Parashat Vayigash: Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Nourishment - How does Yosef’s Sustenance become a vehicle for Care, Dignity, and Unity?

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Parashat Vayigash: Physical, Emotional, and Spiritual Nourishment  

How does Yosef’s Sustenance become a vehicle for Care, Dignity, and Unity? 

Why Did I Have to Finish My Plate Because of All the Starving Children in Africa? 

We live in a very privileged generation in which, at least in the Western world, most people – even the poorest among us – do not have to worry about dying of hunger. It is difficult for us to imagine what our ancestors endured when they had to scramble for every bit of bread. Today, vast amounts of food fit for human consumption are dumped into the dumpsters without a second thought. My own efforts to avoid wasting food are sometimes considered a bit weird or even obsessive. For example, wrinkled tomatoes that others might not think twice about throwing into the garbage, I carefully repurpose into soups, natural tomato sauce, or מַטְבּוּחָה/matbucha – a slow-cooked Middle Eastern tomato relish. 

The Torah instructs us to avoid waste, especially when it comes to food. This sensitivity is rooted in the Torah’s profound emphasis on the sanctity of human life. Saving a life overrides even keeping the Torah laws of Shabbat. Since food sustains life, one of the Hebrew words used for food in Parashat Vayigash is מִחְיָה/micheya – a word that contains the root חַי/chai, ‘life.’ Yet in an era of abundance and excess, it becomes increasingly difficult to remain mindful of food’s life-preserving quality. Showing proper respect for nourishment requires contemplation and intentional effort. 

When I grew up, I was often told to finish my plate because of all the starving children in Africa. This statement has been widely criticized as contributing to eating disorders, and I agree that forcing children to eat when they are no longer hungry can disrupt body awareness and interfere with their ability to listen to their bodies as they mature. Nevertheless, there is an underlying truth embedded in that message – perhaps one not even fully conscious to the parents who repeat it. By comparing a child’s leftovers with starving children elsewhere, they are alluding to the intrinsic value of food and its potential to preserve life. 

What is needed is not guilt or coercion, but a reframing of how we relate to food and how we speak about it. Instead of forcing ourselves or others to finish our plates, we can train our children to serve themselves in a way that shows respect for food, beginning with a small portion and taking more only if they are still hungry. In this way, we cultivate both appreciation for food and attunement to the body. Rather than using language that induces shame or blame, let us express sincere gratitude for the nourishment Hashem grants us – and allow that gratitude to guide how we eat, serve, and relate to the food before us. 

 

How Does Yosef Sustain His Family Physically, Emotionally, and Spiritually?  

While assuring his brothers that he has forgiven them, Yosef repeatedly emphasizes the Divine purpose of his descent to Egypt: to preserve life and ensure their survival on earth. The fact that physical and emotional life are deeply intertwined is clearly exemplified in Parashat Vayigash. When the brothers express fear about Yosef’s possible retribution for their mistreatment of them, he responds:  

ספר בראשית פרק מה פסוק ה וְעַתָּה אַל תֵּעָצְבוּ וְאַל יִחַר בְּעֵינֵיכֶם כִּי מְכַרְתֶּם אֹתִי הֵנָּה כִּי לְמִחְיָה שְׁלָחַנִי אֱלֹהִים לִפְנֵיכֶם: (ז) וַיִּשְׁלָחֵנִי אֱלֹהִים לִפְנֵיכֶם לָשׂוּם לָכֶם שְׁאֵרִית בָּאָרֶץ וּלְהַחֲיוֹת לָכֶם לִפְלֵיטָה גְּדֹלָה: 

“Now, be not distressed, or angry with yourselves because you sold me hither; it was to preserve life that G-d sent me ahead of you…G-d sent me ahead of you to ensure your survival on earth, and to save your lives in an extraordinary deliverance” (Bereishit 45:5,7). 

 

The Ralbag explains that Hashem orchestrated Yosef’s sale so that he would stand ahead of them during the severe famine to preserve life, and that Yosef stresses this point specifically to appease his brothers’ hearts, remove their shame, and calm their fear of retribution (Ralbag, Bereishit 45:5). By reframing the trauma of the past as Divine providence, Yosef allows physical sustenance to be received without emotional collapse.  

Rabbi Avraham Saba deepens this idea by placing Yosef’s words within the broader spiritual history of eating itself. When Yosef tells his brothers, וְעַתָּה אַל תֵּעָצְבוּ – “Now, don’t be distressed,” he is not only easing their remorse, but undoing the curse introduced by Adam’s sin, when eating became bound up with pain and inner turmoil – בְּעִצָּבוֹן תֹּאכְלֶנָּה – “In distress shall you eat.” Yosef reassures them that this eating is different: there is no distress attached to it, no guilt embedded in the nourishment, because the entire chain of events was guided by Hashem for the sake of life. He tells them – this food is not the product of sin, but the vehicle through which life itself is preserved (Tzror HaMor, Bereishit 45:5). 

