Vayichi

After 17 years in Egypt, Jacob called Joseph to him and made him promise that "when I sleep with my fathers, thou shalt carry me out of Egypt and bury me in their resting place."  Realizing that his father's days were numbered, Joseph brought his two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, to be blessed by their grandfather, placing the former by Jacob's right hand to receive preference as the first born.


The Patriarch, however, reversed the procedure, and said that while both would proper, Ephraim would be the greater.  On both, he conferred the blessing sanctified to this day. Every Shabbat a parent blesses there son with these same words, "God make thee as Ephraim and Manasseh."

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