Parshas Vayigash Erev Shabbos Shabbos Day Mincha 6:45pm Shacharis 9:00am Plag Hamincha 7:03pm Latest time for Shema 9:32am Latest Candle lighting 8:17pm Shabbos Mincha 4:30 / 8:05pm Shkiya 8:34pm Shabbos Ends 9:24pm Reminder - please register for Shabbos Short Vort on the Parsha In this week's Parsha we have the dramatic climax of the story of Yosef and his brothers. After all that has gone on and Yosef sees the reaction of the brothers to the thought that Binyomin might remain in Egypt. He can no longer conceal his identity. He sends everyone else out, and only he and his brothers remain. "I am Yosef, is my father still alive?" "And his brothers could not answer him, because they were devastated before him." The Gemara in Chagiga (4b) says as follows; "When Rabbi Elazar came to this passage he cried...'if the rebuke of people is such (that Yosef's brothers were so devastated by his rebuke), the rebuke of G-d, how much more so'." Rabbi Avraham Pam, asks, what was Yosef's rebuke to his brothers? Didn't he just say "I am Yosef"? There are many explanations given, Rav Pam offers his own explanation of what Yosef's rebuke was. "I am Yosef." I'm the Yosef that you hated and denigrated. You didn't consider who I really might be. You didn't think that my dreams would be completely fulfilled. You never imagined that I would end up being the 2nd in command in Egypt! In your wildest dreams you never thought that I would be Hashem's messenger to save the entire land with food during these years of famine!! Can you imagine that you sold such a person as a slave, with such a mission in life!! Rav Pam concludes that the lesson to us is that in our view of others, and in our view of ourselves, we need to understand that we often attribute much less worth than what is truly there. We often treat others with much less respect than what is due to them. Imagine how we will feel when we see how special these people really are!