The leining notes (‘trop’/ cantillation notes’) might seem a cute way to musically convey a sedra, but there is much more to them than that. One can see that at certain dramatic moments in the sedra, more dramatic notes are used eg that shalsheles on ‘and he refused’ (39;8) referring to Yosef withstanding the wife of Potiphar. Anyway, every parshas vayigash, my dad used to tell me the following…
The Gra points out something marvelous regarding the opening 3 notes of the sedra. The words are ‘and Yhudah drew near’ [‘vayigash eilav yehudah’,] and the notes on them are called(respectively) kadma (on ‘vayigash’), azla (on ‘eilav’,) and revi’i (‘yehuda’.)
The translation of the names of those notes; kadma, azla, revii mean ‘and the fourth one preceded and went’ – and this exactly what is happening in the sedra’s words too; ‘vayigash eilav yehudah’ – Yehudah, the fourth son, went near (to Yosef). pshhh!
