Scrollers Preview - Parashat Vayigash

Scrollers Preview
Parashat Vayigash
December 31, 2011
Rabbi Rachel Goldenberg

This week as the Joseph drama continues, the tension builds to its climax as Judah passes Joseph’s test. As he intervenes on behalf of Benjamin, the youngest brother, and the only full brother of Joseph, Judah reveals how profoundly he has changed since the day when he sold Joseph down to Egypt. The last sentence he utters, “Let me not be witness to the woe that would overtake my father!”, is so powerful for Joseph to hear that he can no longer control himself. Through his sobs, Joseph tells his brothers, “I am Joseph.”
Chapters 45 and 46 recount how Joseph’s family comes down to Egypt, marking a shift in the paradigm of brothers in the book of Genesis. And here, I must give credit to David Tilles’ for helping me see how in this generation, in contrast to the generations of Abraham/Lot, Isaac/Ishmael and Jacob/Esau, the brothers reconcile and decide to live together. The brothers do not go their separate ways. We’ll explore this shift together and ask what the Torah is trying to teach us.
While the happy reunion of this family is taking place, in Chapter 47 we are brought back to the Egyptian reality. The famine continues and is very severe to the point that the people first sell their grain, then their livestock and finally their land and themselves as serfs to the Pharaoh. There is a stark contrast between the plight of the Egyptian people and the last line of the parashah, “Thus Israel settled in the land of Egypt, in the region of Goshen; they acquired holdings in it, and were fertile and increased greatly. We’ll explore the question of the meaning of this contrast.
In the midst of this story of huge revelations and moving an entire clan from Canaan to Egypt, we have a small, quiet scene that I don’t want to allow to go unnoticed. When Jacob comes down to Egypt, he has an audience with Pharaoh. In their time together we hear Jacob’s frustration as he shares , “Few and hard have been the years of my life, nor do they come up to the life spans of my fathers during their sojourns.” And then Jacob “blesses” Pharaoh (47:9-10). The Women’s Commentary includes a beautiful poem by Amy Blank that takes us deeper into this exchange, imagining these two old men understanding each other’s very different lives and very different hopes.