Vayigash

📜 The Story

Parshas Vayigash opens at a very tense moment. Binyamin has been caught with Yosef's goblet, and Yehuda approaches Yosef, the powerful Egyptian viceroy who Yehuda does not yet know is his own brother. Yehuda begs him, explaining how much their father Yaakov loves Binyamin and how heartbroken he will be if Binyamin does not return, and offers himself as a slave instead.

Yosef could not hold back any longer. He ordered every Egyptian to leave the room, and then burst into tears and said the famous words to his brothers, I am Yosef your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. The brothers were terrified, but Yosef comforted them, explaining that everything had been part of Hashem's plan to save many families from the famine.

Yosef told the brothers to hurry back to their father Yaakov and tell him that Yosef was alive and ruling over Egypt. He sent wagons full of food and gifts, and asked that the whole family come down to live in the land of Goshen, since five more years of famine remained. When Yaakov heard that Yosef was still alive, his heart came back to life and he finally believed it.

Yaakov and his entire household, seventy people in all, went down to Egypt. Hashem appeared to Yaakov on the way and promised to go down with him to Egypt and to bring him back up again. When they arrived, Yosef rushed to meet his father, and they embraced and cried for a long time. Yaakov said that now he could die in peace, having seen his son's face again.

Yosef settled his family in the land of Goshen, a good place for shepherding flocks. During the famine, Yosef wisely managed Egypt, selling grain to the people, and eventually buying all the farmland of Egypt for Pharaoh, except for the land belonging to the priests. In this way Yosef saved both Egypt and his own family from the great famine.