Parashat Vayigash (Genesis 44–47): Summary and Commentary

Parashat Vayigash (“and he approached”) is the eleventh portion of the book of Bereshit (Genesis 44:18–47:27) and is read on the Shabbat of December 19, 2026. It is also spelled Vayigash, Vaigash or Vayiggash. It takes its name from the first words: “And Yehudah approached him” (44:18).

The tradition proposes reading each portion in four steps: what the text says, what it hints at, what the sages explain and what it conceals. Let us take them in turn.

Peshat: the simple meaning

Let us begin with what the text says, adding nothing to it.

The portion begins with a long and careful speech. Yehudah repeats what happened word for word, from when Yosef asked about the father and another brother (44:19-20) to his promise to be surety (44:32). And it ends with an offer: “Let your servant remain instead of the boy as a slave to my lord, and let the boy go up with his brothers” (44:33).

Yosef’s reaction is immediate: “Yosef could not restrain himself before all who stood beside him, and he cried out: Have everyone leave me!” (45:1). He wept so loudly that “the Egyptians heard it and the house of Pharaoh heard it” (45:2). And his first words to his brothers are a question about the father: “I am Yosef. Is my father still alive?” (45:3).

What Yosef says next is not a reproach: “Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves for having sold me here; for God sent me ahead of you to preserve life” (45:5). And he repeats it: “It was not you who sent me here, but God” (45:8).

The journey follows. Yosef sends his brothers off with a sentence: “Do not quarrel on the way” (45:24). Yaakov, on hearing the news, “was stunned, for he did not believe them” (45:26); but on seeing the wagons that Yosef had sent, “the spirit of Yaakov their father revived” (45:27).

Before going down, Yaakov offers sacrifices in Beer Sheva, and Hashem speaks to him: “Do not fear to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also surely bring you up” (46:3-4). The text lists seventy persons (46:27).

The reunion is brief. Yosef “fell on his neck and wept on his neck for a long time” (46:29), and Yaakov says: “Now I can die, having seen your face” (46:30). When Pharaoh asks his age, Yaakov answers: “The years of my sojourning are a hundred and thirty; few and evil have been the days of the years of my life” (47:9).

The portion ends with Israel settled in Goshen, “and they multiplied greatly” (47:27).

Remez: what the letters hint at

Remez means “hint.” Here the reading pauses on letters and numbers: on how a word, when the value of its letters is added up (gematria), coincides with another that illuminates its meaning. The great collector of these hints is the Baal HaTurim, Rabbi Yaakov ben Asher (13th–14th centuries), author of the Arba Turim. In Vayigash he points out, among others, these seven.

The first, in the approach. “Vayigash elav Yehudah” (ויגש אליו יהודה, 44:18) adds up to 396, and “zehu lehilachem im Yosef” (זהו להלחם עם יוסף), “this is to fight with Yosef,” adds up to 397: with the kolel, they match.

The second, in the same words. Their final letters form shaveh (שוה), “equal”: the Baal HaTurim says that Yehudah wanted to tell him that he was equal to him, that if Yosef was a king, so was he.

The third, in the comparison. “Kamocha kePharo” (כמוך כפרעה), “you are like Pharaoh” (44:18), adds up to 461, the same as “becha atchil” (בך אתחיל), “I will begin with you.”

The fourth, in the secret. “Eineichem ro’ot” (עיניכם רואות), “your eyes see” (45:12), adds up to 813, and “vehereitI lachem hamilah” (והראיתי לכם המילה), “and I showed you the circumcision,” adds up to 812: with the kolel, they match. And Rashi says the same: that he showed himself circumcised like them.

The fifth, in the sign. “Ki pi hamedaber aleichem” (כי פי המדבר אליכם), “for it is my mouth that speaks to you” (45:12), adds up to 472, and “be’eglah arufah” (בעגלה ערופה), “in the case of the heifer whose neck is broken,” adds up to 471: with the kolel, they match. It is the same sign Rashi mentions: the portion that Yosef and Yaakov had been discussing when they parted.

The sixth, in the road. “Aleihem al tirgezu baderech” (אליהם אל תרגזו בדרך), “to them: do not quarrel on the way” (45:24), adds up to 959, and “zehu al tifse’u pesi’ah gasah” (זהו אל תפסעו פסיעה גסה), “this is: do not take long strides,” adds up to 958: with the kolel, they match.

The seventh, in the land. “Bemitav ha’aretz” (במיטב הארץ), “in the best of the land” (47:6), adds up to 359, the same as Goshen (גושן).

Drash: the teaching of the sages

Rashi, with the Midrash and the Talmud, gathers here the lessons of the sages.

“You are like Pharaoh.” Rashi gives three readings of Yehudah’s sentence. One, simple: “you are as important to me as a king.” Another, from the Midrash: “you will end up struck with leprosy like Pharaoh, for a night on which he held my grandmother Sarah.” And another: “Pharaoh decrees and does not fulfill; he promises and does not do; and you, the same.” Yehudah speaks harshly, and Rashi deduces it from his request: “let not your anger burn.”

Yosef’s delicacy. “And Yosef could not restrain himself” (45:1). Rashi says why he had everyone leave: he could not bear that the Egyptians be there hearing his brothers be put to shame when he made himself known to them.

“Your eyes see.” When Yosef says to his brothers “your eyes see,” Rashi explains: they see my glory, and that I am circumcised like you, and furthermore that it is my mouth that speaks to you in the holy tongue.

“Do not quarrel on the way.” Rashi gives two readings from the Midrash: do not become absorbed in halachic discussions so that the road does not stir you up, or do not take long strides nor enter the city enraged. And, according to the simple meaning, Yosef feared that, ashamed, they would argue on the road over his sale, accusing one another.

The sign of the wagons. The text says that Yaakov saw “the wagons that Yosef had sent” (45:27). Rashi explains: Yosef gave them a sign about what he and his father had been studying when they parted, the portion of the heifer whose neck is broken (eglah arufah), and the text alludes to it with the word “wagons” (agalot), which points to eglah, “heifer.” And on seeing them, “the spirit of Yaakov revived”: the Presence, which had withdrawn from him, came to rest on him again.

The embrace. “And he wept on his neck for a long time” (46:29). Rashi relates that Yosef wept far more than usual, but that Yaakov did not fall on his neck or kiss him, because, the sages say, he was reciting the Shema.

Sod: what is hidden

The Zohar

The Zohar opens the portion with a scene of creation. Rabbi Elazar relates that, on the sixth day, when the human being was to be created, the Torah came before the Holy One and said: “This man whom You want to create will anger You; if You were not patient, it would be better that he not exist.” And Hashem answered: “Is it in vain that I am called erech apayim, ‘slow to anger’?” It is the same patience that Yehudah asks for when he says “let not your anger burn.”

Then, the Zohar pauses on why it was Yehudah who approached. Rabbi Elazar says: because he was the surety, “your servant became surety for the boy” (44:32). And there is a secret: Yosef is “the righteous one,” Yehudah is “the king,” and it was necessary for them to draw near. Their closeness brought peace among the tribes, and revived Yaakov’s spirit, as the text says: “and the spirit of Yaakov their father revived” (45:27). And that union was necessary on every plane: above and below.

The two sides of the tree: Yosef and Yehudah

In the language of the sefirot, “the righteous one” is Yesod, the foundation, and “the king” is Malchut, the kingdom. You can see where they sit in the guide to the sefirot. What the Zohar teaches is that what brought life to Yaakov was not the victory of one over the other, but that the two drew near.

More weekly commentary in the list of parashiot.