What Happened in Mitzrayim? - Rabbi Reuven Taragin

is the climax of the three parshiot that deal with the tension between yosef and his brothers we began in parashat fayeshev by seeing how much the brothers hated yosef to the point that they were willing to consider killing him and actually sold him into slavery in egypt parashat my case yosef ascends to the viceroy of egypt and the brothers are forced to bow before him seeking food to stay alive after binyamin is caught with the with the goblet we now read in parashat vayigas how yehudah petitions yosef to allow bin yaman to return to the aging father yaakov in eretz kenan yosef can no longer control himself and he's forced to admit his true identity and this obviously is a climactic moment the brothers are totally blown away [Music] they couldn't answer him they were totally bewildered all of their assumptions were wrong but this parsha is much more of a turning point in the sense that yosef not only reveals his identity but changes the whole narrative he tells the brothers that the solution to what's happening is not going to be allowing them to return to its kanan but the whole family including yaakov now coming down to egypt and the question is where this reversal comes from if we look carefully at the circum the beginning of perikman hey yosef asks his brothers to draw close he tells them not to be sad not to be angry about what happened you may have wanted to sell me into slavery but god saw it as a way of sending me to keep us all alive and he continues in passage there's been a famine for two years and there are another five pending hello [Music] god sent me not only to keep you alive but here in egypt to help us turn into the great people we avraham our grandfather was told our great grandfather that we would become you're not the ones who sent me here it's god and he put me in charge of all this in order to facilitate the growth of the jewish people we see here in yosef not only turning a lemon into lemonade but being able to see in the lemons god's will and not only when it's an action when it's an occurrence that happens on its own but even when human beings take action and do something negative to be able to see the god god's will in it the silver lining and the goal of what's meant to be let's think about this as we live our lives and seek the hand of god in the direction that god wants us to go in in all kinds of circumstances [Music]