SERACH: A Drash of Vayigash

Vayigash is an important parsha filled with important events in the story of the important Joseph and the story of how the Hebrews importantly got to Egypt and eventually to Sinai, for the important revelation of Torah.  

It is here that Judah, out of concern for Benjamin, admits his culpability to Joseph for what happened to the twelfth brother.  Joseph, overcome, tells his brothers who he is and they are sent back to Jacob to tell him that Joseph is alive. The whole tribe can move to Egypt to be fed and cared for by Joseph who is now a very big shot.  I tell you this so you know that all this important stuff is not what I’m going to talk about.   

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I’m going to talk about someone who gets a very tiny mention at the end of this parsha, and then again in Chronicles, Serach Bat Asher.  In the parsha, Jacob is moving the whole crew to Egypt and all his sons and their sons are listed as part of the move.   Sons and only sons are listed, which is the usual thing, until we get to Asher’s family. 

וּבְנֵ֣י אָשֵׁ֗ר יִמְנָ֧ה וְיִשְׁוָ֛ה וְיִשְׁוִ֥י וּבְרִיעָ֖ה וְשֶׂ֣רַח אֲחֹתָ֑M

And the sons of Asher: Yimnah and Yishvah and Yishvi and Beriah, and Serach their sister.

Serach Bat Asher is the only woman listed which is very unusual.  She gets another mention, much later, as having gone into Israel with Joshua in Chronicles which, when you think about it, is impossible.  she lived from the time of Jacob, through 215 years of slavery in Egypt, through the Exodus, through the forty years in the desert and at least up to the time of the crossing over into Eretz Yisrael, surely that's  impossible, yes?  Which is what the rabbis thought, so a slew of midrashim grew up around Serach, which I’m going to tell you.

First, when the sons returned from Egypt to fetch Jacob back to Egypt, they were afraid to tell him, they were afraid the shock would kill him, and, I think, they were afraid to admit to their father the part they played in Joseph’s enslavement.  So the legend says that they asked Asher’s daughter, Serach, who played the harp, to sing and play the news slowly to Jacob, which she did.  And it is said that upon hearing the news, Jacob exclaimed: “May the mouth that told me these words never taste death!” And so Serach, because of her bravery and her desire to give Jacob good news and because of her artistry as a poet and a musician, lived a very long time.

Serach went to Egypt, and still living in the time of Moses, one legend says, so that when the elders needed to confirm that Moses was legitimate she remembered a special code phrase, "God has surely remembered", and when Moses used this phrase she told the people and so they followed him

Then, as they were all getting ready to leave, Moses remembered the promise to Joseph to take his body and bury it in Israel.  He knew they couldn't leave without the body but no one remembered where it was buried.

But then, as it says in the book of Legends,

“How did Moses know where Joseph was buried?  It is said, Serach, daughter of Asher, who was of Joseph’s generation, was still living.  Moses went to her and asked, “Do you know where Moses is buried?”  She replied, “The Egyptians made a metal coffin for him, which they sank into the Nile, in order that it’s waters might be blessed thereby.  Then, too, the magicians and the sorcerers told Pharoah, do you wish that this people should never leave Egypt?  If they do not find the bones of Joseph, they will never be able to leave.”

But Serach remembers and tells Moses where the metal coffin is, Moses goes to the Nile and calls for Joseph and the coffin rises to the surface and they are able to leave Egypt.

Another legend is that Serach was still alive during the times of the Talmud and that one day, when the rabbis in the Beit Midrash were discussing what it might have been like during the crossing of the Red Sea, Serach poked her head in the window and told the rabbis that the walls of the Sea looked like a lighted window.  Another version of this says she descrobe it as like a clear mirror in which Israel saw all their generations reflected.

What a beautiful images, like paintings of hope.

She is said to have died at the age of 1000.

So these are fun stories, and besides that it's nice to hear midrashim about women, but why do I tell you these today instead of talking about the teshuvah of Judah or the forgiveness of Joseph?  It's because, for me, the Serach of the midrashim is a role model, an exemplar of many of the qualities i'm finding I need to hold on to as I contemplate the next four years. 

Baruch Atah Adonai, 

Brucha At Shechina, 

Blessed One-ness:  

I am so grateful that we are able to study Torah together 

And learn strategies of hope from the stories of our people. 

Especially when times are hard
And we need to more than study:

The bravery to speak when others hold back, 

And the cleverness to listen when it is time to learn. 

The pleasure in spreading joy and hope 

And the chutzpah to stick your head in an open window and give your opinion. 

The endurance to keep going even when the suffering is too much, 

And the patience to keep going even when nothing is happening. 

The memory of when times were hard so as to inspire resistance 

And the memory of beauty and freedom, and all the good things that make life worth living. 

