“Hashem was with Yosef, and he became a successful man, Vy’hi/ and he remained in the house of his Egyptian master.” (39:2)
The Gemara (Megillah 10b) teaches that the word “Vy’hi” introduces a sorrowful event that causes a person to cry “Vy!”–like “Woe!” in English or the Yiddish expression, “Oy vey!”
What was the sorrowful event here? asks R’ Peretz Steinberg (rabbi in Queen, N.Y.). R’ Steinberg answers: The sorrowful event was precisely that Yosef “remained in the house of his Egyptian master.”
Since “Hashem was with Yosef, and he became a successful man,” imagine what he could have accomplished had he not been a slave in the house of an Egyptian master! So great was the whole world’s loss from Yosef’s being a slave! Surely it is appropriate to cry out, “Vy!” (Pri Etz Chaim)