Coming full circle

Parshat Vayigash opens with the following words (Breisheet 44:18):

Yehuda approached Yosef and said, “Please master, let your servant speak a word in my master’s ears, and do not be angry with your servant; for you are equal to Pharaoh.”

According to Breisheet Raba 93:6, Yehuda’s intention was to say:

As Pharaoh is the king and you are second in command, so is my father the king in the land of C’naan and I am second to him.

Yaakov needed all twelve tribes in order to set up the kingship and that is one of the reasons why it was so important that they get Binyamin back.

Once Yosef admitted to his brothers who he really was, he sent them to bring Yaakov down to Egypt.

According to Pirkei de Rebbi Eliezer 39, Yaakov wasn’t sure what to do. On the one hand he was excited to see Yosef. On the other hand, he didn’t want to leave the land of his fathers and his birthplace, the land where God dwells, and move to Egypt, an impure place.

On the way down to Be’er Sheva, God reassured Yaakov (Breisheet 45:3-4):

He said “I am the Almighty God of your father. Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for there I will make you into a great nation. I will go down with you to Egypt and I will also surely bring you up again. Yosef will place his hand upon your eyes.”

Yaakov agrees to go down to Egypt so that the tribes could then return to the land as a great nation as God had promised to Avraham.

All twelve tribes of B’nai Yisrael eventually came back with Yehoshua and inherited the land. They became a great nation as promised.

Each tribe received the portion of the land that was most fitting based on the blessings given to them by Yaakov and Moshe.

Today, we are once again back in the Land of Israel and we continue to settle and protect the land as we did in the days of Yehoshua.

In the future, all twelve tribes will return as the Rambam teaches in Hilchot Melachim (Laws of Kings) 12:3:

In the days of the Messianic king, once his kingdom has been established and all of Israel has gathered around him, the entire nation’s line of descent will be established. The prophetic spirit will be used to define and notify the pedigree of lineage.

May Jews continue to return to Israel and may we merit the era where every tribe will return to their ancestral property.