Whether we have to get through 215 years of slavery 

Or 40 years of wandering 

Or four years of Trump, 

We can and we will. 

Because 

As another brave and joyful woman, 

Grace Paley, a sister of Serach, 

Once said,

Without action, hope is wasted.   

Amen

BEHOLD

I. Behold
In Torah, God shows the future in our dreams to whomever God thinks appropriate.
Then God sends wise interpreters to the dreamers to explain the messages that God has sent us.
Only when interpreted can the dreams come true.
Hinei, meaning Behold, is the word used in Torah to introduce such a dream.

II. Behold, Joseph dreams
Joseph dreamt of wheat sheaves that bowed to him and the aging Wrestler Jacob understood and interpreted
Thus, he gave his annoying son a striped coat.
So the story could begin and the prophecy come true.
 Once upon a time, a gifted but foolish child was sold into slavery…
But when Joseph saw his brothers again, they were hungry and he was a lord.
And they bowed down to him and he understood, and forgave because it was basherte, meant to be.
Thus they hugged and they ate and they cried.
So thank you, Jacob.
Because without interpretation, a prophecy is wasted.


III. Then behold, science dreams.
While we sleep our brains show us random pictures of what we had seen that day or what we can imagine, based on what our brains already knew even if we didn’t know we knew them.
And our brain imposes order on the random and constructs a story.
Thus we gain access to the things we know but don’t know we know,
And we call that a dream.
Chalom is the Hebrew word for dream, which sounds like chalon, which is the word for window.
So a dream can be prophecy or neurology or a window to one’s soul.
And our therapists interpret our dreams so we’ll understand our inner motivations.
Once analyzed, a dream gives insight.
So Danke Schoen, Freud.
Because without explanation, an image is wasted

IV. Hinei! Rebbe Hannina dreams
He says,
Human versions of God’s vast intent are as unripened fruit,
Filled with potential,
Perceived completely only by God.
Hanina says that the unripened fruit of prophecy is a dream.
Which is kind of cool.
So I speculate,
The unripened fruit of truth is the story.
We tell tales with beginnings middles and ends around our seder table, for instance.
Then we bite into sweet charoses and pretend it is mortar for bitter bricks,
Because it fits the narrative.
So thanks, all you Jews.
Because without a congregation, a maggid is wasted.

V. Behold, Jacob dreams
Jacob dreamt of a ladder and souls that went up and down,
But his soul stayed put as he mourned his dead son, Joseph, who turned up actually not so dead.
And when Jacob got the good news and moved to Egypt, he had to face the facts.
At the end of his life, the end of Bereishit, he predicts the future.
Behold! says Jacob, and some get a farmland and some get sheep.
Behold! says Jacob, and those rotten kids, Reuben, Simeon (not so nice, not so honest, not so deserving) get futures of disgrace and division.
Behold! says Jacob, and Judah, who made teshuvah,  who pleased God because he could learn from his mistakes and change,
Judah gets history,
Jew-dah gets us, the Jews.
Then Jacob dies, a hard, full life.
 Chazak, chazak, Jacob – Be strong, be strong
So thanks, Genesis,
Because without dynastic mythologies, a dysfunctional family is wasted.

VI. Behold, Moses dreams
One tale ends, so another can begin.
In Shmot, starting next week, another great story, more unripened fruit, this one of murdered babies, supernatural revenge, bad guys, and heroes.
And, after a mad dash across the Sea of Reeds,
There’s much rejoicing,
Quickly interrupted by hunger and miracles and rules and revelation.
And even though the rest of us often find ourselves in the desert,
Or tied up on the metaphorical railroad tracks:
“Pay the rent!” “I can’t pay the rent!”
Not even dreaming of rescue,
Making bricks without straw,
No aspirations, no hope, no prophecies, no future!
Then here comes our hero, Moshe, “I’ll pay the rent!
Have some commandments! Become a people!”
So, nice to see you coming up in the third act, Moishe.
Because without a happy ending, complications are wasted.

VII. Behold, our dream
So we pray and listen for the presence of God in ambient sound
Trying to hear truth amongst all the voices of our lives
Trying to interpret the noise properly so that it will come true, if it should,
And we can be part of a much larger story.
Not Hinei,
Behold
But Hineini,
Here I am.
So we can all take responsibility and not be ashamed,
Se we can all learn from our mistakes and make teshuvah,
So we can all forgive and not be bitter.
And hug and eat and cry and change the world.
For good and for ill,
As did our illustrious uncle, Joseph of Egypt.
And our great great grandpa, Judah the Lion.
So thanks, Grace Paley, who more or less said,
“Without action, hope is wasted.”


Brucha At Yah,
Infinite and eternal so that we may have endings and beginnings.
I am so grateful that we are able to study Torah together.
Because without connection, dreams are wasted.

Amen.




