Singing Shirah

By Rabbi Moshe Krieger, Yeshivas Bircas HaTorah (www.bircas.org)

In Parashas Beshalach, the Jewish people crossed the Yam Suf while it was split, and then the water closed in on the Egyptians. Their last ties to slavery were eradicated, and the entire nation celebrated with a song to Hashem. We recite this song, known as the Shiras HaYam (the Song of the Sea), every morning towards the end of Pesukei D’Zimra.

The Midrash Rabbah (24:4) relates that Hashem had been waiting for someone to sing shirah since time began. He created Adam, but he didn’t sing shirah. He saved Avraham Avinu from the burning furnace, yet he didn’t sing shirah. Yitzchak was saved from being slaughtered, and Yaakov from Esav’s angel, but they didn’t sing shirah. When shirah was sung by the Yam Suf, Hashem declared, “This is the moment I have been waiting for!”

This midrash highlights how incredible Hashem’s joy was at this moment, but it also raises a question. Just what is so special about shirah? Adam, Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov also praised Hashem. Adam HaRishon even wrote the famous Mizmor Shir L’Yom HaShabbos! What about the shirah that the Jews sang at the Yam Suf was so special?

Another statement of Chazal (Brachos 50a) raises a further question about the shirah. The Gemara says that even unborn babies sang shirah from their mothers’ wombs. Midrashim are not necessarily intended to be taken at face value, but still, is such a thing possible? If Hashem did make such a miracle, what purpose did it serve, and what can we learn from it?

Rav Reuven Fine explains that shirah is not merely a song. Shirah comes from a much deeper place. In this world, the revelation of Hashem does not come easily. When someone does witnesses an event where he clearly sees the Divine Hand in his life, it can affect him so profoundly that he longs to shout out praises of Hashem with every fiber of his being. The words of praise practically come out on their own volition. The experience of kri’as Yam Suf was such that even fetuses were affected, and they sang out to Hashem from the depths of their souls. This is what made the shirah so precious and unprecedented.

Rav Fine notes that, interestingly, in davening we refer to this song as a shirah chadashah, a new song. What aspect of this three-thousand-three-hundred-year-old song is new?

Rav Fine answers that even today, we are capable of connecting to this song’s unique wellspring of inspiration. The Mishnah Berurah (51:17) says that anyone who sings Shiras HaYam as if the miracle happened to him personally is forgiven for all his sins. Singing this shirah can transform us so deeply that our sins may as well have been committed by someone else. We should therefore try our best to understand the beauty of this tefillah and relive it.

It’s important to add that a Jew shouldn’t only sing shirah during Pesukei D’Zimra. The joy that comes from looking at the wonderful world Hashem created and all the incredible things that He does for us should be a new cause for shirah. Every berachah we make and every time we daven, we have a new opportunity to sing to Hashem in thanks for all the good that He does for us. It is said that people who dared to stand close to the Vilna Gaon when he davened were able to hear a quiet, beautiful melody accompanying his Shemoneh Esrei.

In Parashas Vayeileich (Devarim 31:10), the Torah refers to itself as a shirah, referring to the mitzvah to write a Sefer Torah. Why is a Sefer Torah a song?

We can answer this question by quoting a Ya’avetz (Avos 1). The Midrash (Eichah, in the introduction) states that during the period of the first Beis HaMikdash, Hashem tolerated terrible sins such as idol worship, adultery, and murder. However, Hashem did not forgive the sin of bittul Torah (the sin incurred when one could have studied Torah, but did not). The Ya’avetz asks, how could bittul Torah be worse than killing somebody?

He answers with a parable: A king had a loyal servant. One day, the servant was negligent in preparing the king’s meal. The penalty for this transgression should have been death, but the king pardoned the servant. This was because this servant would play music for the king whenever he was sad, and as long as he played music, the king didn’t have the heart to kill him.

The same was true with the Jews of the first Temple. As long as they continued learning Torah, Hashem’s affection for them caused Him to ignore the death penalty warranted for the three cardinal sins. Learning Torah is so dear to Hashem that when He hears us learning, His love for us is renewed as if He had heard us singing shirah to Him. In Hashem’s eyes, a Jew’s Torah is shirah.

A rebbe of mine used to say that Torah should uplift and change us. He would quote the continuation of the Midrash cited above, which states that if the Jewish people would learn the Torah properly, the Torah would inspire them and return them to the path of righteousness. He would say, “This is what the Torah was designed to do! And if a person doesn’t feel uplifted by his learning, he needs to work on himself. It can’t be that the Torah is uninspiring!”

May we be inspired to sing shirah!

NEW! HOT OFF THE PRESS!
Rabbi Krieger’s “Gedolei Yisroel on the Parashah & Yamim Tovim” is now available from the Yeshiva office, Jewish bookstores worldwide and can be ordered online at https://www.feldheim.com/gedolei-yisroel-on-Parashah-yamim-tovim-2.