~ Please notice the opening of our triennial reading, which deals mostly with the list of names of those who went out of Eretz Cnaan to Egypt. How do you understand the opening? Notice particularly the alternating of the names Yaakov and Israel. What do you make of it?
~ Who is the exception to the rule on the list of people we are about to read? What do you know about this person?
~ Yosef is the one termed "hatzadik", in part because he is able to remain faithful to his core beliefs even though he got to be second in command in Egypt. At this moment the name Israel is used since it depicts, according to most commentators, the ability of Ya'akov to actually behave with an expanded consciousness, pointing out to us an important piece about our core values as Jews.
Yosef is alive - the idea is that people who are striving to do good and be good - tzadikim - are alive even when they are called dead, says the Midrash in Kohelet Rabbah 9:5. And conversely, reshayim, evil people, are dead even if they are still walking among us.
If you remember the story with the wife of Potifar, that is one of Yosef's moments of greatness, of becoming righteous. How did Yosef maintain his connection, and what can it teach us about maintaining the balance between who we are and what the world around us press us to be?
~ So one of the ways is to talk about those values. Yosef kept reminding himself - and others - by mentioning God constantly. The same happens when Pharaoh wants Yosef to interpret the dreams - everything, Yosef tells Pharaoh, comes from God. Even the interpretations.
~ this is also a reminder that we become what we speak most frequently about, and we become how we speak to others. One of the questions is - why didn't Yosef pull his cloak from Potifar's wife's hands? Eabbeinu Bechaye tells us it has to do with a foundational aspect of being Jewish: how do we deal with disagreements - always with respect. Yosef did not want to take it from her by force due to his respect for her. The power of speech - and the actions brought by how we speak - cannot be underestimated.
רבינו בחיי
ויעזב בגדו בידה - ולא רצה לקחתו ממנה בחזקה מפני כבודה. (שם שם יב)
He did not want to take it from her by force out of respect.
~ Rashi's commentaries on the whole incident with Potifar's wife is interesting. One of them focuses precisely on that day, when Yosef comes in to do his work and there is no one in the house. Rashi raises two possibilities: One, he came to do his work, the regukar work. Or maybe, he came to finally give in to what she kept requesting. After all, he is a healthy 17 year old male. But at the very moment, he saw the face of his father in fron of him, and ran away.
And here is another way of keeping the core values: remembering your past. Remembering your family, and what they stood for. And imagining what they would say if they saw you now, doing what you know it is wrong.
And sometimes, unfortunately, seeing our parent's face might actually remind us how far we've become. Once I buried a woman whose children had nothing good to say about her, only how hypercritical she was of them, particularly their external appearances. It was a sad thing, but at the same time they were able to say: we've learned how little stock to put in external appearances because she was so critical, just to survive. And we've learned how not to express criticism. They came very far, in my opinion.
It is still a good lesson, one that we can take with us: we all need visual reminders of our values. Mezuzah, chanukiot, Shabbat candlesticks, books, photos. They have to be there just to remind us of our better selves.
But we know that Yosef is not the only one resisting to become Egyptian. He will be the figure for that family, the one to keep them in the Jewish fold. How do they do it? If Yosef is the personal aspect of the spiritual resistance, who is the symbol of the resistance of the entire people? So here I want to introduce you to one of the most important figures in Rabbinic imagination for the Exodus. And surprisingly, she shows up in our very portion for the first time - Serah bat Asher. She is the only woman named. The one to stand out. The rabbis will say that all the others are considered to be a unit with their husbands. But not Serah bat Asher. First, she figures in our reading's list and then in the list of people who are walking in the desert, some 440 years later.
And one of the questions is obviously why does she merit such a long life. There are answers in the Midrash haGadol and in the Otzar Midrashim.
מדרש הגדול, בראשית מ"ה:כ"ו
"ויגדו לו לאמר 'עוד יוסף חי' " רבנן אמרו אם אנו אומרים לו תחלה יוסף קים שמא תפרח נשמתו. מה עשו? אמרו לשרח בת אשר, "אמרי לאבינו יעקב שיוסף קים והוא במצרים. מה עשתה? המתינה לא עד שהוא עומד בתפלה ואמרה בלשון תימה:
- יוסף במצרים
- יולדו לו על ברכים
- מנשה ואפרים
פג לבו כשהוא עומד בתפלה. כיון שהשלים ראה העגלות, מיד "ותחי רוח יעקב אבינו" (שם).
