Book of Common Prayer

Parashah 11: Vayigash (He approached) 44:18–47:27

¹⁸ Then Y’hudah approached Yosef and said, “Please, my lord! Let your servant say something to you privately; and don’t be angry with your servant, for you are like Pharaoh himself. ¹⁹ My lord asked his servants, ‘Do you have a father? or a brother?’ ²⁰ We answered my lord, ‘We have a father who is an old man, and a child of his old age, a little one whose brother is dead; so that of his mother’s children he alone is left; and his father loves him.’ ²¹ But you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me, so that I can see him.’ ²² We answered my lord, ‘The boy can’t leave his father; if he were to leave his father, his father would die.’ ²³ You said to your servants, ‘You will not see my face again unless your brother is with you.’ ²⁴ We went up to your servant my father and told him what my lord had said; ²⁵ but when our father said, ‘Go again, and buy us some food,’ ²⁶ we answered, ‘We can’t go down. Only if our youngest brother is with us will we go down, because we can’t see the man’s face unless our youngest brother is with us.’ ²⁷ Then your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons: ²⁸ the one went out from me, and I said, “Surely he has been torn to pieces,” and I haven’t seen him since. ²⁹ Now if you take this one away from me too, and something happens to him, you will bring my gray hair down to Sh’ol with grief.’ ³⁰ So now if I go to your servant my father, and the boy isn’t with us — seeing how his heart is bound up with the boy’s heart — (ii) ³¹ when he sees that the boy isn’t with us, he will die; and your servants will bring the gray hair of your servant our father down to Sh’ol with grief. ³² For your servant himself guaranteed his safety; I said, ‘If I fail to bring him to you, then I will bear the blame before my father forever.’ ³³ Therefore, I beg you, let your servant stay as a slave to my lord instead of the boy, and let the boy go up with his brothers. ³⁴ For how can I go up to my father if the boy isn’t with me? I couldn’t bear to see my father so overwhelmed by anguish.”

²⁵ Now the question about the unmarried: I do not have a command from the Lord, but I offer an opinion as one who by the Lord’s mercy is worthy to be trusted. ²⁶ I suppose that in a time of stress like the present it is good for a person to stay as he is. ²⁷ That means that if a man has a wife, he should not seek to be free of her; and if he is unmarried, he should not look for a wife. ²⁸ But if you marry you do not sin, and if a girl marries she does not sin. It is just that those who get married will have the normal problems of married life, and I would rather spare you. ²⁹ What I am saying, brothers, is that there is not much time left: from now on a man with a wife should live as if he had none — ³⁰ and those who are sad should live as if they weren’t, those who are happy as if they weren’t, ³¹ and those who deal in worldly affairs as if not engrossed in them — because the present scheme of things in this world won’t last much longer.

²¹ Yeshua crossed in the boat to the other side of the lake, and a great crowd gathered around him. ²² There came to him a synagogue official, Ya’ir by name, who fell at his feet ²³ and pleaded desperately with him, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Please! Come and lay your hands on her, so that she will get well and live!”

²⁴ He went with him; and a large crowd followed, pressing all around him. ²⁵ Among them was a woman who had had a hemorrhage for twelve years ²⁶ and had suffered a great deal under many physicians. She had spent her life savings; yet instead of improving, she had grown worse. ²⁷ She had heard about Yeshua, so she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his robe; ²⁸ for she said, “If I touch even his clothes, I will be healed.” ²⁹ Instantly the hemorrhaging stopped, and she felt in her body that she had been healed from the disease. ³⁰ At the same time, Yeshua, aware that power had gone out from him, turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?” ³¹ His talmidim responded, “You see the people pressing in on you; and still you ask, ‘Who touched me?’” ³² But he kept looking around to see who had done it. ³³ The woman, frightened and trembling, because she knew what had happened to her, came and fell down in front of him and told him the whole truth. ³⁴ “Daughter,” he said to her, “your trust has healed you. Go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

³⁵ While he was still speaking, people from the synagogue official’s house came, saying, “Your daughter has died. Why bother the rabbi any longer?” ³⁶ Ignoring what they had said, Yeshua told the synagogue official, “Don’t be afraid, just keep trusting.” ³⁷ He let no one follow him except Kefa, Ya‘akov and Yochanan, Ya‘akov’s brother. ³⁸ When they came to the synagogue official’s house, he found a great commotion, with people weeping and wailing loudly. ³⁹ On entering, he said to them, “Why all this commotion and weeping? The child isn’t dead, she’s just asleep!” ⁴⁰ And they jeered at him. But he put them all outside, took the child’s father and mother and those with him, and went in where the child was. ⁴¹ Taking her by the hand, he said to her, “Talita, kumi!” (which means, “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). ⁴² At once the girl got up and began walking around; she was twelve years old. Everybody was utterly amazed. ⁴³ He gave them strict orders to say nothing about this to anyone, and told them to give her something to eat.