A Thought on Parshas Vayechi

"...va'yidgu le'rov b'kerev ha'aretz..." "...and may they thrive within the land..." (48:16) Yakov bestows a loving blessing to his grandsons. It is such a wonderful blessing that Jews all over the world still recite this bracha, offering it to their own children, to all of the children in their communities each Simchas Torah, and little children often say it at bedtime, or sing its words to a nice tune. The wording is a bit challenging, however. I have translated it literally above, although many would alter the translation to fit English grammar and say "may they thrive upon the land." The Hebrew word "b'kerev" seems a little atypical, in that it means inside of or in the middle of. People generally walk on or live on, the surface of the earth. What is the meaning, then, of Yakov blessing us that we would thrive within the earth? The Panae'ach Raza notices this slight shift in the expected grammar. He offers a thought. He says that Yakov, ever vigilant about the eventual saga of how his descendants would wrestle with the nations of the world, foresaw times to come when the Jewish nation would hide in the fields and in the forests, fleeing from their foe and concealing themselves within the land, rather than remain out upon the land. His bracha is that we will still thrive, survive. I think of images of Jews during the Holocaust, going into hiding, underground, or in the forests of Europe, wrestling to survive and also wrestling to maintain their Jewish identity within even when having to hide it from without. I think of the stories my father told me of the Troglodyte Jews of North Africa, whom he visited while stationed there during the War. These were Jews who lived in caves, underground, deep within the earth, in order to keep out of sight of their Arab neighbors, yet they maintained solid religious identities. I think of the Jews who fled the Inquisition, going into hiding, yet their genetic fire was kept silently aflame despite the challenges of time and assimilation threats, some of them living within the American Southwest and only now emerging, reclaiming their ancestral faith. This was all possible because of the bracha of Yakov. He blessed his grandsons, promising them that they would continue to thrive, even when having to go underground 'b'kerev ha'aretz'. Wishing you a good Shabbos, as we close Sefer Bereishis with the help of HaShem. D Fox