Parsha for Kids: Vayigash 2022
Below is the transcript for this week’s episode of Parsha for Kids, Vayigash 2022.
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Episode 11:
Hello! My name is Chana and this is Parsha for Kids. The Parsha of the week is Vayigash. Vayigash means “and he came close” or “and he approached.”
But who approached? And why?
It was Yehuda. He was approaching Yosef, although he didn’t know it was Yosef. Yosef had just declared that he intended to make Binyomin a slave who would forever remain in Egypt. Well, that wasn’t going to work for Yehuda. After all, Yehuda had sworn to his father that he would bring Binyomin back to Yaakov. He couldn’t break his promise!
Yehuda used very respectful language in his speech. He called Yosef “my lord” and referred to himself, Yehuda, as a mere servant. He requested that the viceroy not become angry with him, “because you are like Pharoah.”
This last phrase contains two meanings. The simple meaning is that Yehuda respected the viceroy just as much as he respected Pharoah, the king. But Rashi brings down a secondary meaning. Back in the time of Avraham, when a different king named Pharoah had tried to take Sarah away from Avraham and keep her overnight against her will, the king and his household came down with sicknesses and plagues. Yehuda was hinting that God would punish the viceroy as well if he tried to keep Binyomin in Egypt against his will.
Yehuda then recounted the conversations he and his brothers had had with the viceroy. He explained that it was the viceroy who had asked whether they had a living father or another brother. The ten brothers had recounted they had an elderly father and a brother who remained with him. They also explained that if “the boy leaves his father, he will die.” But the viceroy declared they needed to bring their younger brother down to Egypt whether they liked it or not.
Yehuda then explained that Yaakov had been very reluctant to part with Binyomin. Binyomin was, after all, the only son of Rachel he still knew of who was alive since Yaaakov believed the other had been torn to pieces by a wild animal. Yaakov told Yehuda that if Binyomin did not return to him, “you will bring down my white head in grief and misery to the grave.”
Yehuda then explained that if he returned to Yaakov without Binyomin, Yaakov would die, and it would be the fault of the brothers. Yehuda uses very important language here. He says that “vnafsho keshura b’nafsho”- and his soul is bound up with his, meaning that Yaakov’s soul is tied in a knot with Binyomin’s soul.
There is only one other place in the entire Tanakh that uses that language. Do you know what it is?
Some of you may have learned it and others among you may not have learned it yet. It is the story of David, who becomes an incredible king of Israel. David had a best friend who was the son of the first king of Israel. That friend’s name was Yonatan. And Yonatan’s soul was bound up with David’s soul in the same way that Yaakov’s soul was bound up with Binyomin’s as if they were tied together in a knot.
This is important because later on our sages will talk about Yonatan and David having a selfless love, where they weren’t friends with each other because it was convenient, or because they got money or possessions out of it, or in order to gain power, but rather because they sincerely loved each other. And that is the kind of love that Yaakov had as a father for Binyomin. You see, when a parent is healthy, they WANT to give to their child. Even when their child makes mistakes or does something that makes the parent upset, it’s a bond that is so strong that it can never be severed. Yaakov felt so strongly about Binyomin that for Binyomin not to come home would kill him. Yonatan, similarly, felt that strongly about David.
Now, back to our Parsha. Yehuda requested that he be allowed to stay in place of Binyomin. Yehuda was willing to become a slave to the viceroy so that Binyomin could go home to his brothers.
According to the Midrash, which Rashi quotes, Yehuda explained that this exchange would be good for the viceroy. Yehuda was stronger than Binyomin, a better warrior and capable of better and extended service as a slave.
Does this remind you of something?
If you’ve grown up reading fairy tales or watching Disney movies, it should! In the animated version of ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ the Beast captures an old man who was trespassing on his property. But the man’s daughter, named Belle, comes to find her father and she offers herself in exchange for him. If you let him go, she says, I will stay here as your prisoner. Belle is a better prisoner anyway for the Beast because she is young and healthy while her father is sick and old.
The Beast takes Belle up on her offer. Will the viceroy- who we know is Yosef but whom the brothers do NOT know is Yosef- take Yehuda up on his offer?
TRANSITION
Before we address Yosef’s response, I want to take a moment to focus on Yehuda’s growth.
