Singing Praise

Guest post by Vicky Tobianah

This month is the month of Shvat and the parshat hashavuah is Beshlach.

In this week’s parasha, after leaving Egypt and witnessing the splitting of the Red Sea, Bnei Israel sing Shirat Hayam. In Hebrew, the word “Lezamer” means “to sing” which shares the same root as the word “lizmor” which means “to prune.” The fact that they come from the same word comes to teach us a lot. When we prune a bush we are removing old, dead growth that is inhibiting its growth; we're shaping the bush to bring out its own beauty. The same thing happens to us with song. When we sing, we "prune" away the excess baggage that we carry around, revealing our essence. The harmony of music releases the disharmony within us. Thus we fill Shabbat with song. We revel in the pleasure of getting rid of the excess, the disharmonious things that have accumulated during the past six days, leaving us, as "Shalom Aleichem," the first song of Shabbat says, with a feeling of shalom -- peace. After leaving Egypt, and witnessing miracles, Bnei Israel sing this song together, in unison, knowing that they finally had peace, finally were harmonious with G-d’s protection.



In the Torah’s definition, a “song” is a profound and unusual spiritual phenomenon (and according to Mechilta 15:1, there were only ten songs from the beginning of Creation to the end of the Scriptural period.) So what does the Torah consider song? In our normal days and activities, we often fail to recognize the hand of G-d present in everything we do, and we even wonder how it is possible for the unrelated phenomena around us is part of some Divine plan. We see suffering and war going on and it causes us to question how it could be the work of a Merciful G-d. However, rarely, we receive a flash of insight that makes us realize how all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. At such times, we understand how everything that occurs in this world is part of G-d’s plan, and the result is song, for the Torah’s concept of song is the condition in which all the seemingly unrelated and contradictory phenomena do indeed become a coherent, merciful, understandable whole. At the sea, Moses and the Jewish people understood their situation as never before. The suffering they endured at the hands of Pharoah, the worsening of conditions when Moses initially tried to help them, the hopelessness they felt when they were surrounded by Pharoah, the sea and wilderness… all these doubts and fears disappeared when the sea split. As we learn in Mechilta, even a maidservant at the sea received a higher degree of revelation that that of the prophet Ezekiel in his heavenly vision (Ezekiel 1). To the Jews at the sea, creation became a symphony, a song, because they could understand how everything unrelated and incomprehensible fit into G-d’s divine plan and all these events led up to the greatest of all miracles. Once they attained this realization, they also become convinced that all the events of the past and future that they still did not know were part of G-d’s plan. Midrash Tanchuma teaches us that because they believed (as we see in the verse before the song begins), they could sing. Only when creation became harmonious could they translate it into human song. This elevated status that brought the song was shared by the whole nation. Moses led the song, but the entire nation, not only its prophets and leaders, could rise to this state of prophecy.

This shirah is special because whenever Israel repeats it throughout the generations, it is as if they have sung it for the first time. Why? Because all the other words of the Torah were said by G-d while Israel listened, and here, with this shirah, Israel sang to G-d and G-d listened. At that moment, Israel’s soul was elevated to the highest state of exaltation and Israel’s heart was filled with Torah. Interestingly enough, Bnei Israel sing this song of Torah before they were even given the Torah at Mount Sinai. From the strength of the shirah which they sang, joy and song were implanted in the hears of Jews until the end of generations. Whenever Israel is delivered from the hands of her enemies, we are inspired to sing and praise G-d for bringing salvation to us, rather than praising us for having persevered. The Shirah begins with the words “And they spoke” and this tells us that the song they spoke allows us to continue saying song in all the generations to come.

The shirah was sung by them in perfect faith, not just because they had just seen G-d perform miracles and wonders. Israel did not begin to sing until she recognized that the bondage and affliction which she had suffered and would suffer again in the future were all signs of G-d’s eternal lovingkindness. And then Israel knew that there is no joy or life other than with having faith in Hashem as it says in the Shirah:

o וַיַּאֲמִינוּ, בַּיהוָה, וּבְמֹשֶׁה, עַבְדּוֹ
o אָז יָשִׁיר-מֹשֶׁה וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת-הַשִּׁירָה הַזֹּאת לַיהוָה

The shirah sung at the sea was voiced in its proper time and place - at the moment when all Heaven and earthly creation were filled with song declaring G-d’s greatness. At that moment, when the glory of G-d filled the world, Israel burst into song and that is why it says “Then” - Az. Then - at that precise moment, not before and afterwards. Had they delayed their shirah, then the rest of the universe would not have responded in song, for the impression of what just happened would have already been gone. Had they sung their song earlier, when they left Egypt, they would have been told to give thanks to Pharaoh who set them free, but to be careful because his armies still exist and might come after them. However, now, when all of Pharaoh’s horses had drowned in the sea, and he had been left without strength and pride, now was the best time for the shirah.

“Az Yashir” means “and they chose to sing.” The Torah uses the future tense to show us that they decided to sing then. Rashi tells us from this we can learn that they will again sing in the future when G-d brings the dead back to life in Messianic times, and we will sing G-d’s praises once again.

So, for the rest of this coming month, and year, I wish you all a month filled with understanding that in times when things are difficult and you do not understand why these events are occurring to you or how they seem to fit into some divine plan, I hope we can all find some way to understand that there is a bigger picture being created that may not make sense in the present, but hopefully will soon to come. I hope we can all learn that perhaps one day we will be lucky enough to merit to see the world in accordance with G-d’s divine plan, harmonious and unified as a nation. Chodesh Tov.