Sing Along, Sea Song
Sing Along, Sea Song
Parshas Beshalach: Listening for the song of the soul
Worship: an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. It may involve one or more activities such as reverence, adoration, praise, and praying.
Why do we worship? Man possesses an irrepressible desire to connect with an entity that transcends himself. He senses a churning wellspring rising from within, urgently seeking a form of expression. Through worship, man encounters an outlet for these primal urges. Its ritual gives shape and meaning to such stirrings, allowing him to access a higher power and explore the inner recesses of his soul.
Humanity's need to worship is so deep-seated that even supposedly atheistic cultures install their respective secular idols in place of religious deities. The twentieth century saw communism substitute the cult of Stalin for God and the Communist party for religion.
Modern capitalism has spawned its own distinctive rituals of worship. The pantheon of divinities now possesses a brand-new breed of demigods, including the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos. We celebrate these capitalist icons for their otherworldly intelligence and unbridled ambition, lauding their mass-marketed products as if they were sacred offerings.
How much does what we worship tell us about ourselves? In this week's Parsha, the Jewish people engage in what is regarded as one of the finest acts of worship history has seen. Having been saved from certain death or enslavement, miraculously crossing the Red Sea on dry land and witnessing the absolute destruction of their former Egyptian taskmasters, the elevated Hebrew nation spontaneously breaks out into 'Shira' song.
Yet the Talmudic portrayal of 'Shiras Hayam' appears peculiar, to say the least:
"As they emerged from the sea, the Israelites wanted to sing. How did they sing? A toddler was resting on his mother's lap, and a baby was nursing. Upon encountering the Shechinah, the toddler raised his neck, and the baby ceased nursing, at which point they cried out, "This is my God, and I will honour Him."
{Talmud Bavli, Sotah 30b}
What possible reason could have prompted the Sages to depict this seismic event in such a bizarre manner? Why choose the imagery of singing babies to convey the nature of what occurred at the 'Shiras Hayam'?
To resolve this conundrum, we must first grasp the true nature of what 'Shira' is celebrating. At a surface level, the splitting of the Red Sea appears like the culmination of the Exodus from Egypt. We regard it, so to speak, as the cherry on top of the cake, the charoset on the matzah.
Although kriyas yam suf certainly meets this purpose, it also bears a significance of its own. Indeed its unique character is evidenced by its designation as a separate holiday within the Passover period. But what exactly distinguishes it from previous miraculous events?
A careful examination of our text suggests that God intended the Exodus and the Splitting of the Sea to serve different purposes. He declares that as a result of The Ten Plagues and the Exodus:
"Egypt will know that I am God"
{Shemos 7:5}
In other words, the explicit goal was to spread knowledge of the Divine. God's visceral reality was revealed through these marvels and miracles, with His universal supremacy finally understood. Regarding the crossing of the sea, our verse expresses radically different terms:
"I will be honoured through Pharaoh and all his armies"
{Shemos 14:17}.
Rav Kook argues that Kriyas yam suf had qualitatively superior objectives to the Exodus. Not only was it designed to produce yedias Hashem, knowledge of God, but rather the goal here was the demonstration of kavod Hashem, honouring God.
We see the importance of honouring God from a verse in Mishlei that instructs us to "Honor God with your wealth". A Midrashic teaching expands this prerogative of glorifying God with one's monetary wealth to exalting him with all one's varied talents, including singing. For example, a person with a melodious voice should lead communal prayers.
Rashi explains that the word 'mei-honecha' - "from your wealth" can be rendered as 'mei-gronecha' — "from your throat." Rav Kook brilliantly interprets this as Rashi reflecting on the essence of what it means to honour God. We acquire knowledge of God via our intellectual faculties, but honour springs from an altogether more primal, gut-level dimension of our being. Our Sages teach us that:
"If one's neck is removed, it is impossible to live."
{Midrash Shir HaShirim 4:6}
Much like the throat, Kavod is closely linked to our vital energy.
Now we can understand why the Midrash described Shiras HaYam as a song that arose from the mouths of infants. After the Red Sea crossing, our nation instinctively expressed its innate sense of kavod Hashem through ecstatic singing. Our longing for God erupted as a shira, even before we had fully processed what had occurred. In that raw state, stripped of the mind's intricate machinations, the Jewish people were like young children.
A person who forgets to mention the Exodus must return and repeat his prayers. However, one who overlooks the division of the sea is not obligated to go back. A profound reason for this is that honouring God, unlike knowledge and wisdom, is not defined within a fixed framework:
The stirring of the inner soul is an experience born of an intimate relationship with one's essence.
Of course, God, an infinitely supreme being, has no personal need for our worship. But the process of praise is helpful in that it reveals to us the nature of our true selves. This is comparable to two students, one a regular pupil and the other a classical music enthusiast, being tasked with describing Mozart's genius. While the first individual may have access to all the same raw information, his portrayal of Mozart will pale compared to that of the classical music aficionado. The regular pupil may rattle off a Wikipedia page, but the classical music enthusiast will sing Mozart's praises.
Our worship and what we revere are not merely insignificant and arbitrary choices of expression. They reveal our deepest inner core. Society's worship of superficial gods exposes corruption at its foundation. We become preoccupied with the external, ignoring the true beauty, profundity, and wisdom that lies within our tradition. We are all too easily seduced by the latest trend or fad, losing sight of the things that really matter.
Yet being part of the Jewish people, there is a message of hope to be drawn from the 'shira'. At their heart, our pristine souls are untainted by the shallow world we inhabit. If we can just listen closely, we will notice the spirit's ever-present hunger to ascend in praise of God. Then, at that moment, all we have to do is sing along.
Good Shabbos, and Keep Pondering