You see, aside from saying that he had obligated himself to bring Binyomin back home, Yehuda added another sentence, which he uttered in a tone of anguish. כִּי־אֵיךְ֙ אֶֽעֱלֶ֣ה אֶל־אָבִ֔י וְהַנַּ֖עַר אֵינֶ֣נּוּ אִתִּ֑י פֶּ֚ן אֶרְאֶ֣ה בָרָ֔ע אֲשֶׁ֥ר יִמְצָ֖א אֶת־אָבִֽי
“For HOW will I go up to my father if the boy is not with me? Let me not see the misery that would befall my father!”
This is a huge change from who Yehuda was in his younger years. Let me show you how.
The younger Yehuda asked his brothers, “What profit is there if we shed our brother’s blood? Instead, let’s sell him!” But in order to sell Yosef, Yehuda and his brothers would have to mislead their father, who would otherwise have hunted for Yosef till the ends of the earth. So Yehuda and his brothers took Yosef’s special multicolored coat, dipped it in blood, and then presented it to their father. They let their father think the worst had happened to Yosef.
But then things did not go as planned. Either that, or Yehuda and his brothers had never stopped to think about, to consider, their father’s pain.
Because Yaakov refused to be consoled. All of his daughters and sons rose up to comfort him, and none were successful.
And now that Yehuda has seen the way Yaakov grieved and continues to grieve for Yosef, he can’t do that to his father again. His feelings go beyond an obligation, the fact that he has to bring Binyomin back because he promised he would. Yehuda also needs to bring Binyomin back because he literally cannot bear to see the anguish on his father’s face and to realize he caused it.
Yehuda has learned to focus on people outside of himself- to feel empathy for another’s pain. And that was the lesson Yosef was trying to teach him all along.
TRANSITION
Seeing his once proud brother step forward and humbly offer to take Binyomin’s place- to take a a son of Rachel’s place- undid Yosef. “Take everyone away from me!” Yosef ordered so that no one else would be in the room aside from him and his brothers.
After everyone exited the premises, Yosef wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him.
And Yosef said to his brothers, “I am Yosef! Is my father still alive?” but his brothers could not answer him because they were ashamed in front of him.
Why did Yosef ask his brothers if his father was still alive? Obviously he knew he was since that was the point that Yehuda had just been making- that Yaakov was alive, but barely, ever since the loss of Yosef, and that losing Binyomin would finish him off completely. There are a variety of approaches the commentators take to this question, but the simplest is that Yosef was trying to engage his brothers in conversation by asking them a simple question that they knew the answer to. He was trying to show them they did not have to be afraid of him.
Yosef saw that the brothers were not responding to his question because they were ashamed. Therefore, he continued talking. “Please come closer to me,” he said, and they came closer to him. “I am your brother Yosef, whom you sold to Egypt. But now, do not be sad, and do not be troubled that you sold me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me before you. You see, there have already been two years of famine, and there will be five more, and God sent me before you to prepare the way. It was not really you who sent me here, but God, and God made me a lord in Egypt.”
What Yosef is referencing here is something we refer to as Yad Hashem, the Hand of God. When Yosef was living through his miserable, awful experiences- hated by his brothers, thrown into a pit, sold as a slave, falsely accused by his master’s wife, thrown into jail, forgotten by the cupbearer- he believed in God and believed God was with him. He did not yet understand God’s plan for him but he believed there was a reason that all of this pain was happening to him.
And then it became clear. The reason for all that had happened was so that Yosef would be in the right place, at the right time, to save people’s lives. If Yosef had not been in Egypt he would not have been able to interpret Pharoah’s dream. He would not have been able to give Pharoah advice regarding the need to store the extra grain and food so that they would be able to use it during the years of famine. Because Yosef WAS there he was able to save the lives of the Egyptians and also the lives of his own family members, who also needed that food.
This is directly applicable to our own lives. There are times that we go through periods of darkness, periods of pain, and we don’t know why these bad things are happening to us. Of course, we should do everything we can to try to fix them- tell a parent or a trusted adult and see whether they can help us. But if it is a situation where nothing can be done, then the question becomes- why have *I* been chosen to live through this situation? And the answer is likely that there is something for you to learn, something extraordinary that you will gain that will help you help others later on in your life.
