Parasha Vayeshev

par le Rav Raphaël Benizri

Parasha Vayeshev (וישב) — Bereshit 37:1 – 40:23. Read on Shabbat, December 5, 2026.

Summary of Parasha Vayeshev

Yaakov settles in the land of Canaan. Yosef, seventeen years old, is his father’s favorite son, and Yaakov gives him a coat of many colors. He brings his father evil reports about his brothers and tells them two dreams: sheaves bowing down to his own, and then the sun, the moon and eleven stars bowing down to him. His brothers envy and hate him. Sent by Yaakov to see them, Yosef is stripped of his coat and thrown into an empty pit. At Yehudah’s suggestion, he is sold to a caravan and taken down to Egypt. The brothers dip the coat in the blood of a young goat; Yaakov, believing Yosef has been devoured, refuses to be comforted. The narrative then turns to Yehudah: after the death of his sons Er and Onan, he does not give his third son to Tamar; she veils herself and conceives by Yehudah, who in the end acknowledges: “She is more righteous than I.” Peretz and Zerach are born. In Egypt, Yosef prospers in the house of Potiphar, for G-d is with him. He rejects the advances of his master’s wife, who falsely accuses him; he is thrown into prison. There too he wins the trust of the chief jailer and interprets the dreams of Pharaoh’s cupbearer and baker. Everything comes to pass as he said, but the restored cupbearer forgets him.