QUESTION:
When a person gives a berachah (blessing) to another, why does it have a good effect on the other?
ANSWER:
R’ Chaim Volozhiner explained on the verse “Yaakov is the rope of his inheritance”, that the Jewish people are like a rope, that if you pull it below, it gets pulled above, and the same vice versa. When a Jew blesses another Jew, he is awakening the upper “mouth”, the Peh (mouth) of the Tzelem Elokim which is above. It also awakens the power of blessing at its root. This is not on the level of tefillah, it is rather on the level of chessed, and as Chazal say, “Know what is above you” – it all comes from you, all that happens above is done by us down below. The actions of every Jew has effects above. And certainly when a Jew blesses another Jew with love, it awakens the power of love, the power of oneness (love/ahavah is one/echad), and this awakens the light of the Shechinah, “He and His Name are one.”
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