That's the story of Moses and the coffin of Joseph as the Israelites prepared to leave Egypt.

You see, Moses knew something crucial: the Israelites couldn't truly be free until they fulfilled the oath they’d made to Joseph so long ago. That oath? To take his bones with them when they finally left Egypt for the Promised Land. (Genesis 50:25) But there was a problem. A big one.

For three whole days and three nights, Moses, the man who would lead his people out of bondage, searched high and low across the land of Egypt. He was desperately seeking Joseph’s coffin. According to Ginzberg’s retelling in Legends of the Jews, Moses knew that the Exodus couldn't happen without it. But it was nowhere to be found! Imagine the pressure.

Can you picture Moses, exhausted, weary, his hope dwindling with each passing hour? Then, in his despair, he meets Serah, the daughter of Asher. She sees his distress and asks what troubles him. He tells her of his fruitless quest, his inability to locate Joseph's final resting place.

And here’s where the story takes a fascinating turn. Serah knows the secret. She leads Moses to the Nile River. There, she reveals that the Egyptians, in a desperate attempt to keep the Israelites from leaving, had sunk Joseph’s leaden coffin in the river.

But why the Nile? Why hide a coffin there?

Well, the Egyptians didn't act alone. They were aided and abetted by their magicians, those practitioners of ancient arts and secret knowledge. These magicians knew the power of Joseph's oath. They understood that the Israelites were bound to it. So, they used their magic – their kishuf, as it might have been called – to hide the coffin in a place where it seemed impossible to retrieve. They sealed the coffin on all sides and sank it deep within the river.

It’s a cunning plan, right? Trap the Israelites with their own promise. Keep them bound to Egypt forever. But as we know, the story doesn’t end there. How Moses manages to retrieve the coffin from the depths of the Nile is a story for another time! But the very fact that the Egyptians went to such lengths shows just how powerful a simple promise can be.

What does this tell us? Perhaps that even in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, even when magic and power conspire against us, the bonds of faith and the weight of our promises can lead us on a quest, a search for something essential to our freedom. And sometimes, just sometimes, we need a little help from an unexpected source to find what we're looking for.