Written originally for the Drisha Institute Artists Fellowship program, based on our study of dreams in Talmud

Vayigash - Then Judah approached Joseph

In the first part of Vigash, Judah begs Joseph not to punish Benjamin because of the pain it will cause their father who has still not gotten over the loss of Rachel’s other son. This causes Joseph to break down and confess who he is to his brothers.
When Joseph sends his brothers back home to bring Jacob and the entire family back to Eqypt so he can take care of them, he says to them just as they are leaving, according to your Plaut translation, instead of Bye Bye, have a nice trip, he says, “Do not be quarrelsome along the way.”

Do not be quarrelsome? What is that about? They’ve had this great reconciliation, everything is hunky dory love fest, and by the way, don’t fight on the way home? I love this. This line justifies the whole parsha for me, this line is as human a line in the Torah as I have ever read. I love you and all is forgiven and no fighting in the car! Does Joseph know his brothers, or what?
Now Rashi, according to the Jewish Study Bible, says that the plain sense of this line, do not quarrel amongst yourselves, is that the brothers should refrain from blaming each other for the sale of Joseph which would eventually make them resent Joseph.

But Robert Alter takes a different tack, he translates this line as, “And he sent off his brothers and they went and he said, Do not be perturbed on the journey.” Perturbed? Another translation says, Anxious.
Alter explains, “there has been some dispute about the meaning of the verb here. It is occasionally used in context that associate it with anger and so many interpreters have imagined that Joseph is warning his brothers not to yield to mutual recrimination and perhaps fall to blows on the way home. But, says Alter, the primary meaning of the verb is ‘to quake’ or ‘shake’, either physically or emotionally, and it is the antonym”, the opposite, “ of being tranquil or at peace. Alter thinks it more likely that this is Joseph reassuring his brothers that he won’t take vengence on him.
I…don’t think so. Like I said, Joseph, he knows his brothers. He knows how they react to stress. Those guys, when things are weird or go bad, they panic.

When Joseph threatened the brothers’ sense of superiority, they panicked and threw him in a hole. When Jacob went into continuous mourning, they panicked and continued the lie. They panicked when famine struck their land, when the Pharaoh’s viceroy took a bizarre interest in them and when that viceroy accused them of theft.
I know all about panic. My mother’s father was well to do. In the 1920’s he owned what was then called a department store in Western Pennsylvania. They had cars, they took vacations, his oldest child was in college and the youngest, my mother, was pampered in every way. Then, in 1932 during the Depression, my grandfather lost his business and he and his family went from having everything to having absolutely nothing. My grandfather panicked and he killed himself. He shot himself. And the person who found the body first was his eleven-year old daughter, my mother. My mother never really recovered from this and, through her, neither have I. She lived in a continual state of panic or panic-induced depression most of the time I knew her.

This current economic crisis has me in a panic. I am unemployed and I see no sign of getting a job any time soon. I wake up in the middle of the night worrying. And I’m not just panicking for myself. I’m worried about the the well being of my friends, my family, my community, my country, Israel, the world, Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, everywhere. Global Warming, paying off my credit cards, bailing out the auto industry, rockets in Southern Israel,. I mean, c’mon! I want to lash out, I want to punish someone, I don’t know who and I don’t care! I’m freaked out! Aren’t you?
But then I think about my grandmother. She was one tough cookie. After her husband’s death, she picked up her kids and moved back to Queens where she was from, and she started a business installing and servicing laundry machines in apartment building basements. She started with one machine and by the time she died I 1966 she was well off and had started a business that her son and son-in-law kept going for many years. I went to college on those washing machines. My grandmother survived and flourished.

So I know, I assume, I will get another job, eventually. Barack Obama is going to be president soon and he will get done what needs to be done.

Joseph, when he matures, is calm and a thinker always guided by his principles and his brain. When faced by catastrophe he survives and flourishes. Even at his most emotional moments, when he sees his brothers after so many years, he plans and he tests and he doesn’t act until he is sure that they, in the person of Judah, are truly sorry for what they did and that they are ready for his help.

Intellect and heart don’t work when they are separated. Joseph as an intellect alone is not enough. Later in the parsha, when the free peasants of Egypt beg him to feed them during the famine he logically and horrifically turns them all into serfs. Judah as a feeling man is not enough. His anger at Joseph’s youthful arrogances and his love oforhis brothers stop him from helping Joseph when he needs it the most.

So Joseph cries when he sees his brothers again and when he makes himself known to them. And he cries when he sees his father after so many years. He feels deeply, and acts on those feelings, but not impulsively and not with anger and hate. And it is Judah’s intellectual realization that he most take responsibility for his own actions that finally sets off the catharsis that allows this family to come to resolution. It is when Judah approaches Joseph, when the calm of one brother combines with the emotional action of the other that they are returned to their true future and our covenant with connection. It is their duality that allows us to become one.