Parshat Beshalach

AND THE ISRAELITES WENT INTO THE SEA ON DRY GROUND, THE WATERS FORMING A WALL FOR THEM ON THEIR RIGHT AND ON THEIR LEFT.

(Shemot 14:22)

BUT THE ISRAELITES HAD MARCHED THROUGH THE SEA ON DRY GROUND, THE WATERS FORMING A WALL FOR THEM ON THEIR RIGHT AND ON THEIR LEFT.

(Shemot 14:29)

 

Is Faith for Everyone, or Does it Require Courage?

And rebelled at the sea, at the Red Sea (Psalms 106:7) - Why twice? Because they rebelled at the sea when they did not want to descend [into the water]. If it had not been for the tribe of Judah, which jumped in first and sanctified the Name of the Holly One blessed be He, for it is said: When Israel left Egypt... Judah was His holy one (Psalms 114:1-2) [they would not have entered the water all]. How is it known that they rebelled at the Red Sea? When they descended into the sea it was full of mud, which had been kept moist until then by the water, and formed a kind of mud, as it is said: You made your horses tread the sea, homer [stirring, or alternatively, clay] the mighty waters (Habakkuk 3:15). Then Reuben would say to Shimon: "In Egypt there was mud, and in the sea there is mud. In Egypt - in the bricks and mortar, in the sea homer [stirring, or alternatively, clay] the mighty waters" - and so we see that they rebelled at the sea, at the Red Sea. [God said]: "After all those miracles you do me wrong! Would you do this to the Lord, foolish and unwise people...?" Another view: Would you do this to the Lord - He told them: "After He performed so many miracles for you, you rebel against Him?" as it is written: and rebelled at the sea, at the Red Sea; at the sea - on the sea shore; at the Red Sea - as literally understood. At that very hour the Prince of the Sea became full of anger at them and wanted to wash them away, but the Holy One blessed be He rebuked him and dried him up, as it is said: He rebuked the sea and dried it up (Nahum 1:4), and it says: He rebuked the Red Sea and it became dry (Psalms 106:9). When Moses saw that, he caused them to take leave of the sin of the sea, thus it is said, Moses caused Israel to set out from the Red Sea (Shemot 15:22).

(Shemot Raba 24, 1)

 

 

In honor of my mentor and teacher, Prof. Avigdor Shinan,

May he raise-up many additional students

And flourish in fruitful work

For many good long years

of joy and satisfaction.

(Translators note: the Hebrew word shira refers to both song and poetry, and both words are used in this translation according to context)

Life Will Sing a Song

Dalia Marx

This song is great, for it contains the present and it contains the past and it contains the future and it contains this world and it contains the world-to-come.(Sifrei Devarim 433)

A child enters the world through the birth canal and begins to cry.

The newborn's crying is the ultimate human expression; there is none simpler nor purer than it.

The baby cries itself. It is not crying aimed at gaining someone else's attention, nor to receive hugs (such crying will come later). It is pure crying, perfect; the unmediated reaction to the powerful and awesome experience which the child went through in birth.

The Israelites pass through the birth canal, crossing the Red Sea.

They cannot remain on the one bank, but [maybe - yet?] the other is frightening and threatening.

The passage itself is a terrible experience.

The walls of water could fall at any moment, burying the bewildered Israelites under them.

When the Israelites emerge from the other end of the great national birth canal - the people feared the Lord and believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses (Shemot 14:31).

And then they sing this song to the Lord.

The Song of the Sea sung by the rebellious, insubordinate, and stiff-necked Israelites, a nation of slaves and the starved - is the cry of the newborn child.

True, immediately after this stirring event the Israelites backslide to their old ways and complain at Mei Marah saying, "What shall we drink?'. Soon, they are already asking to return to Egypt and its fleshpots. However, this instant, this singular and wonderful blink of an eye, is the moment of a baby's cry, a moment of true speech, forthright and unmanipulative. The Israelites are speaking themselves, without reserve or prettification.

And who sang the Song of the Sea?

Rabbi Yosi HaGalili teaches us that they all sang:

An infant lying across its mother's knee and a babe sucking at its mother's breast,

saw the Divine Presence -

the infant raised up its neck and the babe pulled the nipple from its mouth

and both said: This is my Lord, and I will glorify Him...

R. Meir used to say: How do we know that even the unborn sang from within their mother's wombs?

But they did not see anything!?

R. Tanhum said: The [mother's] abdomen became like clear glass for them, and they saw. (Sotah 30b)

The infants, the babies, and even the unborn sang the Song of the Sea. After the entire people was enraptured by that wonderful singing led by Moses, Miriam came with a drum in her hand

And all the women came after her with drums and dancing (15:20).

The women also sang.

They sang with the entire nation, and now they sing their song by themselves.

No one silences them.

They sing, and dance, and play instruments...

The women's singing is different from that of the men.

It is less verbal.

The women sing with their voices, with their bodies, and their musical instruments.

Perhaps they repeat the same utterance over and over again:

Sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously, horse and driver he has hurled into the sea (15:21).

The Song of the Sea marks this foundational moment,

The singular moment in which the Jewish People peeked behind the divine screen.

Did not a maidservant by the sea view things more exalted than did the great prophets?

The moment passed, and is no more.

Even so, it continues to be replayed in our hearts throughout the generations as part of the praises uttered in the morning service, and as part of the Torah reading.

But what is song?

Can one always sing?

Is song always available or does it require a special state of mind?

