Vayigash: יִּגַּשׁ Genesis 44:18 - 47:27 Equanimity ~ Menuchat HaNefesh ~מנוחת הנפש

What is the goal of inner spiritual work? Menuchat HaNefesh. One merits inner menucha only when one is at peace from all sides: At peace with one’s surroundings…with one’s self and with one’s Creator. ~Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, Alei Shur volume 1

The calls in Genesis (where are you? [Ayekhah] and who are you? [Me Atah]...prompt us to think about the meaning of our lives. We also have responses...such as here I am! [Hineni] that urge us to respond to the call to the here and now...RS

Quick Summary

Vayigash opens as Judah pleads with Joseph not to keep Benjamin as a prisoner. Joseph reveals his true identity to his brothers, crying and kissing them. The brothers bring Jacob from Canaan to Egypt, and Jacob and his children settle in Goshen. The portion ends as Joseph buys most of Egypt’s land in exchange for food.

• Judah approaches Joseph and pleads for the Benjamin's release, offering himself as a slave instead of his younger brother.
• Joseph sees this loyalty and reveals his true identity to his brothers, asking if his father, Jacob is still alive.
• Joseph assures them that the entire episode has been ordained by God to save them and the entire region from famine.
• The brothers go back to tell Jacob the news and he comes to Egypt with the entire family (70 souls) and receives promises from God.
• Jacob is reunited with Joseph after 22 years.
• Joseph sells food and seed during the famine and Pharaoh gives Jacob's family the area of Goshen to settle.
• The famine in Egypt worsens and the Egyptians use all of their money, animals, and land to buy food from Joseph.
• B'nai Yisrael prosper during their exile in Egypt.

נָגַשׁ (v) to draw near, approach

פיוס (n) reconciliaton

Reconciliation [הִתְפַּיְּסוּת]may be seen as part of a process of a relationship gone wrong, typically as the result of one party causing a rift, by putting an end a relationship of enmity and by substituting for one of peace and good will. This may be the relationship between individuals or between nations. ~Wikipedia

The International Reconciliation Coalition: "The path to reconciliation begins with individual acts of confession. Paradoxically, the greatest wounds in human history, the greatest injustices, have not happened through the acts of some individual perpetrator; rather through the institutions, systems, philosophies, cultures, religions and governments of humankind. Because of this, we, as individuals, are tempted to absolve ourselves of all individual responsibility. However, unless somebody chooses to identify themselves with corporate entities, such as the nation of our citizenship, or the subculture of our ancestors, the act of honest confession will never take place. This leaves us in a world of injury and offense in which no corporate sin is ever acknowledged, reconciliation never begins and old hatreds deepen"

Then came the letters Pe and Tzadi, and so on until the letter kaf. Once Kaf descended from the Crown (Heb. keter), the higher and lower worlds shook until all was established using the letter Bet, a sign of blessing (Heb. berachah) - and the world was created and constructed by it. ~Zohar, Vayigash

What are the implications of regarding the middah of Menuchat HaNefesh?

“A person's soul is the lamp of God; it seeks out all the hidden recesses.” At such times [i.e., when their mind is settled], a person has free choice and the control over their spirit to take the time to focus their thoughts upon exercising their sovereignty [over their animal spirit] and to devise strategies that activate or restrain their animal spirit for their personal benefit in this world and in the World to Come. However, when their mind is agitated, a fearful darkness falls upon them and their counsel and strength are taken from them. The forsaken animal spirit wanders aimlessly, stupefied in its distress, sinking into a lethargic sleep and falling prey to an illness which has no remedy. Or, a perverse animal spirit grabs hold of them, dragging them over thorns and briers, sometimes casting them both into a deep dark pit. ~Rabbi Menachem Mendel Leffin, Cheshbon HaNefesh

Context from final verses of Miketz:

The verb “he approached" implies a coming near for conciliation, as in the verse “Then the children of Judah approached Joshua” (Joshua 14:6). ~Rabbi Nechemiah Said Rabbi Yehudah: The verb “he approached” (vayigash) implies an approach to battle, as in the verse “So Joab and the people that were with him approached unto battle” (II Samuel 10:13). The sages said: It implies coming near for prayer, as in the verse “It came to pass, at the time of the evening offering, that Elijah the prophet approached . . .” (I Kings, 18:36).

It is known that concerning royal etiquette, the ministers and advisors sat before the king; and if a person came to speak about an issue or matter before the king, they would not stand past those advisors and directly next to the king; rather they would stand on the outer circle and speak from there. This was how Yehudah was speaking until this point. Then when “Yehudah approached,” it means he entered through the screen and stood between the king and the advisors, so that they wouldn’t hear what he said directly to the king. Or Ha-Hayyim 5, comments on Genesis 44:18.

...his brother being dead: he alone is left of his mother, and his father loves him. Judah either assumes that after more than twenty years of slavery in a foreign land Joseph is likely to be dead or he states Joseph's absence as death for the sake of rhetorical simplicity, to make clear that the son is irrevocably lost to his doting father. What is remarkable is that now Judah can bring himself, out of concern for his old father, to accept the painful fact of paternal favoritism ("and his father loves him") that was the root of the brothers' hostility to Joseph. ~Robert Alter, Genesis.

