“How to Give the Perfect Blessing,” Rabbi Jacobson’s 5/29/26 Qabbalat Shabbat Sermon
Rabbi Suzie Jacobson | Qabbalat Shabbat, May 29, 2026 | Temple Israel of Boston
View the video recording of Rabbi Jacobson’ sermon
Growing up, I was especially close to my Grandma Ruthie. She was incredible. And though she made me feel like I was her favorite, the most important person in her world—I now recognize that this was her magic. That was how she made everyone feel. Even now, more than thirty years after her death, hardly a week goes by when I don’t find myself talking about her. My own children, born decades after she passed, know her well. Her memory has truly and literally become a blessing, one that continues to radiate warmth through the generations of our family.
When my sister Tara was a kid, she was a wild child. She completely blindsided my parents, who until then were only used to parenting a docile bookworm—me. Before Tara, my parents didn’t even bother baby-proofing the house; I never thought to do anything interesting or destructive enough to warrant it. But the moment Tara became mobile, she was a whirlwind. I don’t remember her ever actually walking down the stairs; she either cartwheeled down or launched herself off the banister.
Whenever my mother would complain to her mother about this spirited little one, Grandma Ruthie would just repeat the same line: “You just have to understand her.”
“You just have to understand her.”
It became a family mantra, even a joke. As a kid, I didn’t get it. Tara was loud, physical, full of energy—in so many ways, my exact opposite. I found her deeply annoying, and I had zero patience to try and figure her out.
But now, as a parent, my grandmother’s words echo in my mind constantly: “You just have to understand her.” “You just have to understand him.” “You just have to understand them.”
There is no more vital work, no more sacred skill, than striving to understand the people around you—the people you love, and the people who are entirely different from you. When we truly pay attention, when we work to notice the people around us in their full complexity—that, right there, is the deepest blessing.
My Grandma Ruthie’s lesson is beautifully embedded in Marge Piercy’s poem, “The Art of Blessing the Day.” She writes:
But the discipline of blessings is to taste each moment, the bitter, the sour, the sweet > and the salty, and be glad for what does not > hurt. The art is in compressing attention > to each little and big blossom of the tree > of life, to let the tongue sing each fruit, > its savor, its aroma and its use. > Attention is love, what we must give > children, mothers, fathers, pets, > our friends, the news, the woes of others.
Such attention, such striving for understanding, is the blessing. And it imparts goodness to the one who receives it, and to the one who gives it.
This radical, loving attention—this fierce commitment to truly seeing another person—is not just the secret to a good life. It is the very definition of a divine blessing.
In this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Nasso, we encounter the famous words of the Birkat Kohanim, the Priestly Blessing. It is a text we know intimately—words we chant over our children on Friday nights, words that have echoed across millennia. God commands Aaron and his sons to bless the Israelites with a specific, beautiful formula:
יְבָרֶכְךָ֥ יְהוָ֖ה וְיִשְׁמְרֶֽךָ׃
יָאֵ֨ר יְהוָ֧ה ׀ פָּנָ֛יו אֵלֶ֖יךָ וִֽיחֻנֶּֽךָּ׃
יִשָּׂ֨א יְהוָ֤ה ׀ פָּנָיו֙ אֵלֶ֔יךָ וְיָשֵׂ֥ם לְךָ֖ שָׁלֽוֹם׃
May God bless you and protect you.
May God’s face shine upon you and be gracious to you.
May God’s face be lifted toward you and grant you peace.
As an introduction to this moment, the Torah commands: כֹּ֥ה תְבָרֲכ֖וּ אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל — “In this way you must bless the people of Israel.”
The rabbis interpret this phrasing in two distinct ways—one that resonates with me, and another that I struggle with.
First, the sages teach that while we human beings long to be the recipients of God’s blessing, we can only receive it through the mouths and attention of other human beings. We must learn to bless each other. No voice from heaven is going to boom down on Friday night, or at a B’mitzvah, or under a chuppah. It is a human, sacred obligation to deliver the divine. This makes perfect sense to me. We may attribute the source of blessing to Divinity, but the art of blessing is a human task.
The second lesson, however, is trickier. Maimonides teaches that when the Torah says “In this way you must bless,” it means with these exact, literal words. If a priest wants to improvise, if he wants to embellish and shower the community with beautiful words, he is strictly forbidden. We are permitted only these precise, divinely ordained words.
Personally? I don’t believe it is possible to place limits on what can be a blessing. There are infinite words we use to lift each other up. There are endless gestures, actions—even our mere, quiet presence in a room can bring comfort, inspiration, and spiritual sustenance. We humans have a breathtaking capacity to bring blessing to one another—just as we have a terrifying ability to bring great harm. In so many ways, our spiritual life is a training program. It is a lifelong practice teaching us how to become a blessing. None of us are perfect, but all of us possess that capacity.
So perhaps the Priestly Blessing is not a ceiling that limits our words, but a foundation. Perhaps it is the root from which we learn how to bless.
The Maggid of Mezritch offers a radical reinterpretation of this text. He reads the Hebrew creatively, saying: “This is how you bless the people – Ko Tevarchu: K’mo she-hem.” Bless them exactly as they are. Accept them in their flawed, beautiful reality, and try, through your blessing, to enable each unique person to achieve their own maximum potential.
When we read it through the lens of the Maggid, the three lines of the Priestly Blessing transform from a rigid formula into a blueprint for human love:
יְבָרֶכְךָ֥ יְהוָ֖ה וְיִשְׁמְרֶֽךָ׃
May God bless you and protect you. This is the baseline. May we each fiercely protect the physical, mental, and emotional safety of those around us as deeply as we care for our own.
יָאֵ֨ר יְהוָ֧ה ׀ פָּנָ֛יו אֵלֶ֖יךָ וִֽיחֻנֶּֽךָּ׃
May God’s face shine on you and be gracious to you. The late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks taught that this means: “May God leave a visible trace of God’s being on the face you show to others.” And how do we recognize that divine presence? Rabbi Sacks says: “Not in severity, remoteness, or austerity, but in the gentle smile.” That is grace. The ability to make another human being feel instantly welcomed by your loving presence.
And finally, the climax of the blessing teaches us what I can only call Grandma Ruthie’s Torah:
יִשָּׂ֨א יְהוָ֤ה ׀ פָּנָיו֙ אֵלֶ֔יךָ וְיָשֵׂ֥ם לְךָ֖ שָׁלֽוֹם׃
May God lift up God’s face toward you, and grant you peace.
Think about that imagery. To lift your face toward someone means to turn away from every other distraction. It means to stop multitasking, to look away from your phone, to quiet the noise in your mind, and to focus your entire being on the soul standing right in front of you.
When the Torah imagines the ultimate blessing God can bestow upon humanity, it isn’t wealth, power, or easy success. The ultimate blessing is God’s undivided attention. It is the assurance that the Ruler of the Universe looks at us, tunes into us, and says: “I see you. In your fullness, in your complexity, in your struggles, and in your joy. I understand you.”
And the mirror image of that divinity is our own human calling. We can do that for each other.
“You just have to understand her.”
We just have to understand one another. Exactly as we are. And to do that, the first step is to give our undivided attention. That is the root of all blessing.