7th & 8th Days of Pesach

Torah Gems - April 25th

This Shabbat we are fortunate to have Torah Gems from
Jennifer Rudin & Jim Morgan
Enjoy!


Jennifer Rudin:


On the 7th day of Passover, as our celebration of our exodus from mitzrayim is coming to a close, we read a portion of the Torah that is well known for its descriptive and poetic recounting of our crossing the Red Sea. Here we read the song of Moses and the song of Miriam, both inspired by the miraculous splitting of the sea. As the Egyptians drown in the water, the Israelite people, overwhelmed with emotions of fear, faith, and gratitude, release themselves to the power of song.

So Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord. They said: I will sing to the Lord for He has triumphed gloriously; Horse and driver He has hurled into the sea... The Lord, the Warrior - Lord is His name! Pharaoh's chariots and his army He has cast into the sea; and the pick of his officers are drowned in the Sea of Reeds...You made Your wind blow, the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the majestic waters... Exodus 15:1-19

Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her in dance with timbrels. And Miriam chanted for them: Sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously Horse and Driver He has hurled into the sea. Exodus 15:20-21

Although both songs use vivid imagry and serve as testimony to God's might, Miriam's song starts out confidently and assertively with "Shiru l'adonai, Sing to God!" whereas her brother's begins with a slight hesitation, "Az Yashir ... l'adonai- So, they sang to God." This grammatical variation sheds light on the difference between the way the men and women related to the miracles of the Divine. One explanation, "When the Israelite women came to give birth (in Egypt), they did so in the fields, and God sent one from the highest heavens to clean and tend to them, like a midwife. So when God appeared to them at the Sea, they recognized Him first, as it is said, 'This is my God..." Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sotah 11b

It is in this parasha that Miriam is referred to by name for the first time in the Torah as she leads the women in song. Here the Torah refers to Miriam as "Aaron's sister." She is a woman confident to lead her people in song, Miriam's uniqueness, not only from her brother Moses, but from the entire people of Israel, makes her a role model and leader among the Jewish people. The Torah refers to Miriam as a "n'viyah," prophetess. An important qualification of a Jewish prophet is the ability to foreshadow the attitudes, problems, and predicaments that will face the Jewish people in the future. Miriam's recognition as "n'viyah" is a result of two actions. First, she separates herself from the masses in the act of taking the timbrel and leading the women in song. Second, her foresight of bringing drums to the Red Sea posits a special relationship that she has with the God. Rashi points out, "'With drums and dancing': the righteous women of that generation were confident that God would do miracles for them; so they brought drums with them from Egypt."

Unlike Miriam who packed timbrels for the journey out of Mitzrayim with an eye towards the future, Moses carried Joseph's bones, fulfilling a past promise. According to the midrash, the Israelites couldn't leave Egypt without taking the bones of Joseph with them, so the Egyptians hid the coffin in the Nile. Only Serach bat Asher, a niece of Joseph, and a survivor from that generation knew where the coffin was. The bones of Joseph were so important, that they were carried in an 'aron' the same word used for the ark for Ten Commandments. The Rabbis connect the two and say that two 'arks' journeyed with the Israelites in the wilderness: one with Joseph's bones and with the Tablets.

Beyond the bones and the timbrels, one might wonder how the words of the song evolved. Rabbi Akiva says: Moses said, "I will sing to God," and they responded, "I will sing to God"; Moses said, "For He has triumphed gloriously" and they responded, "I will sing to God" (and so on with each verse -- Moses would sing the verse, and they would respond with the refrain, "I will sing to God").
Rabbi Eliezer says: Moses said, "I will sing to God," and they responded, "I will sing to God"; Moses said, "For He has triumphed gloriously," and they responded, "For He has triumphed gloriously" (and so on -- they repeated each verse after Moses).
Rabbi Nechemiah says: Moses sang the opening words of the song, after which they each sang it on their own. (Talmud and Rashi, Sotah 30b)
These three opinions represent three levels of leadership. Rabbi Akiva describes an ideal in which a people completely abandon their individuality to the collective identity embodied by the leader. Moses alone sang the nation's gratitude to God, their experience of redemption, and their vision of their future as God's people. The people had nothing further to say as individuals, other than to affirm their unanimous assent to what Moses was expressing.
At first glance, this seems the ultimate in unity: hundreds of thousands of hearts and minds yielding to a single program and vision. Rabbi Eliezer, however, argues that this is but a superficial unity -- an externally imposed unity of the moment, rather than an inner, enduring unity. When people set aside their own thoughts and feelings to accept what is dictated to them by a higher authority, they are united only in word and deed; their inner selves remain different and distinct. Such a unity is inevitably short-lived: sooner or later their intrinsic differences and counter-aims will assert themselves, and fissures will begin to appear also in their unanimous exterior. So Rabbi Eliezer interprets the Torah's description of Israel's song to say that they did not merely affirm Moses' song with a refrain, but repeated his words themselves. Each individual Jew internalized Moses' words, so that they became the expression of his own understanding and feelings. The very same words assumed hundreds of thousands of nuances of meaning, as they were absorbed by each of the minds, and articulated by each of the mouths, of the people of Israel.
Rabbi Nechemiah, however, is still not satisfied. If Israel repeated these verses after Moses, this would imply that their song did not stem from the very deepest part of themselves. For if the people were truly one with Moses and his articulation of the quintessence of Israel, why would they need to hear their song from his lips before they could sing it themselves? It was enough, says Rabbi Nechemiah, that Moses started them off with the first words of the song, so as to stimulate their deepest experience of the miracle, with the result that each of them sang the entire song on their own. (The Lubavitcher Rebbe)



