Finding our way to song on Shabbat Shirah

[This is my article from this week's Toronto Torah]

On Shabbat Shirah, when we read Parshat Beshalach’s account of our ancestors’ miraculous passage through the split Sea and their song of thanks, Jews traditionally throw wheat kernels to the birds. The practice seems to be problematic, in that one may not feed undomesticated animals on Shabbat; indeed, the Magen Avraham (324:7), writing in the 17th century, prohibited it. However, numerous authorities (Tosefet Shabbat 324:17, Aruch haShulchan Orach Chaim 324:3, and see Tzitz Eliezer 14:28) have justified the practice, because we are not doing this for the sake of feeding wildlife. Rather, we do this in order to recall the joy of crossing through the Sea, a moment when even the birds recognized the miracle and were moved to sing praises before HaShem. The rabbinic decrees against feeding animals do not apply to such a practice.

The combination of the joyous song of the birds and the joyous song of our ancestors invests this entire day with the identity of “Shabbat Shirah”, a Shabbat of celebratory song. What is a Jew to do, though, when he doesn’t feel the joy, whether due to external circumstance or internal turmoil? How can we sing, if we are depressed? What does a sad Jew do, in order to participate in Shabbat Shirah?

Rabbi Yisroel of Rizhin (as cited in Netivot Shalom, Shemot pg. 121) suggested that although certain days have identities which dictate their Torah readings, Shabbat Shirah is created by its Torah reading. Shabbat Shirah becomes Shabbat Shirah only when we read about the departure from Egypt, and the splitting of the Sea; this experience stimulates joy in depressed hearts, and catalyzes songs of praise for Gd.

When the Creator of the Universe sends the message to Pharaoh, “בני בכורי ישראל,” “My child, my firstborn, is Israel,” our chests swell. When the Source of All declares, “כה אמר ד',” “Thus speaks G-d,” and when the King of Kings commands, “שלח עמי ויעבדני,” “Send out My nation, and they will serve Me,” we come face to face with the first, greatest and most enduring source of Jewish pride: Our membership in a covenant with HaShem.

The spirit builds slowly through Pharaoh’s repeated stalling tactics and afflictions, until, ultimately, G-d descends to Egypt to personally dispatch our tormentor, highlighting the unique status of the Jewish nation. We are taught that G-d did not employ natural means, and G-d did not send an emissary; He altered Creation, Himself, for our sake.

Finally, this is followed by the account of the Jews trembling in terror before the sea, marching through the night and finally emerging on the shore to recognize their torturers vanquished and their chains irreversibly smashed. This ultimate validation of the tradition passed down from our founding fathers and mothers placed the stamp of truth upon our national aspirations.

This story can, if taken personally and seriously, redound positively and powerfully within the listener and move the sensitive soul to a crescendo of joy, and therefore song, as a nation, our nation, is freed from centuries of slavery, spared from imminent destruction, and launched upon a trajectory to greatness, in a single night that dawns upon a new day of freedom. This is the engine of Shabbat Shirah.

Shabbat Shirah is not a day to sing; it is a day on which to draw inspiration, and to be moved to sing.

When we listen to kriat haTorah this Shabbat not with an ear toward our neighbors but with an ear toward the joy-inducing events recorded therein, that will bring us to song. May we then merit the fulfillment of the prediction of Sanhedrin 91b, that the day will come when we will sing the song of Moshe, Miriam and the Jews together again.

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Note: There is another element of שירה (song) in the idea of שיר as a circular ornament, and the circular lyrical structure of biblical poetry, and the idea of שירה as acceptance of the complete circle that is "human action-Divine reaction", but that's beyond the scope of this article.

Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, Vespasian and Me on Rosh HaShanah

Surprisingly, Rosh HaShanah was, thank Gd, a good one for me this year.

I always come in very nervous. Someone shook my hand after a pesichah on the first day and was surprised my hands were ice-cold. I told him I get nervous, to which he replied, “But you’re not new at this!” No, I’m not new at it… but I still get nervous. About my personal davening, about my rabbi role, about how shofar will go, about how my children will daven, about whether X will insult Y, about whether people will listen when I give my pre-shofar reminder for them to respect other people’s davening, etc.

But it went well, I’m glad to say. I was able to daven and feel kavvanah. The chazanim were excellent. I was proud to tears of the way my older two davened. The great, great majority of people were respectful of people who were davening, and stepped out if they needed to converse. Shofar was excellent. The derashot were well-received. No one, to the best of my knowledge, insulted or slugged anyone else (although I may only hear about it later today…). I cried my way through my “Dealing with Depression in others” speech, but I knew I was going to do that. If I’m not feeling the words of the derashah as I say them, it’s not a derashah.

And I had a stop-me-in-my-tracks moment during the Shmoneh Esreih of the first night:

It started right at the beginning of the amidah, with the identification of HaShem as “Gd of Avraham/Yitzchak/Yaakov.”

Like almost everything else in the amidah, that line is lifted from Tanach. It quotes HaShem’s first speech to Moshe, telling him (Shmot 3:15), “Go tell the Jews: The Gd of your fathers, Gd of Avraham, Gd of Yitzchak, Gd of Yaakov has sent me to you. This is My Name forever, this is the way to recall Me, from generation to generation.”

And so, in every generation, we pray for redemption using that verse. We say, “Gd, You are the Gd of our ancestors – and You are our Gd, too.” And I got caught up in it that night: Who am I, to say, “You are Avraham’s Gd and my Gd?” Does my faith or my service belong anywhere in the same universe as that of an Avraham? A Yitzchak? A Yaakov?! Talk about hubris!

Then I continued to describe Gd, “The powerful, the great…” And I thought to myself: When I sin with the same mouth that is now praising Gd in these terms, what am I thinking?!

But the kicker was when I reached the first time that we call HaShem “HaMelech,” “the King.” My mind leapt to the story of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai’s meeting with the Roman general Vespasian (Gittin 57b), before the second Beit haMikdash was destroyed, and the association was so sharp that I’m surprised I never thought of it before.

The Romans were besieging Jerusalem. The sages wanted to hold out or make a treaty with the Romans, but the zealots were pushing for a last-ditch fight. Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai managed to get himself smuggled out of the city, and he met with Vespasian. He greeted Vespasian as one greets a king, because of his belief that Jerusalem could only fall to a king, and Vespasian replied, “If I am a king, why haven’t you come to me until now?”

To which R’ Yochanan ben Zakkai replied, “I couldn’t, because of the zealots among us.”
To which Vespasian said, “You should have destroyed the city to get rid of the zealots!”
And the gemara describes a dumbstruck R’ Yochanan, unable to respond.

I suddenly flashed into that gemara. Here I am, calling Gd “King.” But despite the regal assocations unique to Rosh HaShanah, Gd is always King – why haven’t I come to Gd as King until now?

And if I will blame my own zealots, the ego and arrogance and foolishness that keeps me away, won’t Gd have the same response for me: I should have demolished myself in order to get rid of those obstructing forces?

To which the answer is, possibly, the same one that the gemara says R’ Yochanan should have offered to Vespasian: We had hoped that You would come and get rid of the zealots.

As we say so often, השיבנו ה' אליך ונשובה, Bring us back to You, Gd, and then we will repent. I have been hoping all year that Gd would help me. But I have arrived at Rosh HaShanah without success, and so, at least today, I call Gd the King, I take that first step.

This moment made me feel good about my entire davening. I had an insight – into the davening, and into myself. I understand myself better now than I did before. I may even have a weapon for fighting my zealots.

What more could I want from Rosh HaShanah?