The parashot are the weekly Torah portions that developed over time to structure public Scripture reading in Jewish worship. While public reading of the Torah is rooted in the Bible itself as seen in Nehemiah 8, the division of the Torah into regular portions took shape during the days following Ezra. 

This led to an annual reading reading cycle. By the first centuries after the birth of our Messiah, the Torah was divided into 54 parashot so the entire Torah could be read in a year. Each parsha was paired with a related Haftarah from the Prophets. This system created a shared rhythm of worship and study that unified Jewish communities across the world and ensured continual engagement with the whole Torah.

So our kinsmen around the world have been reading since Sunday Parashat VayigashGenesis 44:18–47; Haftarah Ezekiel 37 And that is what I will be speaking on this morning.

Introduction

This Shabbat we stand at a threshold. One year is closing and another is about to begin. For many, a new year brings reflection, resolutions, and the hope that what lies ahead might be better than what has been left behind. 

We instinctively know that endings and beginnings matter. Yet Scripture reminds us that God’s way of renewal is very different from the world’s. 

The Bible doesn’t invite us to turn the page and forget what came before. Instead, God calls us to face the past honestly, to acknowledge where there has been sin, division, or pain, and to trust Him to redeem what we cannot undo.

That’s why Parashat Vayigash is such a fitting portion as we enter a new year. Its name means drawing near. 

Before anything can be restored, someone must step forward. 

Before reconciliation can take place, truth must be faced. 

Before unity can be experienced, humility must lead the way.

In this parsha, two sons of Jacob stand at the center of Israel’s history – Judah and Joseph.

The parsha begins as Judah draws near carrying the weight of the past, not to excuse it, but to take responsibility for it.

While Joseph reveals what had been hidden by his brothers, not to shame, but to heal.

God shows us that new beginnings are not created by erasing history, but by redeeming it.

The Haftarah from Ezekiel 37 carries this same theme but looking forward. God does not pretend the division between Judah and Joseph never happened. Instead, He takes what was broken and bring healing and restoration. 

As we begin a new year, this is the kind of renewal God offers to those who will fully come to Him. Not a superficial change, but deep reconciliation. Not human resolve, and resolutions but a restoration done by God through His Spirit.

Drawing Near Is the First Step Toward Renewal

Genesis 44:18-22 tells us that Judah drew near to Joseph. 

Then Judah approached him, and said, “Oh my lord, may your servant please speak a word in my lord’s ears, and do not be angry with your servant; for you are equal to Pharaoh. My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have you a father or a brother?’ We said to my lord, ‘We have an old father and a little child of his old age. Now his brother is dead, so he alone is left of his mother, and his father loves him.’ Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me that I may set my eyes on him.’ But we said to my lord, ‘The lad cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.’

This act was courageous and costly. Judah doesn’t step forward to defend himself or justify the past. The brothers have already begun to realize that what is happening to them is connected to their sin against Joseph and their father.

But Judah as a mensch steps forward to take responsibility.

Benjamin is being held by a disguised Joseph. He is the only remaining son of Rachel, the love of Jacob’s life. The other brothers were born into a disfunctional family filled with rivalry and jealousy that marked Jacob’s household for years.

Judah, the son of Leah, doesn’t deny the past. He confronts it. He offers himself as a substitute for Benjamin. This is repentance in action.

Renewal and revival begins when God’s people stop denying their past sin and even their family’s sin, and its consequences and begin drawing near to the God who sees and knows all.

As we enter a new year, this is where renewal and revival begin. Not with resolutions, but with reflection. Not with excuses, but with confession. Not with forgetting, but with repentance.

This is illustrated by Daniel’s prayer: 9:4ff: 

Alas, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, we have sinned, committed iniquity, acted wickedly and rebelled, even turning aside from Your commandments and ordinances. Moreover, we have not listened to Your servants the prophets, who spoke in Your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers and all the people of the land. “Righteousness belongs to You, O Lord, but to us open shame, as it is this day—

In The Haftarah we learn that God Heals What Sin has Divided This is why Ezekiel 37 is paired with Vayigash.

