פָּרָשַׁת וַיִּגַּשׁ

Parshat Vayigash tells us how Yosef and his brothers were reconciled and how Yaakov's family came down to Mitzrayim. Yehudah steps forward and pleads for Binyamin, recounting their father's grief and offering himself as a slave in the boy's place. Yosef can hold back no longer; he sends everyone out, weeps aloud, and says, "I am Yosef. Is my father still alive?" He tells his brothers not to be grieved: it was Hashem who sent him ahead of them to preserve life through the famine. He embraces Binyamin and all his brothers, and Pharaoh, pleased, invites the whole family to settle in the best of the land. Yosef sends them home with wagons, provisions and gifts, and Yaakov's spirit revives at the news that Yosef is alive.

Yisrael offers sacrifices at Be'er Sheva, and Hashem tells him in a vision not to fear going down to Mitzrayim: He will make him a great nation there and will bring him up again. The Torah lists the seventy souls of the house of Yaakov who come to Mitzrayim. Yosef meets his father in Goshen and weeps on his neck. He presents his brothers and then his father to Pharaoh, who grants them Goshen; Yaakov blesses Pharaoh and describes his 130 years as few and bad. As the famine deepens, Yosef acquires the money, the livestock and the land of Mitzrayim for Pharaoh and sets the law of the fifth. The parsha ends with Yisrael settled in Goshen, taking hold of the land and multiplying greatly. The exile has begun, but under Hashem's promise to bring them out.