Ten times Joseph heard his brothers refer to his father as “your servant” and he did not protest. Because of this, his life was shortened by ten years. (Joseph lived 110 years.) ~Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer, ch. 39

Conversations in Tanakh are generally recorded in very succinct fashion, and rarely does any single person speak for more than a couple of consecutive verses. Yehuda's plea on behalf of Binyamin at the beginning of Parashat Vayigash is unusual in that it spans a full seventeen verses (Bereshit 44:18-34). In fact, it is the longest speech of any individual in all of Sefer Bereshit. What is the message of Yehuda's address, and why does he need to carry on for so long? ~www.alhatorah.org

Regarding the encounter between Judah and Joseph it is said: “Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water; but a man of understanding will draw it out” (Proverbs 20:5). This may be compared to a deep well full of cold and excellent water, but from which no one could drink. Then came one who tied cord to cord and thread to thread, drew up its water and drank, whereupon all drew water thus and drank thereof. In the same way, Judah did not cease from answering Joseph word for word, until he penetrated to his very heart. ~ Midrash Rabbah

Radak on Genesis 45:1:1

(1) ולא יכול, the repeated references by Yehudah to the mental anguish experienced by his aged father proved too much for Joseph to maintain his composure. It kindled his sense of compassion also towards his brothers so that he could not restrain himself from weeping. In order not to make a public spectacle of himself in front of people whom it did not directly concern, he ordered הוציאו כל איש מעלי, “remove everybody from my presence! The ones present not only left themselves but mad sure that no one entered until invited. Joseph had said after all, כל איש, “everybody!”

{Joseph] was the first cognitive therapist. He was the first to understand the concept of reframing, that is, seeing the negative events of his life in a new way, thereby liberating himself from depression and learned helplessness.

The moment at which he does so comes when moved by Judah’s passionate plea to let Benjamin return home to their father Jacob, he finally reveals himself to his brothers. ~Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l ,Vayigash: The First Psychologist

Come and see how beloved are Israel in the sight of G‑d! In every place to which they were exiled, the Divine Presence went with them. They were exiled to Egypt, and the Divine Presence was with them; they were exiled to Babylon, and the Divine Presence was with them; and when they will be redeemed in the future, the Divine Presence will be with them. ~ Talmud, Megillah 29a

More than any other character in the Torah, Joseph attributes all his achievements to God. This allows him to do what, in secular terms, Frankl, Beck and Seligman would all have advised him to do if he had been one of their patients: think of a mission he was being called on to fulfil (Frankl), reinterpret misfortune as possibility (Beck) and see the positive elements of his situation (Seligman). Not only was Joseph freed from a physical prison; he freed himself from an emotional prison, namely resentment toward his brothers. He now saw his life not in terms of a family drama of sibling rivalry, but as part of a larger movement of history as shaped by Divine Providence. ~ Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks z"l, Vayigash: The First Psychologist

Noting the singular form of the verbs used in Bereishit 46:29--לֹיּפִַּו) he fell) and בךְּיֵַּו) he wept)--the midrash argues that only one party disintegrated emotionally and wept abundantly, Yosef. As for Yaacov, he was busy dutifully reciting the Shema. Twenty two years of mourning and suffering for this beloved son, and he could not shed a tear upon seeing him. What a shocking and troubling demonstration of emotional paralysis. ~Rabbi Erin Smokler, Vayigash

After so much longing and yearning to see his beloved son, when [Yaacov] saw Yosef, and his love reached climactic heights, he worried that this potent love might supercede his love for God. So he strengthened himself with love of God precisely during this moment [of reunion] and recited the Shema, [saying] "And you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart [Deut. 6:5]." ~MaHaRaL, Gur Aryeh

Who is more likely to cry—an old father who finally finds his son alive after having given up on him and mourning for him, or the young son who is now a kind of king? ~ Ramban

Yaacov, on this model, becomes another Avraham, another "knight of faith," sacrificing filial relationships on the altar of the divine. The moment of reunion is nothing short of akeidat Yosef (the binding of Yosef). One akeida, though, seems more than enough for one tradition to contend with. The sublimation of human love to divine love unfortunately led and continues to lead to so much heartbreak and so much violence. Rather than strip our spiritual teachers of tears, and deny them human attachments, it would seem that a good cry and a tight connection to others is precisely what we need to ground compassion and balanced righteousness. ~Rabbi Erin Smokler, Vayigash

...the gate of tears opened to Yosef from the moment that he spotted his estranged brothers in Egypt (see Bereishit 42:24) and would continue through the death of Yaacov (see Bereishit 50:17). Over and over again, eight times in all, we hear of the bechi, the weeping, of Yosef. All that pent-up pain of 22 years finally found release, and he simply could not stop crying. His encounter with his father, climactic as it was, was one very large part of this catharsis. The story of Yosef's tears and Yaacov's dry eyes, then, is not a story of the sacrifice of emotions per se, but is rather a meditation on the many pathways people take to cope with and to heal from pain. ~Rabbi Erin Smokler, Vayigash

Therefore, one must strengthen oneself greatly to preserve this precious torch, to hold fast to it and protect it always. The torch is the trait of equanimity which protects one from many evils and stands by them at their time of need. However, the trait itself is prone to many grave maladies. There are people who become mentally unbalanced when they hear news - either good or bad or when they experience unexpected pain or pleasure. Moreover, there are weak-minded people who lose their equilibrium with the slightest change in their regular routine; e.g., if their chair or table is moved from one room to another, or if they find themselves in the company of people who do not know them, or if they, are asked to serve as the prayer leader or to speak in public when they have never done so. Those who are afflicted in this manner must cure themselves by undertaking a regimen of conditioning and should include the trait of equanimity as one of the 13 traits that they seek to rectify. ~Rabbi Mordechai Mendel Leffin, Cheshbon HaNefesh, 69