Vayigash: In Search of Serach

 This week we read of the members of Jacob''s family who went down to Egypt. There were 53 grandsons listed, but only a single granddaughter – Serach, the daughter of Asher. The commentators wonder, what was so exceptional about this girl that her name was recorded? The Midrash spills forth with stories portraying an image of a unique and endearing Biblical heroine. Serach stands as a trusted, beloved sage of the people. She possessed an uncommon gift of healing through poetry and music. Somewhat as Orpheus is to Greek myth, so is Serach to the Biblical myth – the archetypal poet and bard.

The Midrash on this week''s parsha tells of the brothers'' concern that their father Jacob would die from shock upon hearing the astounding news that his son Joseph was alive and well in Egypt. Their solution – to appoint Serach to the task of sharing the news with him. In one version Serach masterfully waits until Jacob is praying and then relays the news to him through the poetic form of three rhyming lines.¹ In another rendering she sings the news to him gently and wonderously with a harp.

Both versions reveal a girl with psychological insight into just how to approach Jacob with the potentially lethal news. Serach intuits how to tend to Jacob''s emotional wounds with song. Even though she was sharing a truth with him, sometimes the sharing of truth with someone can be even more shattering than a lie. Where the bald facts could have killed Jacob, Serach''s simple almost child-like rhyme and song healed him, opening him to hope and possibility after decades of despair.

So what is it about song and rhyme which is able to impart such promise and soothe such wounds? Voltaire is famous for saying, “Anything too stupid to be spoken in words is sung.” And this might be true enough if one were to survey song lyrics for their intellectual content. But God forbid the purpose of music would be deliver intellectual points. No, the great gift of song rests in its stirring of sentiment, its arousal of spirit, its curative catharsis of emotions. Serach, with her ample emotional intelligence and creativity knew how to utilize song, rhyme & poetry for their subtle therapeutic properties. May all of our artistic endeavors likewise access healing and inspiration, offering hope and the possibillity of betterment in the face of any despair. The poem below is a prayer and request to Serach to instruct us in how to do just that.

Serach, teach us please

your therapy of harmony

- that exquisit technique

that you work with your speech

reveal to us, ancient sister

your mesmeric tincture

of lyric and meter

and mix us well a word elixir

to soothe the wounds of

injured listeners

just the way

you sung your way

and stood in the way

of the heart-halting parade

of gold-laden wagons

sent to stun an old man

too fast from his depression

for even one''s despair can be

a precious thing

to those who cling to their misery

as if it were a love letter

to the ones they''ve lost

but you with your harp

loosened that knot

on the yarn of a lie

that had so long bound

Jacob''s beguiled mind

- as you applied

the cautious remedy

of a child''s rhyme²

plucked hope back

into a ruptured heart

and strummed him

through the sting and stun

of loss

Suddenly reversed

through your verse

- with the touch of a song

For is not the crowning goal

of creative endeavor

to heal the bereaved

and herald in a better reality?

So teach us more-loudly your

chemistry of composition

to make whats written

glisten from the page

to release vast repositories of pain

to make space for

the joyful reception of miracles

of salvation and spiritual accumulation

like wagons laden with bread

and corn, and a child reborn

in the midst of a famine

and a lie overturned

and a family re-fashioned

So teach us Serach

your eternal talent

of healing hearts with harps

and the ancient art

of rhyme

and let it start

with these faltering lines

- a prayer

for the gentle unraveling

of our long-held

lies