From All Evil: Blessing Redeems the Good

1“May the angel who redeems me from all evil bless the lads …”¹ What does Yaakov mean by “who redeems me from all evil”? The context would seem to call for “who redeems me from all my troubles.” The word “evil,” by contrast, suggests the yetzer hara, which is called “evil,” as the verse says, “For the inclination of man's heart is evil from his youth.”²

2Let us first explain an earlier verse: “Yisrael saw Yosef's sons and said, ‘Who are these?’”³ Rashi says that Yaakov wished to bless them, but the Shechinah departed from him, because the kings Yeravam and Achav were destined to come from Efraim, and Yehu and his sons from Menashe. So “he said, ‘Who are these?’” means: who are these, who are not worthy of blessing? But this is puzzling. We know Chazal's rule that a person is judged only by his deeds at that moment, as the verse says of Yishmael, “For God has heard the voice of the lad where he is.”⁴ Since Yosef's sons were righteous at that time, Yaakov should have blessed them as they were. What difference did it make that, many generations later, the wicked Yeravam, Achav and Yehu would come from them?

3aWe can, however, explain all this through the words of my holy great-grandfather, zt"l, in his holy sefer Divrei Binah.⁵ He explained Rashi's words through a teaching of Chazal: “R' Chanina bar Pappa said: Whoever derives benefit from this world without a blessing, it is as if he robs the Holy One, blessed be He, and Knesses Yisrael, as it says, ‘He who robs his father and his mother … is a companion to a destroying man.’ He is a companion to Yeravam ben Nevat, who corrupted Israel against its Father in Heaven.”⁶

3bThe meaning is this. We recite a blessing to show that we believe the grains, the fruits and everything we enjoy come through hashgachah pratis, Hashem's watchful care over each individual, and not, Heaven forbid, that the earth gives its fruit by nature. Through the blessing a person binds each thing to its root Above.⁷ This, as is well known, is the work of refinement: a person must refine all things and raise them to their root.⁸ But one who enjoys something without a blessing makes it look, Heaven forbid, as though the thing came by nature and has no connection Above. In this way he cuts off the thing's life-force from its root Above, and that is the “robbing” and “destroying” Chazal speak of.

3cFor this reason we find times when no blessing is needed: where there is no evil to sift from the good. A blessing belongs only to something found in this world, which has become physical and has some evil mixed into it. Things with no evil mixed into them need no refinement, so there is no need to make a blessing over them. So we find that Bnei Yisrael made no blessing over the manna, for it came to them from Heaven, and no evil was mixed with its good.

4This, he continues, lets us understand why Yaakov Avinu did not want to bless Yosef's sons. He saw that Yeravam would come from Yosef's line, and Yeravam is the one called “a destroying man,” who corrupted Israel against its Father in Heaven. That is, Yeravam did not sift the evil from the good, as a blessing does. Instead he ruined things at their root, until they could no longer be refined, because he did not believe in the providence of the Holy One, blessed be He, over everything in the world. So Yaakov said that Yosef's sons were not worthy of blessing: descendants who would cut off and separate all things from their root were unfit for it. Blessing does the very opposite: it sifts out the evil in everything, and raises the good and binds it to the root. Those are his holy words.

5This also explains a teaching of the Yerushalmi: in the future a person will have to give judgment and an accounting for everything his eye saw and he did not eat.⁹ We may say that it means this. Those things were meant to have their evil drawn out, and to be set right and bound to the root through the blessing. But he held back, neither enjoying them nor making the blessing, and for that he will have to answer. In other words, he is called to account not for the mere fact that he did not enjoy them, but for withholding their repair and refinement.

6That is why, after Yosef pleaded for mercy over Yaakov's refusal, as Rashi says,¹⁰ and Yaakov Avinu agreed and blessed them, he said in his blessing, “May the angel who redeems me from all evil.” Here “evil” means the physical side of things, the share of evil that must be sifted out of all created things. As we know, every mitzvah and good deed creates an angel.¹¹ So when Yaakov said “the angel,” he meant the angel formed “from all evil”: the angel created through his own refining of the evil out of everything in the world. “May it bless the lads” means that this angel should give them, too, the power of blessing, whose purpose is to refine out the portions of evil and bind them to the root. That is also why he said, “May my name be called upon them, and the name of my fathers,” for “fathers” points to the root. And this is “may they multiply like fish, abundantly, in the midst of the land.” Although they are in the land, where everything in this world has grown physical and taken on evil as well, even so “may they multiply abundantly”: may blessing come upon them as the evil in them is refined, so that they draw close to the root.

7May Hashem grant that we be privileged to recite the blessings over what we enjoy as we should, and so set right and raise up everything that is in the midst of the land, and through this bring the end of the exile near. Amen, may it be His will.