After successfully crossing the Sea of Reeds and escaping the powerful Egyptian army, Moses and the Israelites sang a triumphant and thankful song with much dancing and celebration.
Tradition teaches that there are only ten "true Songs" (Shirot, the plural of Shirah) in the history of the world. The use of the word songs, shirot, does not refer to the melodies per se; rather, they are expressions of the harmony of creation, and they mark monumental transitions in history. In addition to Shirat HaYam, another of these "true Songs" appears in the haftarah portion for the week (Judges 4:4-5:31): the Song of Deborah. (The haftarah includes readings from other books of the Hebrew Bible while the Torah refers to only the first five books of the Hebrew Bible).
The children of Israel safely and miraculously find themselves on the other side of the Sea of Reeds. At this point, they could have reacted a number of ways. They chose to break into song and dance.
The Song of the Sea is very unique, and it expresses the joy of a people freed to realize their potential as a people no longer enslaved. They have no idea how their collective story will yet unfold, but they do know that the journey has begun.
While the narrative description in Exodus recounts the miracle of crossing the Sea of Reeds in simple, concrete language, Shirat HaYam, by contrast, describes the same event in striking, visual, poetic imagery:
At the blast of Your nostrils, the waters piled up,
The floods stood straight like a wall,
The depths froze in the heart of the sea.
When Moses and the Israelites sang this new song of freedom, they were making prayer new, relevant, and personal. We should continue to do this.
One reason Shirat HaYam is so special is that visually, this song/poem is laid out very differently from the rest of the Torah. It is obvious that something very special is happening here in our Torah. (There are several additional songs/poems in the Torah that are also written differently than the rest; another great example is Parashat Ha'azinu in Deuteronomy chapter 32, which is written in two narrow columns.)
Usually, the Torah is written as one very long narrative passage, with no punctuation or vowels, very few line breaks, and certainly no book or chapter or verse markings. Those have all been added in our modern print books to make it easier to find our places.
Here is a picture of the usual Torah entries on the right and left side, and Shirat HaYam which is written in the center section:
You can see how unusual and different Shirat HaYam is in its visual presentation in our Torah.
One of my favorites parts of our story for Shirat HaYam is that the women took out their timbrels, their tambourines, and Miriam and the women led the people in jubilant song. The fact that the women packed their tambourines, when they were so limited with what they could bring on their backs in their hasty retreat from Egypt, still amazes me, and some day I will write more on that detail.
Our point, of course, is about being truly thankful for the amazing things that happen for us, in ways we didn't completely make happen on our own.
The Hebrews chose to acknowledge this by breaking out into full on soulful song. I'm not sure that's always the wisest choice for those of us with raspy voice (see, I can write poem, too! LOL), but it would certainly garner attention!
One final note.... in my post yesterday, I used a gift from a friend to illustrate my point about the front and back of the tapestry. She wrote to me, making it clear that there were not, in fact, any knots in the back of her work. So I apologize for unintentionally diminishing her superb craftsmanship (craftswomanship?) in any way. I was using poetic license to remind us that often what we see (the tangles and gnarls of day to day life) isn't the full beautiful picture in all of its glory (the front of the work). That was my point, and my apologies for unintentionally diminishing my friend's incredible cross stitching talents.
Shabbat Shirah shalom v'simcha!
No comments:
Post a Comment