{"id":48343,"date":"2019-01-28T16:52:20","date_gmt":"2019-01-28T14:52:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/?p=48343"},"modified":"2022-08-21T14:06:07","modified_gmt":"2022-08-21T11:06:07","slug":"serah-bat-asher-then-and-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.929.org.il\/en\/serah-bat-asher-then-and-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Serah Bat Asher – Then And Now"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Our Chapter contains a census of the Israelites who came forth from Egypt, a total of 601,730 men of military age, 20 years and older (26:2-51). Among all these men, only one woman is mentioned: Serah bat Asher (verse 46; see also I Chronicles 7:30). Significantly, Serah has been mentioned previously among the 70 souls who went down to Egypt with Jacob (Genesis 46:17), and again, she is the only woman mentioned in this list as well. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Rabbinic Sages reasoned that if Serah is mentioned among those sixty myriads of Israelites who made the Exodus from Egypt, she must have \u201cspanned the generations\u201d from the time of Joseph to the time of Moses, having lived for several hundred years (see Pesiqta de Rav Kahana, Beshalah, ed. Mandelbaum, p. 189). It is perhaps only natural then that the Sages included this extraordinary woman among those few immortals who “never tasted the taste of death” and “entered Paradise alive” (Derekh Eretz 1:18). <\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, Serah continues to live on in the folktales of the Jewish people. <\/span><\/p>\n

The following story is collected in the Israel Folktale Archives (9524 — Story 28). Once there was a king who made laws against the Jews. One day the king was hunting in the forest with his soldiers. He saw a doe and chased after it. The doe entered a cave and the king followed. The entrance to the cave closed behind the king and he was caught there in the dark for several days. Then the king suddenly saw emerging out of the dark a beautiful maiden, a woman warrior with her female soldiers. She called the king to come to her. She asked the king: Do you recognize me? He said: No. She said: I am the doe that you were chasing who jumped on your head and you were unable to catch. I want to know — Why have you made laws against the Jews? <\/span><\/p>\n

The king then asked her: \u00a0Who are you? She answered: I am Serah bat Asher, the granddaughter of Jacob, the Jewish patriarch. The king promised her that he would revoke the laws against the Jews and she released him from the dark cave. The king kept his word and gave the Jews beautiful clothes, so they could celebrate all their holidays. <\/span><\/p>\n

The king told the Jews what had happened to him and asked them if there was in their books someone called Serah bat Asher. They answered: Yes, she was blessed by our father Jacob with immortality. And then the king built a big synagogue where he had entered the cave, so that the Jews could pray on all their holidays as a memorial to Serah bat Asher. <\/span><\/p>\n

Indeed, a memorial to Serah bat Asher still stands today in the Jewish cemetery at Pir Bakran in Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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