Counting Our Distant Blessings

We bless our sons, their spouses, and our grandchildren before every Friday night Sabbath meal. This practice, in itself, is not unusual. What makes it special is that my wife and I are standing together, just the two of us, by our dining table in Haifa while our children and grandchildren are going about their lives in New York, seven hours earlier in a different time zone.

Does this seem crazy?

Why do parents bless their children, anyway? We think it is to instill in the next generation our most heartfelt values and best wishes for their futures.

In our case, we wanted them to grow up to be "menschen" and live within the framework of Jewish traditions. We wanted them to be good friends and neighbors, to concern themselves with the needs of the community, to be moral and decent in their careers and to be recognized as admirable by their peers.And to our great joy, they are.

Are we crazy to keep up our practice of long distance blessings of the children and grandchildren? No. They are all aware that we do this Sabbath after Sabbath and that we make a weekly spiritual connection with them.

As far as we are concerned, the more we bless the children, the more we are blessed.