Category: VaYigash
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VaYigash 5786: Protective Presence
My father had two contenders for the “greatest man he ever met.” One was Winston Churchill who was also a passenger on the ocean liner that brought my father to America as an immigrant in 1949.…
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Vayigash 5785: Short & Bitter After the End of History
Avraham was the first individual whom the Torah describes as being elderly וְאַבְרָהָ֣ם זָקֵ֔ן בָּ֖א בַּיָּמִ֑ים but Yaakov was the first old Jewish man. Of course not every Jewish man who ages becomes an old Jewish…
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VaYigash 5782: “Approaching and Holding Back”
On the night of November 21st of 1196, a mob of crusaders burst into the home of Rabbi Elazer ben Yehudah Kalonymous, most famous for his book of Jewish ethics and practice, “The Perfumer” or Sefer…
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VaYigash 5780: “From the Maccabeats to Monsey: Standing Tall and Drawing Close”
Shannah Tovah. Just kidding. But a new decade does provide a chance to look back over the past ten years. In the days leading up to Hanukkah ten years ago a group of Yeshiva University students,…
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VaYigash 5778: “Leadership Under Pressure”
In Parashat VaYigash the story of Yosef and the story of Yehudah and the story of Yaakov all reach a climax. As these strands of the story are closer and closer breaded together, each of these heroes…
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VaYigash 5777: “The Winter’s Tale”
How do you recreate a relationship after a decade of forced separation? Shakespeare explored this question in The Winter’s Tale when King Leontes is reunited with his daughter, Perdita after the passage of sixteen years. The play ends…
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VaYigash 5775: “Short and Bitter Have Been the Years of My Life”
Where was the first Jewish homeland? I would wager that 99 our of 100 people would answer, “Eretz Yisrael.” Indeed, when Avraham reaches Eretz Canaan, God tells him, “to you I shall give this land.” We are…
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 