By Rabbi Abraham Unger, Ph.D.
Executive Director
This Week’s Torah Portion
The Power of Song
This coming Shabbat is called “Shabbat Shirah,” the Sabbath of song. It commemorates the narrative of Moses leading the Children of Israel in an outbreak of choral song after the miraculous splitting and heroic crossing of the Red Sea, representing a climactic moment in the redemption of the Jews from Egyptian slavery.
Tradition explains that a song is the harmonious coming together of all forces necessary to bring the potential of a particular moment to fruition. A “shir” is a regular song in Hebrew. A “shirah” represents a transformative experience translated into music.
What then, after all, is music, and why does a text devoted to words, namely the Torah and all of its commentaries, record the episode of a song? Judaism understands that when the spirit takes flight, language by itself is inadequate. Melody gropes for the ineffable, and reaching for Divinity is just that kind of effort; the feeling of redemption goes beyond mere words. Hence, a song is needed.
In his formative text of philosophy Metaphysics, Aristotle argues that music and theology are the two highest forms of human enquiry. Jewish life encapsulates this theory in real practice and historical model. This Shabbat we join study to song, and allow our souls to rejoice in the memory, and hope renewed, of an even better tomorrow.
Weekly Parenting Message from the Parsha
Torah and the Arts
Imagine a world without music, or without poetry. The Torah cannot. Right after Moses and the Children of Israel cross the Red Sea, recounted in this week’s Shabbat Torah portion, they all break out into song with powerful lyrics extolling creation. The sea has split, freedom has been won, and there can be no stronger outpouring of human feeling than that captured in music and verse, beyond the dry prose of a narrative or simple retelling of a story. The Arts run deeper in the soul than any mere use of regular daily language can. Something more emotionally moving is called for when our spirits soar.
This is a lesson for us all as parents. It is our task to support our children’s awe of the universe, and then to join with them in the creative process of the artistic enterprise. We sing with them, we clap hands, we draw with them, and we learn through the experience of building something new and beautiful in response to the majesty of the world in which we live. As much as reading, writing, and arithmetic are crucial, so is remembering our ability to rise above the academic and into the creative.
To be human means to balance the head with the heart. The Torah, in an hour of grandeur as the sea divides and a people cross it from slavery to freedom, teaches that the melody and lyrics of wonder are the most significant response to a miracle we can express. As mothers and fathers, we must never let our children lose their will to be artistic interpreters of their own special moments. The Torah asks no less of us.