Parashat: Vayigash

Parashat: Vayigash
Torah Reading: Genesis 44:18–47:27

“’For how can I [Judah] go home to my father without the lad [Benjamin], and thus see the harm my father will suffer?'”

— Genesis 44:34

These are the final words of Judah’s soliloquy to the man he thought was only Pharoah’s Number 2, rather than his brother, Joseph. Judah is who had the idea to sell Joseph into slavery. Judah is who midrash tells us concocted the scheme to hide what they had done by faking an animal attack. Judah is who withheld his son from Tamar, as was her right, and then demanded she be burned for being unfaithful. This Judah is a new man: one willing to place himself into prison and slavery so that his father would not be bereaved. Judah shows us that change is, indeed, possible. One who thought only of himself has become one who only thinks of others. It is this change, this transformation that Joseph was seeking to see, and with those final words, the Torah immediately tells us that “Joseph could no longer restrain himself.” Forgiveness comes with change; reconciliation with the willingness to do what is right when it would be easy to do the wrong thing again.

— Rabbi Daniel Plotkin