Serach, the Undying Matriarch

The highlight of this week’s Torah reading (Exodus 13:17–17:16) is the splitting of the Red Sea as the Jews make their final escape from their Egyptian oppressors. In trying to interpret the miracle, according to an ancient midrashic collection, the rabbis got help from a figure mentioned only three times in the Hebrew Bible: Serach, the granddaughter of Jacob, who, as Rabbi Rachel Adelman writes, “like Elijah, . . . shows up in the Hall of Study to resolve disputes.”