Parashat Beshallach: On Singing

In this week’s parsha, the Israelites sing out to God after witnessing the wonders of the Red Sea. The word for song in Hebrew is shirah. The Sefat Emet says that shirah is connected to the word shurah, line. What happens when a person sings is that they draw a line between earth and heaven, a line between their own innermost spiritual point and its divine source. Singing is an expression of the understanding of this connection, of the feeling of having a spirit inside that wants to break out and rise up to be part of something larger.

When you sing, it actually does something to the world, says the Sefat Emet. When the Israelites sang at the Sea, they activated the songs of all the created beings in the Universe, the sun, the sky, the birds, the water, . . . Each creature has his own song to God and when the Israelites sang, the whole world sang with them. Perhaps that is why the layout of the Song at the Sea in the Torah looks like links of a chain; singing is a joining activity. It connects between earth and heaven and also between earth and earth.

The Israelites’ singing made an impression on the world, and also on the Torah, says the Sefat Emet. The layout of the Song in the Torah, like chains, is full of open spaces. What singing did was to open up the Torah, to open up its deep secrets for human discovery; singing is a kind of revelation, an uncovering of something deep inside oneself and deep in the Torah that is true and eternal.

“Let the rivers clap their hands; let the mountains sing for joy together!” (Ps. 98:8)