Jim Morgan:

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach: I hope you are in the midst of a meaningful and wonder-filled Passover. This week, I have compiled the voices of two rabbis who teach us about Serach Bat Asher, the legendary wise woman. Serach plays important roles in midrashim about our Torah reading for the seventh day of Passover. This portion, Exodus 13:17-15:26, comprises the first four aliyot of Parashat Beshallach, from Pharaoh's final decision to release the Israelites through the Song at the Sea. Serach does not appear in the Torah text here. Rather, her name is mentioned in two lists, generations apart: the genealogy of Jacob in Genesis 46:17 and the census in Numbers 26:46. This coincidence of names led our rabbis to proclaim that this was the same person, granted an extra-long life or even immortality for her gifts of memory and gentleness. Enjoy these excerpts.


"And Moses took with him the bones of Joseph, who had exacted an oath from the children of Israel, saying, 'God will be sure to take notice of you: then you shall carry up my bones from here with you'" (Exodus 13:19). This is the second of three times that Joseph's bones are mentioned in the Torah. In Genesis 50:25, on his deathbed, Joseph speaks to his brothers: "God will surely take care of you; bring my bones up from this place!" The same verb, the Hebrew root pei-kuf-dalet, is used in both instances, translated as "take care" (Genesis 50:25) and "take notice" (Exodus 13:19). [In the Eitz Chaim chumash, both instances are translated as "take notice."] Adele Berlin points out that the same verb is translated as "remembered" when "God fulfilled a promise to Sarah [and] she became pregnant with Issac" in Genesis 21:1 (in The Torah: A Women's Commentary, ed. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi [New York: URJ Press, 2008], p. 296). The theme of memory is woven throughout the Joseph saga. His own story is one of being forgotten and being remembered. Once he dies, he is forgotten by those who most directly benefited from his management skills: "A new king arose over Egypt who did not know Joseph" (Exodus 1:8). The Egyptians forget, but the Israelites are charged to remember. Joseph had told his brothers: God will remember the Israelite people, the descendants of Jacob, if they, if you, remember me.

Moses remembered. But how did Moses come upon Joseph's bones? The Talmud teaches that after the Exodus, there was a single survivor of Joseph's generation: Serah bat Asher. Moses sought her out, and her direction and good counsel enabled him to find Joseph's remains and thus fulfill his ancestor's last words (see Babylonian Talmud, Sotah 13a and M'chilta, B'shalach). Who was this remarkable woman? The Rabbis interpreted her "remarkable longevity to ... a powerful blessing ... that her grandfather Jacob bestowed on her when she informed him in song that Joseph was still alive" (Midrash HaGadol and Sefer HaYashar on 48:8, cited by Judith Baskin, in The Torah: A Women's Commentary, p. 276).

from Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell, "Observing and Remembering: Joseph's Bones and Ours," April 21, 2008 (http://urj.org/torah/, accessed April 24, 2008)

It was Serah who told Moses where Joseph's coffin was buried. On Joseph's deathbed, he made his family promise that when they eventually left Egypt they would carry his bones with them. The Midrash notes that so many years had passed since Joseph's death that no one remembered where he was buried. On the day before the Israelites were to leave Egypt, Moses was brokenhearted when he was unable to locate Joseph's coffin.

"Why are you so gloomy?" an old woman asked.

Moses explained his desire to fulfill the ancient promise. "I can lead you to his burial place," she responded.

"But how do you know?" Moses demanded.

"Because I am Serah bat Asher. I was present at Joseph's funeral; his coffin was sunk into the Nile."

Serah led Moses to the very spot in the Nile, and Moses cried out: "Joseph, Joseph, we are leaving now." Suddenly, Joseph's coffin floated to the surface and Moses took it with them as they left.

The legendary story of Serah bat Asher doesn't end there. The Midrash identifies her as the one Israelite who saw the angels gather to watch the children of Israel cross the Sea of Reeds. She saw God commanding the waters to part. She saw the divine presence among the Israelites when Miriam played the tambourine. Other than Moses, Serah bat Asher was the only one of her generation who could look upon God and live.

Serah bat Asher also turns up in the first century beit midrash of 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 lady 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!"

How did Serah bat Asher eventually die? One legend reports that she died in a fire in a synagogue in Persia in the ninth century. Another legend is that she never actually died. Instead, she is like Elijah, wandering around the world, setting the record straight. A third legend is that a fiery chariot took her to heaven where she presides over a palace in which thousands of women who tended the old and sick in their lifetimes, as she cared for her grandfather Jacob, are privileged to study Torah with her as their teacher.

from Rabbi Laura Geller, "Serah's Legend," December 13, 2002 (http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=9792, accessed April 24, 2008)




Shabbat Shalom

Chag Kasher v'Sameach