That is what happened to Yosef, and that is what he is explaining to his brothers in this scene. They think that they were the ones who sold him, but they were only able to sell him because it was the will of God. All along, God had a plan- a plan to make Yosef into someone who could save other people’s lives.
TRANSITION
Yosef continued speaking to his brothers, urging them to go up immediately to his father. “Tell him,” he said, “that Yosef said ‘God has made me a lord over all of Egypt. Come down quickly. And you,” meaning the entire Israelite family, “will live in Goshen, and you shall be near me, your children and grandchildren and flocks and cattle. I will give you food while you are there during the five years of famine.” He spoke directly to his brothers then, “For your eyes see, as do those of my brother Binyomin, that it is my mouth speaking to you. And you shall tell my father of all my honor in Egypt and all you have seen and you will go quickly and bring my father down here.”
Then Yosef hugged Binyomin and cried on his neck and Binyomin cried on Yosef’s neck as well. And Yosef kissed all his brothers and cried as he did so, and after that, his brothers spoke to him. Rashi explains that it was only after they saw that he really did not feel hatred for them and in fact felt love towards them that they were able to speak to him.
Pharoah found out that Yosef’s brothers had come to Egypt. He told Yosef to tell his brothers to bring their father and their family to Egypt. Pharoah promised he would give them the best of the land to live on. Pharoah also said that Yosef should send wagons to Eretz Yisrael because it would be easier to transport the women and young children back to Egypt in wagons.
Yosef gave his brothers the wagons. He also gave them food for the journey back home. He gave them each changes of clothing, but to Binyomin he gave three hundred pieces of silver and five changes of clothes.
Why, you may ask, did Yosef treat Binyomin differently from his other brothers? After all, isn’t that how all the trouble began in the first place- when his father gave him, Yosef, a multicolored coat that none of the other brothers got?
Perhaps it was to show the brothers that Yosef truly believed in their transformation. Yosef felt secure that he could give his full-blooded brother, Binyomin, extra gifts without his brothers being jealous.
Yosef sent his father ten male donkeys carrying the best of the land of Egypt and ten female donkeys carrying grain, bread and other food. Yosef sent his brothers off and warned them not to argue with each other along the way. Why would they argue? Rashi offers several reasons. The simplest one is that the brothers would argue about whose fault it was that they had originally sold Yosef all those years ago- and Yosef didn’t want them to do that.
TRANSITION
The brothers came back to Eretz Yisrael and told their father that Yosef was still alive. They also told him that Yosef ruled the land of Egypt. But Yaakov could not believe them.
So the brothers spoke to him again and told him what Yosef had said and showed him the wagons Yosef had sent, and Yaakov believed it and he came back to life.
And Yaakov, who in the Parsha is now referred to by the name Yisrael, said, “I feel so much happiness and joy that Yosef is still alive! I will go see him before I die.”
Yaaakov traveled to Beer Sheva and offered up sacrifices to God. God appeared to him in a night vision and said “yaaakov, Yaakov!” And Yaakov said “Here I am.” God told Yaakov not to be afraid of going down to Egypt. He promised He would make Yaakov a great nation, go down with Yaakov and his family to Egypt and also bring them up once again.
So the whole family- all of Yaakov’s sons and daughters and their husbands, wives, children and grandchildren- went down to Egypt.
Yaakov sent Yehuda ahead of him to Yosef to direct him to Goshen, which was the land where Yaakov’s children, the Bnei Yisrael, were going to live.
Yosef harnessed his chariot and went up to meet his father, to Goshen. Yosef hugged him and cried on his neck and he wept on his neck for a long time.
Yaakov said “Now I can die and be at peace, for I have seen your face and you are still alive.”
TRANSITION
Yosef told his family that he would go tell Pharoah that they had arrived. He would also tell Pharoah that they were shepherds, and he urged them to tell Pharoah the same.
Why was it important that they say they were shepherds? Because this would ensure that the brothers would be left alone and would not be conscripted into Pharoah’s army. The sheep, according to Rashi, were an Egyptian god, and hence the Egyptians would not want to associate with shepherds (because shepherds eat their god). That meant Bnei Yisrael would be free to live their lives in peace in Goshen.
