All it took was a brief but discernible flash of insight and I understood my father through and through. I was staring down at my 2-month-old son on the pediatrician''s table, admiring this firstborn of mine, when I noticed some shmutz, or dirt, on his chin. A blue flake of shmutz.

I could have scraped the shmutz away lightly with my fingernail. I could have dampened a paper towel in the sink and wiped the shmutz off his chin.

But I didn''t. I wet my thumb with my tongue and rubbed the shmutz away.

The realization that this is exactly what my father did to me time after warm, sticky time didn''t come after I had dispatched the blue shmutz. It didn''t occur to me as I was performing the act. The light bulb went on the same instant I decided to do it.

And I did it anyway.

Elie winced, but not like he''s going to when he''s eight and I start moving my fingers toward my outstretched tongue after seeing some foreign particle disfiguring his cheek. He''ll be grossed out. I know, because I was too. The sour smell of fermenting middle age. The feeling of encroachment. But like my father before me, I probably won''t know when my son passes the line in his process of individuation when he''d prefer the shmutz to my saliva.

Both Father''s and Mother''s days always seemed like Hallmark holidays to me. So it surprised me when my wife, Sheri, insisted we do it up big on her first Mother''s Day, and that we approach my first Father''s Day in the same spirit. Well, if that''s what we''re going to do, I want tojustify it by investing the day with some Big Concepts.

When Elie was born in February, I was able to fulfill a longtime wish by placing my hand on his head and reciting the Friday night blessing:

Yesimkha elohim k''efraim ve''chemenashe.
May God make you like Efraim and Menashe.

Yevarekhekha adonai ve''yishmarekha. Ya''er adonai panav elekha vi''yechunekha. Yisa adonai panav eleikha. Ve''yasem lekha shalom.
May God bless you and guard you. May God show you favor and be gracious to you. May God show you kindness and grant you peace.

I''ve wanted to do this ever since I heard Jewish educator Ron Wolfson talk about how reciting these brakhot (blessings) helped bind his family together. Wolfson made it a ritual to bless his children, even when they resisted. When he was out of town, he''d call home, get each child on the phone and recite the blessing. If the sun was setting at his end and no one was available on the other end of the line, he''d leave the blessing on the answering machine.

Wolfson didn''t realize how important the ritual was until he called home one Friday afternoon. He was in a rush and forgot about the blessing. As he was about to hang up, one of his children said, "Dad, can I have my blessing now?"

We began blessing Elie on his first erev Shabbat (Sabbath eve). In the weeks that followed, as Sheri and I stumbled less and less over the words, I began to meditate on their meaning, especially the first line designated for sons: "May God make you like Ephraim and Menashe" or, in another translation, "May God give you the blessings of Ephraim and Menashe."

Why Ephraim and Menashe? They were Joseph''s sons, Jacob''s grandsons. But what distinguishes them from the other brothers in Genesis is that they were the only ones who did not have a fratricidal hatred for each other. Certainly every parent hopes for a little peace among siblings.

However, we know almost nothing about Ephraim and Menashe. The Torah doesn''t quote them, and the midrash (explanatory commentary) is bare. They are completely silent in our literature, yet we bless our sons to be just like them.

I wish Genesis hadn''t ended when it did, with the deaths of Jacob and Joseph. I wish it had gone on a bit, detailing the lives of Jacob''s grandchildren. We would have seen Ephraim and Menashe interacting with their cousins, their adventures in Egypt when times were good, still a family, not yet split into tribes. We could have seen the traits they exemplified.

Maybe what also distinguished Menashe and Ephraim from the others was their father. Joseph is known in Jewish tradition as hatzaddik, the saint. Perhaps it is because of how he and his wife raised their children. The subtext of the blessing is actually a challenge to the blessor: May you have the patience, the strength and the imagination of Ephraim and Menashe''s father. That''s something worth reminding yourself about every erev Shabbat.

To raise an Ephraim and Menashe, you have to hope you were raised as well as you are trying to raise them--or act as if you were. Since the two sons are silent in the text, you must become the text. A little saliva does more than wipe off the shmutz on your son''s chin.