Vayigash: Bechira בחירה points וַיִּגַּשׁ Genesis 44:18 - 47:27

(14) When Judah and his brothers reentered the house of Joseph, who was still there, they threw themselves on the ground before him.(15) Joseph said to them, “What is this deed that you have done? Do you not know that a man like me practices divination?”(16) Judah replied, “What can we say to my lord? How can we plead, how can we prove our innocence? God has uncovered the crime of your servants. Here we are, then, slaves of my lord, the rest of us as much as he in whose possession the goblet was found.”(17) But he replied, “Far be it from me to act thus! Only the one in whose possession the goblet was found shall be my slave; the rest of you go back in peace to your father.”

(18) Then Judah went up to him and said, “Please, my lord, let your servant appeal to my lord, and do not be impatient with your servant, you who are the equal of Pharaoh.

(19) My lord asked his servants, ‘Have you a father or another brother?’(20) We told my lord, ‘We have an old father, and there is a child of his old age, the youngest; his full brother is dead, so that he alone is left of his mother, and his father dotes on him.’(21) Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me, that I may set eyes on him.’(22) We said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father; if he were to leave him, his father would die.’(23) But you said to your servants, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, do not let me see your faces.’

(24) When we came back to your servant my father, we reported my lord’s words to him.(25) “Later our father said, ‘Go back and procure some food for us.’(26) We answered, ‘We cannot go down; only if our youngest brother is with us can we go down, for we may not show our faces to the man*show our faces to the man Lit. “see the [salient] participant’s face.” unless our youngest brother is with us.’(27) Your servant my father said to us, ‘As you know, my wife bore me two sons.(28) But one is gone from me, and I said: Alas, he was torn by a beast! And I have not seen him since.(29) If you take this one from me, too, and he meets with disaster, you will send my white head down to Sheol in sorrow.’(30) “Now, if I come to your servant my father and the boy is not with us—since his own life is so bound up with his—(31) when he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die, and your servants will send the white head of your servant our father down to Sheol in grief.(32) Now your servant has pledged himself for the boy to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, I shall stand guilty before my father forever.’(33) Therefore, please let your servant remain as a slave to my lord instead of the boy, and let the boy go back with his brothers.(34) For how can I go back to my father unless the boy is with me? Let me not be witness to the woe that would overtake my father!”

(1) Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone withdraw from me!” So there was no one else about when Joseph made himself known to his brothers.(2) His sobs were so loud that the Egyptians could hear, and so the news reached Pharaoh’s palace.

(14) With that he embraced*embraced Lit. “fell on.” his brother Benjamin around the neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck.(15) He kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; only then were his brothers able to talk to him.(16) The news reached Pharaoh’s palace: “Joseph’s brothers have come.” Pharaoh and his courtiers were pleased.(17) And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Say to your brothers, ‘Do as follows: load up your beasts and go at once to the land of Canaan.

(2) Ben Azzai said: Be quick in performing a minor commandment as in the case of a major one, and flee from transgression; For one commandment leads to another commandment, and transgression leads to another transgression; For the reward for performing a commandment is another commandment and the reward for committing a transgression is a transgression.

(1) So Israel set out with all that was his, and he came to Beer-sheba, where he offered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac’s [house].(2) God called to Israel in a vision by night: “Jacob! Jacob!” He answered, “Here.”(3) “I am God, the God of your father’s [house]. Fear not to go down to Egypt, for I will make you there into a great nation.(4) I Myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I Myself will also bring you back; and Joseph’s hand shall close your eyes.”

(29) Joseph ordered*ordered Lit. “hitched.” his chariot and went to Goshen to meet his father Israel; he presented himself to him and, embracing him around the neck, he wept on his neck a good while.

(20) So Joseph gained possession of all the farm land of Egypt for Pharaoh, all the Egyptians having sold their fields because the famine was too much for them; thus the land passed over to Pharaoh.(21) And he removed the population town by town, from one end of Egypt’s border to the other.

(24) And when harvest comes, you shall give one-fifth to Pharaoh, and four-fifths shall be yours as seed for the fields and as food for you and those in your households, and as nourishment for your children.”(25) And they said, “You have saved our lives! We are grateful to my lord, and we shall be serfs to Pharaoh.”(26) And Joseph made it into a land law in Egypt, which is still valid, that a fifth should be Pharaoh’s; only the land of the priests did not become Pharaoh’s.(27) Thus Israel settled in the country of Egypt, in the region of Goshen; they acquired holdings in it, and were fertile and increased greatly.