always be on a higher standard.

The method Yaakov used to bless Ephraim and Menashe provides us an example of how we can elevate ourselves. We know that Yaakov switched his hands around and put his right hand on the younger one and his left hand on the older one. Why didn't he just move them around? Why did he need to switch his hands around when he could have just switched them and blessed them normally? Rav Zilberstein explains that, had he switched them around, that would have been much more embarrassing to Menashe. Therefore, he left them where they were and switched his hands to teach us how sensitive we have to be to someone's feelings. Even though he had to do what he had to do, he tried to minimize the embarrassment as much as he could.

Rav Zilberstein relates a story about רב אברהם גניחובסקי who was a rosh yeshiva in Yerushalayim.  Every Friday night,  he had a chavrusa who came to his house. One Friday night, the chavrusa comes and mistakenly rings the bell which was heard throughout the house. However, no one opens the door. He waits a little, but still no one opens the door, so he knocks on the door and still no answer. He knows that the rabbi is home, so he keeps knocking. Eventually, the rabbi comes to the door in pajamas, yawning and rubbing his eyes like he just woke up and apologizes to the chavrusa if he had been knocking for a long time because he went to sleep.

Now, it was only nine o'clock and the rabbi never went to sleep that early especially since he had a chavrusa coming to learn. He did all that: ignoring the bell, getting in pajamas, pretending to be sleeping just so that his chavrusa wouldn't be embarrassed that he had rung the bell. He pretended that he was sleeping and didn't hear it. This instructs us not only to be on a higher level morally, but also to be on a higher level when it comes to recognizing the feelings of other people!