Parshat Vayigash
Overview
With the discovery of the goblet in Binyamin's sack, the brothers are confused. Yehuda alone steps forward and eloquently but firmly petitions Yosef for Binyamin's release, offering himself instead. As a result of this act of total selflessness, Yosef finally has irrefutable proof that his brothers are different people from the ones who cast him into the pit, and so he now reveals to them that he is none other than their brother. The brothers shrink from him in shame, but Yosef consoles them, telling them that everything has been part of
Insights
The Sound Of Music
"And they arose from Egypt and they came to the Land of Canaan to Yaakov their father." (45:25)
In the 1960s a new form of advertising was discovered and made illegal almost immediately. Madison Avenue realized that flashing one single frame of an advertisement into a movie playing at 24 frames per second left a subliminal message imprinted in the mind of the viewer; a message of which he was totally unaware. Because of its extreme subtlety, the message managed to sneak under the defenses of the consumer and plant itself into his subconscious. Without knowing it, the next time he was shopping he had this overpowering impulse to buy Fidofeed over his usual brand of dog food.
In fact, Madison Avenue had invented nothing new, for they were merely applying a principle that was over three thousand years old.
In this weeks Torah portion, Yosef’s brothers return to their father Yaakov and have to tell him that Yosef is still alive. Naturally, they are concerned how to break the news. They feared that the shock of hearing that not only was Yosef alive but that he was now the ruler of Egypt might be too much for Yaakov. As they approached Yaakov’s tent, they saw Serach, the daughter of Asher, coming out of the house to greet them. Serach was an extraordinary person, on a higher spiritual level than her contemporaries. She also played the harp beautifully.
They decided that the best way to break the news to Yaakov was for Serach to compose and play a beautiful song whose lyrics would say that Yosef was alive and well and living in Egypt. Then, with her harp, she would slip into her grandfather’s tent and begin to play and sing.
Yaakov had never recovered from the imagined loss of Yosef, and was still in mourning, till that moment when Serach began to sing. Softly she began, "My uncle Yosef is still alive; he is the ruler over Egypt". Serach’s soothing music cocooned those highly-charged words. Yaakov imbibed the words, and the message, and blessed Serach, "Serach! You have revived my soul. May you live forever!" And, measure for measure, Serach’s reward was that she lived until the reign of King David (another master of the harp) and was one of the few people to be taken to Gan Eden alive.
Music has charms to soothe a savage breast. It has the power to work on our emotions, to sneak below the level of the intellect and lodge its message in our subconscious. Before Yaakov could be shocked by the news that Yosef was alive, the message had already entered his consciousness subliminally, through the sound of music.
- Source: Sefer Hayashar