Yosef told Pharoah his brothers had arrived. He selected five of them to stand before Pharoah. Rashi explains Yosef took the five who seemed physically weak rather than strong, because if he had shown Pharoah strong men, Pharoah would have taken them to serve in the Egyptian army. Rashi says the five Yosef chose were Reuven, Shimon, Levi, Yissachar and Binyomin.
Phaorah asked the brothers, “What is your job?” and they told him they were shepherds and they requested to stay in the land of Goshen to pasture their sheep.
Pharoah spoke to Yosef and gave him permission to settle his brothers in Goshen. He also said that if any of his brothers were capable men, Yosef should set them up as in charge of Pharoah’s own animals and livestock.
TRANSITION
Then Yosef brought Yaakov before Pharoah.
Pharoah asked, “How old are you?”
Yaakov answered, “I am one hundred and thirty years old. The days of my life have been few and miserable and they have not reached the days of the years of my life of my forefathers.”
Yaakov had indeed had a difficult life. He had to run away from his brother Esav, who tried to kill him, live in the trickster Lavan’s house, got tricked into marrying Leah, had his beloved wife Rachel die, had his daughter Dina kidnapped, believed that Yosef had been killed, had Shimon imprisoned and was forced to send Binyomin down to Egypt. Perhaps what Yaakov was trying to say to Pharoah was that there was no reason for Pharoah to be jealous of his, Yaakov’s apparent long life, since though he seemed old his life had been filled with troubles.
Yaakov blessed Pharoah. According to Rashi, he blessed Pharoah that the Nile should rise at his approach and water the land, causing it to be fertile.
TRANSITION
And so Yosef settled his father and brothers in the land of Egypt. But he also fulfilled his duties as viceroy. As the famine increased in strength, Yosef collected the money the Egyptians paid for the food and gave the money to Pharoah.
When there was no more money, the Egyptians had to give Yosef their animals in trade for food.
When all the animals had been given over to Pharoah, the Egyptians had to either sell their farmland or become slaves, or do both.
When Yosef bought an Egyptian’s farmland, he would transfer that Egyptian to live somewhere else so that he would no longer think the land belonged to him.
Yosef did not buy the portion of land that belonged to the priests of Egypt because Pharoah had determined that a certain amount of food should be given to each priest. A priest is a person who engages in holy work in a particular religion. In Judaism, we call a priest a kohen and later on, when the Mishkan, or Tabernacle, would be built, our priests would serve God there.
Yosef told the Egyptians to sow the farmland he gave them (because now he owned both the farmland and the Egyptians as slaves) with seed. When the crops grew, ⅕ would have to go to Pharoah but the remaining ⅘ would be used as seed for the field, for food, for people in the house to eat and for the young children to eat.
The Egyptians were very grateful that Yosef had saved their lives.
And Bnei Yisrael grew and multiplied in the land of Goshen.
TRANSITION
So here’s what we learned today!
Yaakov and Binyomin had a special relationship that is only parallelled one other time in Tanakh - with Yonatan and David. Their souls were connected to each other such that if Binyomin did not come back safely, Yaakov would die.
Yosef’s tests demonstrated that Yehuda had changed. Yehuda had originally lacked empathy and had not understood the pain his father would feel upon believing Yosef had died. But now Yehuda did understand, so much so that he was willing to offer himself in Binyomin’s place.
After all the pain Yosef had been through, we could have understood if he was angry at his brothers. But Yosef chose to look at his life as being part of the Yad Hashem, the Hand of God. Yosef understood that God had a plan for him, and so, even though the brothers sold him, it was really God who had wanted Yosef to end up in Egypt. Because Yosef saw that everything in his life needed to happen in order for him to become the man who would be able to save so many lives, he was not upset with his brothers.
Even though Yaakov’s life was troubled and filled with difficulties, at least he was able to be reunited with his son Yosef, which brought him joy!
By the end of the parsha, Yosef had made Pharoah very wealthy because the Egyptians had given their money, their livestock, their farmland and finally themselves as slaves to Yosef on behalf of Pharaoh in order to get food.
If you have any questions or comments on this week’s episode, please email me at parsha4kids (at) gmail.com. That’s parsha the number 4 kids at gmail.com. Good Shabbos!