Pinchas Shabbat
July 19, 2008
As I prepared to write this week’s Dvar Torah I asked myself how could I not focus on the daughters of Zolaphad, one of the few times that God favors women in our holy writings. How could I not talk about God rewarding the frightening zealotry of Pinchas? But in the end I chose to talk about a few words in one verse of this portion, the mention of a woman, Serah bat Asher, Serah the daughter of Asher.
Serah is mentioned twice in the Torah, once in the list of people who came down to Egypt with Jacob. Chapter 46, verse 17 of Bereshit, Genesis says: ‘And the sons of Asher: Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi and Beriah, and their sister Serah...’ Her name is also mentioned in this week’s portion in Chapter 26, verse 46, And the name of the daughter of Asher was Serah.
Since she is mentioned in both of these places, we can assume that she lived at least 400 years in Egypt and then 40 more in the desert. And some rabbis say that she never died at all but entered Gan Aiden, the Garden of Eden in the World to Come, alive. (Derekh Eretz 1:18)
One very moving midrash tells us that she was the one who told Jacob that Joseph was still alive.
The brothers were afraid to tell their father themselves so they asked his granddaughter, Serah, to play the harp and sing for him. She began to sing very softly, ‘Joseph is alive,’ until Jacob realized what she was saying. ‘Is it true, he exclaimed and when she said it was, he blessed her by saying, "My child, may death never rule over you for you brought my spirit back to life" (Sefer Ha-Yashar, Va-Yigash)
In another version of this story, Jacob thought that Serah was mocking him and he cursed her, ‘It should only be true. May you live so long.’ And she did.
The most well-known Midrash about Serah was that she told Moshe where to find Joseph's bones just before the Israelites left Egypt. Joseph had made his brothers promise to take his bones back with them to Israel when they were redeemed. (Genesis 50:25; Exodus 13:19).
The Midrash tells us that so many years had passed since Joseph's death that no one remembered where he was buried. Moshe searched and searched and on the day before the Israelites were to be freed, he was still unable to find the coffin. He was extremely upset.
"Why are you so gloomy?" an old woman asked.
Moshe explained that he needed to fulfill this promise.
"I can lead you to his burial place," she responded.
"But how do you know?" Moshe demanded.
"Because I am Serah bat Asher. I was present at Joseph's funeral; his coffin was sunk into the Nile."
Serah led Moshe to the very spot in the Nile, and Moshe cried out: "Joseph, Joseph, we are leaving now." Suddenly, Joseph's coffin floated to the surface and Moshe was able to take it with him when the Israelites left. (Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael)
One of the more colorful stories of Serah bat Asher takes place in the first century beit midrash, study hall, of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai.
He was describing to his students that when the waters of the Sea of Reeds parted, the walls of water looked like a wall of sprouting bushes. Suddenly, a voice came through an open window in the back of the beit midrash: ‘No. That's not right.’
All the students turned around and saw an old woman peering through the window. ‘I am Serah bat Asher. I know what the walls looked like because I was there! They looked like mirrors, mirrors in which every man, woman and child was reflected so it seemed as though even more people crossed there, not only those who were present, but their descendants and the descendants of their descendants!’ (Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana)
And as surprising as the rest of it is, there’s this final piece. In the book of medieval Jewish mysticism, the Zohar (III, 167b) Serah is said to be presiding over one of the palaces in Gan Aiden which is reserved for righteous women, teaching Torah and leading prayers.
There is a legend that Serah never died. Instead, she is wandering around the world monitoring what is happening. In this legend she is like Elijah the prophet who will escort the Messiah to us.
She is certainly a unique character in our Jewish holy traditions. There is no other woman who matches all of her qualities: longevity, wisdom, holder of memory, respected ancestor. What can we learn from her today?
We too hold the memory of our ancestors, of our history. We have to pass down this memory to the next generation so that they understand the truth of our history as Jews, as the righteous people we are. We have to be able to correct the mistakes and omissions that are passed on through misinformation and ignorance, the fact that some people simply never learned our history.
And we have to respect everybody who has something to teach us. The rabbis could have laughed at the old woman who stood in the window the Beit Midrash when she told them what the parted waters looked like. But instead they turned to her and listened to what she had to say, glad to have an eye witness to an event that was so important to our people.
Those of us who are older have to be willing to tell the younger generations our stories and those of us who are younger have to be willing to turn to our elders and learn from them. There is so much that needs to be passed on, both about personal Jewish history and collective Jewish history. May we be willing to take the time, perhaps even at lunch today to share our wisdom, our stories, our learning with each other and in order to become fuller and richer people, fuller and richer Jews.