R. Simon said: Not everyone who wants to utter a song may do so,

Rather, whenever a miracle occurs for someone and they utter a song, it is known that their sins will be forgiven,

And they become like a new creation.

When a miracle occurred for them, Israel uttered a song, as it is said: Then sang Moses and the Israelites. (Midrash Tehillim 18:6)

Utterance of the song is not only the production of a new work or of a new creation.

Utterance of a song transforms he who creates it into a new creation.

***

The Song of the Sea is not the only song that stirs us this week.

The haftarah of Parashat BeShalah relates the story of Devorah the Prophetess, one of the seven prophetesses who, according to tradition, rose up from the Jewish People. Deborah's wonderful story is told twice in the Book of Judges, first in prose and later in poetry. How great is the difference between the prose account of Yael's deed:

She opened the milk-skin and gave him drink and covered him (Judges 4:19)

and the poetic description:

Most blessed be Yael among women,

the wife of Hever the Kennite

shall be most blessed among the women of the tent.

He asked for water but she gave him milk

In a princely bowl she brought him curds. (5:24-25)

Song is the other voice,

the forgotten one,

the voice that must be raised up from the depths of oblivion,

the voice that does not give itself over easily to those who call out in it, nor to those it summons.

Song gives voice to elements that are not always remembered to be spoken in the busy language of the everyday.

Song gives voice to tones and strains that are not always comfortable for the heart of flesh to remember.

Song gives voice to those who are usually silenced.

***

The sons and daughters of humanity are not alone in offering song before the Blessed One.

All of nature utters song.

This Shabbat is called Shabbat Shirah, the Shabbat of Song. This is so, because it contains great songs - the Song of the Sea in the parasha, and the Song of Deborah in the haftorah.

On this Shabbat, the Shabbat during which we commemorate Israel's singing, it is customary to feed the birds, it is a folk custom to scatter bits of food for those fowl whose vocation is song.

Next week we celebrate Tu BiShvat.

On that day we are called upon to be especially attentive to nature's song.

We do not always have in ourselves the resources necessary to hear that song in the hustle and bustle of our lives.

On Tu BiShvat we are called upon to stand outside the usual flow of life,

to observe and experience,

to recall that every single blade of grass has its own special Niggun, its special song,

and that each and every animal - even the least among them - has its own special shirah, its special song.

And from all their singing is formed the song of the shepherd, the song of the world and of its Creator:

They said of King David that upon completing the Book of Psalms he was self-satisfied and said to Him: "Lord of the Universe, is there anything in the world that can sing as I do?"

A frog came up to him and said to him: Do not be so self-satisfied, for I utter more song than you! (Yalkut Shimoni Tehillim, 889)

As we celebrate it today, Tu BiShvat itself is a new song, a renewed custom.

Fine old wine poured into new bottles,

Fresh juicy nectar served in ancient vessels.

Sometimes song is served in vessels that cannot easily accommodate it.

Sometimes we can recognize a spark of song, the poetic dimension, even in surprising places.

Sometimes the race of life and the rush of prose allow us a peek of the poetic.

As the NeTziV wrote in the introduction to his commentary on the Torah:

"Write this song for you (Devarim 31) - which is the entire Torah."

Here is how the NeTziV explains his assertion:

How is one to understand that all of the Torah is called song, when it is not written in the language of song? Rather, it enjoys the nature and virtues of song, which is poetic speech...

And for him [the enlightened person] the light of subtlety is exceedingly sweet...

For poetry has the special virtue of adorning it with allusions that are not related to the song's immediate subject...

And that is true of all of the Torah in its entirety.

***

Where does the song dwell? Only within the palaces of knowledge and the towers of understanding?

We learned from the frog which admonished King David that it is also found in the bog!

Its substance - is the substance of life, but the swamp foliage does not always leave it room to grow.

Aharon David Gordon, the pioneer and man of faith, who is counted among the leaders of the Second Aliyah, said:

What use is poetry to me?

What use is belles-lettres to me?

What use is literature to me?

Life is what I yearn for, life,

Let life utter a song!

Indeed, Gordon's life was a song. Are only the chosen few capable of living life as a song?

Perhaps it is a matter of rare and special moments.

In his essay, "Revelation and Concealment in Language," Bialik tells us that language conceals more than it reveals. He calls upon us to consider those rare revelatory moments found "between one concealment and the next," moments which contain "the flickering of the abyss."

Bialik asks, "To what may they be compared?" He answers:

When one crosses a melting river, walking upon the bobbing blocks of ice,

He must not rest his foot on any block for more than an instant,

For more than the time it takes to hop from one to the next, and on and on,

Between the cracks flickers the abyss, the foot fails, danger is near...

Song is prayer,

Distilled prayer is song

One of the ten expressions that refer to prayer is rina, which means "song" (Devarim Rabbah 2:1).

But how elusive song is,

how quickly it can become a sad caricature of itself

when disconnected from the sources of its vitality.

In our world, we are immersed in endless verbiage,

every idea is ground finer and finer,

tables are drawn up,

definitions formulated,

computations computed,

calculations compared...

Will we know how to hear - if only occasionally

the song in Your world, which You have created?

to sing the song of our lives,

the song in our lives?

Hold our hand when we ask to experience those rare

and apportioned moments,

for we are apprehensive.

Be with us when we try to feel the passing seconds

In which flickers the abyss,

To tarry, if only for the blink of an eye,

in the revelation of Your divine presence...

Dr. Dalia Marx teaches at the Hebrew Union College and at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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