Making sense of the sedra: Beshalach
A song for our time
As I drove my eldest to school last Sunday morning, I enjoyed the stunning piece of music playing on Tim Lihoreau’s weekend breakfast show on Classic FM, prompting me to quip: “There’s nothing like a bit of Sunday morning church music!”
This week’s parasha, Beshalach, is also known as Shabbat Shira to denote the song the Jewish people sang with Moses after crossing the Red Sea. Rashi, the classical commentator on the Chumash, explains the view of Rabbi Nechemiah in the Talmud, that the Jewish people spontaneously sang the song together. He comments that the Holy Spirit rested on them and miraculously the same words came into their minds at the same time. In recollection of that moment, tradition has named this week Shabbat Shirah, the Sabbath of Song.
Song has a central role towards the end of Moses’ life. The final mitzvah of the Torah in parasha Vayeilech is for each Jew to write a scroll. The commentaries on the parasha note the poignant description of the Torah as a shira, a song.
The Netziv (Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, 1816–1893, one of the great yeshiva heads of the 19th century) interprets it to mean that the whole Torah should be read as poetry, not prose; the word shira in Hebrew means both a song and a poem. Most of the Torah is written in prose, but the Netziv argued that it has two characteristics of poetry. First, it is allusive rather than explicit. It leaves unsaid more than is said. Secondly, like poetry, it hints at deeper reservoirs of meaning, sometimes by the use of an unusual word or sentence construction. Prose carries its meaning on the surface. The Torah, like poetry, often does not. The decisive points of the narrative alone are emphasised, what lies between is non-existent; time and place are undefined and call for interpretation; thoughts and feelings remain unexpressed, only suggested by the silence and the fragmentary speeches.
Dr Naomi Cohn Zentner is an assistant professor at Bar Ilan University’s music department. Her research interests lie in Historical Ethnomusicology, sacred songs of the Ashkenazi domestic sphere, and the cross-fertilisation of Ashkenazi and Sephardi liturgical traditions in Israel. She recently gave a lecture on the deep impact of October 7, and the choice of music that has been used, especially in Israel, to help people cope with this incredibly challenging time in Jewish history.
In this context, music in Israel has taken on a dual role: it functions as a sensitive seismograph, capturing and reflecting the national mood and emotions in the aftermath of the tragedy and processing grief, and it acts as a compass, framing interpretations of the traumatic events and offering possible pathways for comfort, resilience, and hope. Across all its genres, Israeli music addresses critical issues of belief, unity and the collective identity of Israeli society in a moment of unprecedented crisis.
May this Shabbat Shir be one that inspires us with hope and faith and joy. May we find many opportunities in our lives to sing our own unique song to God, including the rich reservoir of emotions yet always grateful for the gift of shira.
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