The OrQuest app tells two stories from Parashat Vayigash (Judah’s plea and Joseph revealing himself to his brothers) and explains one of its passages verse by verse.
When it is read in Israel
9 Tevet 5787
9 Tevet 5788
5 Tevet 5789
9 Tevet 5790
This calendar runs until 21 September 2030.
The Israeli reading calendar is from Hebcal (CC BY 4.0), checked against Sefaria.
So now, please, let your servant stay as a slave to my lord in place of the lad, and let the lad go up with his brothers.
What it teaches
Self-sacrifice. Giving up what is most precious to you for the sake of Heaven or of someone else.
Yehuda is ready to give up his own freedom so the lad can go up with his brothers to their father. The Torah shows here a self-sacrifice born of responsibility: a man who vouched for another keeps his word, whatever it costs him. It also grows from being unable to watch his father come to harm.
The lesson
Whoever truly vouches for someone is ready to take their place.
Yosef reveals himself to the brothers who sold him and asks them not to be distressed.
What it teaches
Forgiveness. Letting go of anger towards someone who hurt you, and starting afresh.
Yosef asks his brothers to come close, and tells them plainly that they sold him into Egypt. Right after that he asks them not to be distressed or angry about it, and promises to provide for the whole family. The Torah teaches that forgiveness does not pretend nothing happened, and still chooses to draw the other person close.
The lesson
Someone who truly forgives cares even about the pain of the one who hurt them.
Yosef drops the disguise before his brothers, names what they did to him and tells them God sent him ahead to keep them alive.
For children, teens and adults
The brothers have come down to Egypt for food and have been put through a long, bewildering ordeal by a ruler they do not recognise. Yehudah has just offered to stay as a slave in Binyamin’s place. Now Yosef sends every Egyptian out of the room, and what follows is the first thing he says with nobody else listening, after twenty-two years of deciding what it would be.
The verses are from Miqra according to the Masorah (Wikisource, CC BY-SA 4.0), via Sefaria, without the cantillation marks. On this site the four-letter Name is written ה׳.