God commands the prophet to take two sticks and join them into one.

One stick represents Judah.

The other represents Joseph, or Ephraim (Israel).

These two kingdoms had been divided for centuries. Judah in the South and the 10 Northern Tribes in the North. 

Yet here through Ezekiel God declares that He Himself will reunite what sin and rebellion divided.

The emphasis is not on human effort. Ezek. 37:15-17: The word of the LORD came again to me saying, “And you, son of man, take for yourself one stick and write on it, ‘For Judah and for the sons of Israel, his companions’; then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and all the house of Israel, his companions.’ Then join them for yourself one to another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand.

Unifying the twelve tribes will not be achieved through negotiation or politics. It will be accomplished by God alone, by the work of His Spirit, and fulfilled through His promised King Jesus.

Judah Points Us to the Messiah

Judah’s humility points beyond himself. Just as Judah offered himself for Benjamin, a far greater Son of Judah would humble Himself to offer His life not just for Israel but for all the nations.

Yeshua did not cling to His status or power. He emptied Himself, took the form of a servant, and became obedient even to death.

Through His humility came healing. Through His sacrifice came freedom.

God Reveals Truth in Order to Heal

In Genesis 45:4-8, Joseph finally reveals himself.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Please come closer to me.” And they came closer. And he said, “I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. Now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant in the earth, and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. Now, therefore, it was not you who sent me here, but God;

He does not accuse.

He does not shame.

He speaks the truth with love and grace.

Joseph like Judah also displays the characteristics of Yeshua.

Joseph tells them What his brothers meant for evil, God used to preserve life. 

Truth revealed by God is never meant to crush. It is meant to heal.

Ezekiel declares this same truth looking into the future of Israel. God then will expose the wounds that divided, not to shame His people, but to restore them. We see that future day in Zechariah 12:10 

I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.

A new year is an invitation to allow God’s Word to speak truth into our past so that old wounds can be healed.

God Uses Suffering to Preserve His Covenant

Joseph understood that his suffering was not meaningless. God sent him ahead to preserve life.

Ezekiel promises an everlasting covenant of peace. God’s purposes are not undone by betrayal, exile, or hardship. They are often accomplished through them.

The shaking of our world and the rise of antisemitism should not cause us to doubt God’s sovereignty. God remains on His throne. These events are not signs of abandonment, but part of His redemptive plan leading toward the return of Yeshua.

Reconciliation Produces Fruitfulness

Genesis 46 and 47 show the fruit of reconciliation.

Jacob is reunited with his beloved son Joseph. What he believed was dead is alive. Joy returns. Hope is restored.

Though they are not yet in the Promised Land, God’s presence in Egypt causes them to flourish. 

This mirrors Ezekiel 37:11-14. Where God breathes life into what appears dead.

Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, My people. I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life, and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the LORD, have spoken and done it,” declares the LORD.’”

Provision comes before full restoration.

Life comes before land.

Renewal comes before return.

One People Under One King

Ezekiel 37:26-27 declares that Judah and Joseph will be one nation under one King.

My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd; and they will walk in My ordinances and keep My statutes and observe them. They will live on the land that I gave to Jacob My servant, in which your fathers lived; and they will live on it, they, and their sons and their sons’ sons, forever; and David My servant will be their prince forever.

Past divisions will not define the future.

Yeshua is The Shepherd King. Under His reign, what was broken is healed. What was separated is made one.

Conclusion

Parashat Vayigash reminds us that God specializes in new beginnings rooted in redeemed histories. He does not discard the past. He transforms it.

As we step into a new year

May we, like Judah, draw near

May we, like Joseph, trust God’s sovereignty that He works all things together for good. 

And may we, like Ezekiel’s vision, move forward together as one people under one King. Jew and Gentile one in messiah one in the Olive Tree. 

God is still writing a redemptive story.

The question is not whether God is at work.

The question is whether we will draw near and take part in it.

Let us pray.