Midrash HaGadol, Genesis 45:26
[The brothers said:]If we tell him right away, "Joseph is alive!" perhaps he will have a stroke [lit., his soul will fly away]. What did they do? They said to Serah, daughter of Asher, "Tell our father Jacob that Joseph is alive, and he is in Egypt." What did she do? She waited till he was standing in prayer, and then said in a tone of wonder, "Joseph is in Egypt/ There have been born on his knees/ Menasseh and Ephraim" [three rhyming lines]. His heart failed, while he was standing in prayer. When he finished his prayer, he saw the wagons: immediately the spirit of Jacob came back to life.(Translated by Avivah Zornberg in Genesis, the Beginning of Desire, p.281).
אוצר המדרשים (אייזנשטיין) בראשית מ"ו:י"ז
...סרח בת אשר בעבור שאמרה ליעקוב "יוסף חי" אמר לה יעקב "זה הפה שבשרני על יוסף שהוא חי לא יטעם טעם מות."
Otzar HaMidrashim (Eisenstein Gen. 46:17)
Serach Bat Asher: Because she told Yaakov "Yosef is alive", Yaakov said to her: "The mouth that told me about Yosef being alive will not taste the taste of death."
~ The two midrashim complement each other, and tell you that Serach Bat Asher did not die - for the good reason which is, she knew how to deliver the news to Grandpa in a way that would not cause him a heart attack. And she is blessed. It is because of this blessing that she represents the other side of spiritual resistance: the side of the keeper of secrets of the family. The good secrets: the ones that point out to the redemption.
Pirkei de Rabi Eliezer will tell us that there are five pairs of letters that symbolize redemption, passed down from Abraham all the way to Yaakov, then to Asher and then to Serach bat Asher. One of those pairs is "pakod yifkod" pei and fei. Since Serach bat Asher is the one who still remembers these codewords, a group of Israelite elders visits her to get approval about this newcomer Moshe, who says he speaks through his brother the words of God. She is suspicious of the first signs - the staff that becomes a snake and the hand that becomes white. But then Moshe says: pakod ifkod - you must surely remember. And who said those words way before when? Yosef, in his deathbed, in the next parsha.
Rabbi Eliezer said: The five letters of the Torah, which alone of all the letters in the Torah are of double (shape), all appertain to the mystery of the Redemption. With "Pê" "Pê" Israel was redeemed from Egypt, as it is said, "I have surely visited you, (Paḳôd Paḳadti) and (seen) that which is done to you in Egypt, and I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt" (Ex. 3:16, 17). ... Our father Abraham delivered them to Isaac, and Isaac (delivered them) to Jacob, and Jacob delivered the mystery of the Redemption to Joseph, as it is said, "But God will surely visit (Paḳôd yiphḳôd) you" (Gen. 1. 24). Joseph his son delivered the secret of the Redemption to his brethren. Asher, the son of Jacob, delivered the mystery of the Redemption to Serach his daughter. When Moses and Aaron came to the elders of Israel and performed the signs in their sight, the elders of Israel went to Serach, the daughter of Asher, and they said to her: A certain man has come, and he has performed signs in our sight, thus and thus. She said to them: There is no reality in the signs. They said to her: He said "Paḳôd yiphḳôd"—"God will surely visit you" (ibid.). She said to them: He is the man who will redeem Israel in the future from Egypt, for thus did I hear, ("Paḳôd Paḳadti") "I have surely visited you" (Ex. 3:16). Forthwith the people believed in their God and in His messenger, as it is said, "And the people believed, and when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel" (Ex. 4:31).
As you might have guessed, she does not die., she enters alive into Gan Eden after her missions are complete.
שבעה נכנסו בחייהם לגן עדן אלו הם שרח דכתיב אנכי שלומי אמוני ישראל אני שהשלמתי מנין הנכנסים לגן עדן.
...Seven people entered Gan Eden alive, namely: Serach, as it says, I am one of those who seek the welfare of the faithful in Israel. I am the one who completed the number of those who entered Gan Eden...
So Yosef and Serach bat Asher both symbolize the lengths through which we have to go to remain Jewish in a dominantly non-Jewish world. While Yosef symbolizes the personal, Serach symbolizes the collective efforts, the memories and faith in redemption. She is a walking museum and a living memorial for those who she leads.
And the two figures are intertwined, just as our collective future depends on our individual efforts to make sure that that future remains: when it's time to pick up the bones of Yosef, we will read, Moshe goes around Egypt and finds them. And who tells him where to find? You guessed, the one who had always been there, Serach bat Asher.
Shabbat Shalom.