The late chief rabbi of England, Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, quoted his predecessor's explanation of the choice of Ephraim and Manasseh as the paradigm for blessing Jewish children.
Rabbi Lord Emmanuel Jakobovits noted that there are many instances in the Bible in which parents bless their children, but Jacob's blessing of Joseph's sons is the only example of a grandparent blessing grandchildren.
Relations between parents and children are often full of tensions. Parents worry about their children. Children sometimes rebel against their parents. The relationship is not always smooth.
However, the grandparent- grandchild relationship is one of love untroubled by tension or anxiety. When grandparents bless a grandchild, they do so with a full heart. For this reason, Jacob's blessing to his grandchildren became the model of blessing across the generations. Rabbi Sacks comments that anyone who has had the privilege of having grandchildren will immediately understand the truth and depth of this explanation.
Rabbi Sacks adds that grandparents not only bless their grandchildren, but they are blessed by them. This phenomenon is the subject of a fascinating difference of opinion between the Babylonian Talmud and the Talmud Yerushalmi. The Babylonian Talmud says the following:
Rabbi Joshua ben Levi said, “Whoever teaches their grandchildren Torah is regarded as if they had received the Torah from Mount Sinai, as it is said, ‘Teach your children and your children’s children.’” [Deuteronomy 4:10-11] (Kiddushin 30°)
The version of the Talmud Yerushalmi is different:
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi was used to hear the lesson of his grandson every Friday. Once he forgot and went bathing in the public baths of Tiberias; he was leaning on Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba’s shoulder. Rabbi Yehoshua remembered that he had not heard his grandson’s lesson, turned around and left. Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Abba said to him, did our teacher not teach us “if they started (bathing on erev Shabbat) they should not interrupt”? He said to him, Ḥiyya my son, is that unimportant in your eyes? For anyone who hears the parasha from his grandson is as if he heard it directly from Sinai. (Yerushalmi, Shabbat 1:2)
According to the Babylonian Talmud, it is a great privilege to teach your grandchildren Torah. According to the Talmud of Eretz Yisrael, the greatest privilege is to have your grandchildren teach Torah to you. Rabbi Sacks rightly comments that his is one argument about which no grandparent will have the slightest difficulty saying that both are true.
Rabbi Sacks concludes: "The greatest gift you can give a child or a grandchild is what you empower and
allow them to teach you. As parents, we strive to give our children everything. There’s one thing we sometimes forget to give them: the chance for them to give something to us. And that, frankly, is the most important thing there is.
Give your children and your grandchildren the space to give to you. Let them become your teachers and let them be your inspiration. In doing so you will help them become the people that they were destined to be, and you will help create the blessings God wants them to become.
To bless grandchildren and be blessed by them, to teach them and to be taught by them – these are the highest Jewish privilege and the serene end of Jacob’s troubled life." (David Magence)

Shabbat Shalom!
The Va’ad