“Why do we bless our children to be like Ephraim and Menashe?

Ephraim and Menashe were grandsons of Yaakov; they were not at the level of Yaakov’s sons; they weren’t tribes… But Yaakov came along and said, ‘You are like Reuven and Shimon. You are like the tribes of Israel. You are being elevated beyond what everyone thought your potential could be.’

It was impossible, [given] the pagan environment where they grew up, to end up where they came to [spiritually]. Impossible? Nothing is impossible! And that is what we bless our children with on Friday night – that no one should tell them that anything is impossible…

The sky is the limit in terms of what our children can accomplish. We as parents must believe in them, instill in our children that belief in themselves, and pray to G-d that our children can go beyond any limits that anyone has set for them.”