Seen in this light, Yosef’s nourishment operates simultaneously on physical, emotional, and spiritual planes. He feeds his family during famine, but he also releases them from the inner anguish that would otherwise poison the act of eating itself. Food received in fear, blame, or unresolved guilt cannot truly nourish. By restoring meaning, forgiveness, and trust in Divine purpose, Yosef transforms grain into nourishment that heals the body, settles the heart, and realigns the soul. In Yosef’s hands, eating is no longer an echo of Adam’s curse, but a quiet step toward its repair. 

 

What Does the Sustenance that Yosef Sent to His Father Really Nourish?  

 

ספר בראשית פרק מה פסוק כג  

וּלְאָבִיו שָׁלַח כָּזֹאת עֲשָׂרָה חֲמֹרִים נֹשְׂאִים מִטּוּב מִצְרַיִם וְעֶשֶׂר אֲתֹנֹת נֹשְׂאֹת בָּר וָלֶחֶם וּמָזוֹן לְאָבִיו לַדָּרֶךְ:

“To his father, he sent the following: ten donkeys carrying the best of Egypt, and ten she-donkeys carrying grain, bread, and provisions for his father for the journey” (Bereishit 45:23). 

 

Even before Ya’acov sets foot on the road, Yosef’s ‘food’ is already carrying the deeper message of the reunion. Yosef sends bar, lechem, and mazon specifically “for his father for the journey.” Yet Rabbi Ya’acov ben Asher draws our attention to the fact that the word וּמָזוֹן/u’mazon appears only twice in Tanach in this exact form – the first instance is here, וּמָזוֹן לְאָבִיו לַדָּרֶךְ, while the second appears in the book of Daniel: ספר דניאל פרק ד פסוק ט עָפְיֵהּ שַׁפִּיר וְאִנְבֵּהּ שַׂגִּיא וּמָזוֹן לְכֹלָּא “…and on it was sustenance for all…” (Daniel 4:9).  

In that verse, מָזוֹן/mazon clearly does not refer to a private ration for one individual, but to sustenance provided broadly and continuously, sufficient to maintain life over time. Based on this textual echo, Rabbi Ya’acov ben Asher explains that although the Torah states וּמָזוֹן לְאָבִיו – “provisions for his father,” the word itself carries a wider implication – “ומזון לכולא ביה… ששלח מזון לפרנס כלם” – the nourishment Yosef sent was meant to sustain not only Ya’acov, and those traveling with him, but also the entire world throughout the famine  (Ba’al HaTurim, Bereishit 45:23). 

This reading is especially striking because the Torah already lists grain and bread. Why add the word ‘provision’ at all? Several commentators note that מָזוֹן/mazon is not merely food, but rather the Hebrew word literally means ‘sustenance’ – that which enables ongoing existence. It is nourishment that carries continuity, stability, and reassurance – the kind of provision that removes anxiety about tomorrow. Yosef is therefore not only providing supplies for a journey; he is sending a message of responsibility and guardianship. The household that once fractured around a meal of deception and favoritism is now being reunited through a form of nourishment expansive enough to hold them all. What began as “for my father” quietly unfolds into sustenance for an entire family – even the entire world – an act of healing expressed not in words, but in food. 

 

How Can We Transform Food of Enslavement into Sustenance of Redemption? 

The Torah’s choice of language invites us to notice not only that Yosef sent nourishment, but what kind of nourishment this was. Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin explains that in the language of Torah, מָזוֹן/mazon refers broadly to anything that sustains life  – not only bread, but whatever truly ‘feeds’ a person in a deeper sense – בלשון תורה כל מילי דזיין מיקרי מזון (HaEmek Davar, Bereishit 45:23). Yosef is not merely sending calories for survival; he is sending measured, thoughtful sustenance that meets each need along the way – strength for the journey, reassurance for an aging father, and quiet protection from humiliation or dependence. 

Here, the contrast between Egypt and Yosef becomes sharp. In Egypt, bread is a tool of control, capable of purchasing land, bodies, and freedom. In Yosef’s hands, that same bread is redeemed into an expression of love, responsibility, and Divine mission. Even the image of the ten male and female donkeys hints, according to the sages, that Yosef has mastered Egypt’s forces of right and left and subdued them, so his father need not fear the descent into exile (Siftei Kohen, Bereishit 45:23). Rather than controlling through food, Yosef allows food to protect. Instead of letting food enslave us or others, he shows how nourishment can become a vehicle for care, dignity, and unity. 

Just as the descent to Egypt begins not with hunger, but with a table already bearing the seeds of ge’ulah, so too our personal journeys of eating can move from bondage to redemption. When food is used to manipulate, numb, or assert power, it mirrors Egypt. When it is approached with awareness, gratitude, and responsibility, it becomes מָזוֹן/mazon in its deepest sense – sustenance that supports life on every level. By reclaiming food as a channel of chesed rather than control, we participate in Yosef’s quiet revolution, transforming the act of eating from a source of enslavement into a step toward healing, freedom, and ultimate redemption.