As part of the census taken in our parsha – on the edge of the Jordan, at the end of the desert years – we find a name we may not have heard before, one of only a handful of women mentioned in the census: Serach bat Asher, Serach the daughter of Asher. The name stands out among the listing of clans: “Of Heber, the clan of the Heberites, of Malchiel, the clan of the Malchielites. The name of Asher’s daughter was Serach” (Numbers 26:46).
Serach is mentioned only one other time in the Torah, also in a census list, the list of 70 members of Yaakov’s family who descended to Egypt during Yosef’s time. There, too, Serach’s name is enigmatically dropped among the male descendants of Asher (Genesis 46: 17).
What we know from the Torah then, about Serach, is that she lived a very, very long life. She was the only person whose life spanned the full range of experience of Israelite history – from living in the land as a granddaughter of Yaakov to the descent to Egypt and long period of enslavement to the redemption and desert sojourn all the way through entrance to the land of Israel, and according to some traditions, well beyond. There is even a tradition that she never actually died, making her something of a female Elijah figure.
Though we have little information about her from the Torah, the midrashim fill in the gap with some beautiful stories about Serach. One common denominator in these stories is her ability to provide a steady presence as she accompanies people in stressful moments of transition. Below I will retell briefly three such stories about Serach and consider how we can bring some of her wisdom into our own inner work.
Story #1: Be Gentle In Transition:
The sons of Yaakov are returning from Egypt after Yosef has revealed himself and are worrying over how to tell their father that Yosef is still alive, worrying that the shock will kill him. Who should be the one to tell Yaakov? They think of Serach, their niece, Asher’s daughter, who plays the lyre and has a gentle manner, and they ask her to do the telling. And so Serach goes and sits with Yaakov, her grandfather, as he is praying, while he is quiet and contemplative. She begins to play the lyre for him, quietly keeping him company, and through the music, weaving in the news of Yosef in a gentle soothing voice. Yosef is alive, she sings softly. Yaakov can receive the news in this way, is both calmed and glad, and, turning to his granddaughter, lovingly blesses her that death should never touch her (Sefer HaYashar Vayigash, 9).
Can we be a Serach presence for ourselves? Like Yaakov, we each have things – internal and external, both – that are difficult for us to face and to hear. The world shifts around us and inside us and parts of us have trouble assimilating those changes, even if they are for the better, as with the news of Yosef. Change is hard for us, and we need to be gentle with ourselves, especially during times of transition, to sit with our own distressed parts, as Serach sat with Yaakov, quietly and soothingly, with kindness and love, helping them begin to understand and see what is happening and come to terms with it. We so often do the opposite, expecting ourselves to immediately adapt, judging the parts of us that are having a hard time – “but, after all, it’s good news; how can you be scared or upset?” Serach is our model for tender accompaniment during transition.
Story #2: The Secret of Redemption:
Avraham received the sod hageulah, the secret of redemption, from God, and passed it on to Yitzhak who passed it on to Yaakov who passed it on to Yosef who passed it on to his brothers, and among the brothers, Asher passed it on to his daughter Serach.
Serach held on to this secret of redemption all through the suffering of the Egyptian enslavement, and when Moshe came to the people and told them that God had come to redeem them, the people turned to Serach, knowing that she was the keeper of the secret, and asked – is he the one? Has the time come? Serach, hearing that Moshe had used the words pakod yifkod, “God will surely redeem,” assured them that indeed the redemption had arrived. These were the code words of the secret of redemption – pakod yifkod, the knowledge that God surely does remember and redeem, a doubling of the word to express how clear and true and assured is this divine redemption (Pirke deRabbi Eliezer 48:17).
How can we receive this sod hageulah from Serach? We are often much in need of it. We look around at the state of the country, the world, ourselves, and we despair; all is not well; suffering seems interminable; evil triumphs; there is no hope for healing or redemption. But Serach held this secret for a very long time. She weathered the ups and downs of Jewish history and still held on to it, knowing for certain that God would redeem us, holding that knowledge with faith and clarity as a beacon of light and steadiness through the dark night. There is redemption; goodness ultimately triumphs; the morning comes.
Can we take in some of that hope and faith and perspective? Serach with her long life was like a person standing at the top of a mountain, looking down at history, seeing all the dips and upswings and seeing also, through it all, the thread of redemption, of divine love, of God remembering us. Maybe we can take in a little of that sense of faith and perspective and let the parts of us that despair, that have no hope, that collapse under the weight of neverending negative news, let them all peak out from Serach’s viewpoint and feel the steadiness of her secret of redemption. We can whisper it to them when they are low, hold them in its glow when they doubt – pakod yifkod. God surely does redeem. Serach knew.
Story #3: Lightening Our Load So We Can Step Forward
During the tenth plague, as the Israelites were getting ready to leave Egypt, Moshe remembered the promise that had been made to Yosef to bring his bones out of Egypt when they leave. But where were the bones? How could they be found in this frenzied moment? Moshe turned to Serach, the repository of memory and wisdom, and she knew what to do. She remembered that the Egyptians had buried Yosef in an iron casket and threw it into the Nile to bring blessing to their water. And so Moshe stood at the edge of the Nile, with Serach by his side, and called out – Yosef, Yosef, the time of redemption has come. And sure enough, Yosef’s heavy casket rose and floated to the surface of the water (Talmud Sotah 13a).
Change is hard, even change for the better, even redemption. Parts of us are stuck in the past, mired in the Nile. They carry burdens that are heavy and leaden, like Yosef’s casket, burdens from our history that weigh us down, like a chain around our neck, making us sink to the bottom of the Nile and stopping us from swimming forward, even for redemption. It’s okay, though, because we can do what Moshe did; with Serach by our side for encouragement and support, we can call out to these parts and ask them to release their burdens, calling out and saying – it’s time now, you can let go of the heaviness, make yourself lighter so you can float up to the surface, so I can see you and take you with me but in a lighter form.
Serach knew the secret of redemption – the secret of healing and of moving through transitions – by bringing gentleness, faith, and perspective, and by knowing how to lighten our load so we can move forward. Serach was above all an accompanier, a person who knew how to keep people company in good times and bad – Yaakov and Moshe and the people – to help them navigate and move through suffering to redemption. May we know how to accompany ourselves and others as Serach did – with a gentle, steady presence.
Yaakov blessed Serach that death would not touch her, and death indeed cannot touch her as long as we keep her secrets of redemption alive inside us.
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