vayigash

Is this week’s Torah portion we learn about the reunion of Joseph and his family. How appropriate for the name of the portion to be called Vayigash, which means, “and he came near.” After a long period of being apart from his family, Joseph was able to come near his family. Not only did Joseph reveal himself to his brothers after the long wait for his plan to succeed, but he was also reunited with his father who had given up hope of Joseph’s survival years beforehand.

Can Bad Things Be Good?

Parashat Vayigash (Genesis 44:18-47:27)

After several months of playing cat and mouse with his brothers, the moment of truth arrived for Joseph and his brothers. Joseph’s plan of ensnaring Benjamin worked to put his brothers in a vulnerable position where he was able to put them to the test. Joseph had laid the bait, set the trap, and it had sprung upon his brothers. Would they abandon their father’s favored son as they had done to him, or had these twenty-two years given them time to think over their actions and have a change of heart?

Parashat Vayigash - Genesis 44:18-47:27

Ani Yosef—“I am Joseph.” You could have heard a pin drop when Joseph spoke those two Hebrew words to his brothers. Their mouths fell open and their jaws nearly hit the floor. Their eyes bulged as they strained to recognize their younger brother hidden beneath the Egyptian garb. Confusion and despair rushed over them from head to foot in an instant. An icy chill coursed through their veins at the sudden realization that the man who stood in front of them—the second most powerful man in Egypt—was the one they had betrayed over twenty years previously.