The Daily Strengthening from our teacher, the holy Tzaddik Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a – “The Yud of Sarah is the Ten Types of Melody”

“He recognized it and said, ‘It is my son’s coat; a wild beast has devoured him—Yosef has surely been torn to pieces’” (Bereishis 37:33)

Monday, 10 Cheshvan 5785 – Why are you deceiving me for 22 years?

These are his holy words:

R’ Nosson explains in the Laws of Birkas HaMazon that the entire conquest of the Land was through the Yud of Sarah—who was previously Sarai.

The Yud of Sarah is the Ten Types of Melody. Sarah was constantly singing; that is why she entered Gan Eden with her body. Without the violin, Serach bas Asher would not have entered Gan Eden with her body—because whoever would have been the one to tell Yaakov that Yosef was alive would have died on the spot from Yaakov’s strict judgment. After all, why didn’t Yosef write a letter to his father until now and tell him, “Father, I’m alive”?

In that moment, Yaakov would have asked: “You’re alive?! I thought, I thought, ‘A wild beast has devoured him’ (Bereishis 37:33). What—he was sold? Who sold him—the brothers?”

There would have been no remnant left of all twelve brothers—no remnant at all. Therefore, whoever would come and tell Yaakov that Yosef was alive—no remnant would remain of him. “Why are you deceiving me for 22 years? I am sitting on the ground in mourning, crying, wearing sackcloth and ashes—and you don’t tell me the story? You let me mourn for Yosef while you know he is alive?!”

So the moment Serach said that Yosef was alive, she would have had to go to her death. Immediately they placed her under cherem. In those days, things went with cherem—it wasn’t a small matter: cherem on her, cherem on Asher her father. Why is her father telling her such stories—that Yosef is alive? These are things that are forbidden to reveal!

But Serach sweetened everything: she came in with the violin, with melody and joy, and she brought Yaakov the news.