Parshas Beshalach/Shabbos Shirah
January 29th-30th, 1999
13 Shevat, 5759

This week's issue is dedicated by Nosson and Lisa Garfunkel and family, l'zecher nishmas HaChaver Boruch Mordechai ben Calev, and in honor of the birth of our great niece, Sarah Shirah Lehrfeld.

"This is my G-d, and I will build Him a Sacntuary (v'anvehu) (15, 2; Artscroll Chumash.)

I.  POWER OF SONG 

This week is Shabbos Shira, so known because the Torah portion, Beshalach, contains the exultant song of praise to G-d sung by the Children of Israel after the miraculous salvation at the Sea of Reeds (Yam Suf).   In it, they gave voice to their intensely clear perception of Hashem's love for the Jewish people, and of His Power and Justice in meting out retribution to the Egyptians; the revelation of His Providence was so open that, in Rashi's paraphrase of the Midrash, "A maidservant at the Sea saw that which prophets did not see." "This is my G-d," each Jew present could say, as if pointing a finger at Him. 

We commonly associate song (shira) with melody (zemer), but the two are separate concepts.  As Rabbi Avigdor Miller writes, shira involves "the stimulation of thought by the happy enthusiasm of noble emotions."  He points out that it is related to the Hebrew word, shur, which can mean both, seeing, and, wall, "because shira of song includes the element of insight and the element of elevation of spirit." (Praise My Soul, p. 233)  Rabbi Yosef Leib Bloch, zt'l, in Shi'urei Da'as, writes that the intense spiritual excitement which results in shira usually stems from the element of newness (chidush): "Perceptions are formed in [a person] that rush to burst out, and the soul longs to break forth from its limits and express itself in words of shira."  (I, 275)

Even those on the lowest spiritual level at the Sea ("a maidservant") were elevated to new prophetic heights to see the Majesty of G-d, and they--fittingly--gave form to their experience in the most exalted form of expression, shira.

And most of us barely mumble it every morning in the Shacharis service, where our Sages (expecting us to daven with at least a little insight, elevation and newness) placed it at the climax of the verses of praise leading up to the Shemah and its blessings.  It's a shame: the average soul  just does not feel so exalted at that point, and longs only to break forth from shul...and crawl back into bed! 

But we can still try to elevate ourselves a bit when we read the Song at the Sea...at least on Shabbos.  (At least on this Shabbos!)  Quoting the Zohar, the Mishnah Berurah writes that one should say it with joy, imagining to himself that he crossed the Sea that very day.  If he does so, his sins will be pardoned.  (That's what I call an excellent incentive to try to inject more life into its recitation.) 

It's a bit hard to picture what such a level of joy in davening would look like without having witnessed a truly great individual in prayer.  But one can get some idea from a description of the Vilna Gaon's prayer, which Jews traveled great distances in the 1700's to observe and be transformed by:

"Rabbi Eliyahu Baruch Kamai, rav of Mir, related how his grandfather had once seen the Gaon davening and the arousal from that experience remained with him for the rest of his life. Each word was pronounced with precision, in a sweet, clear melody, and with a feeling of spiritual longing.  His sons... describe the impression left on one who overheard his prayer that 'with each word he came to some deeper understanding and greater love of Hashem, an impression which filled the listener with the desire to emulate him in his service of G-d with love.'"               

From Yonason Rosenbloom's beautiful adaptation of a classic Hebrew biography of the Gaon, HaGaon HaChasid M'Vilna, by Rabbi Betzalel Landau) 

II.  A STEP BEYOND

As great as their spiritual awakening the Sea was, we must admit it was not a result of their own free-willed efforts at elevation; it was a gift of chesed from Hashem. The period afterwards, from the Exodus leading up to the Revelation at Mt. Sinai, was specifically intended, by contrast, to be full of great spiritual exertion.  Our teachers tell us that the Jews were meant to acquire for themselves the levels previously--and fleetingly--revealed to them during the Exodus.  This is the essential significance of the  period of counting the Omer even today: to build up, through our own efforts, to the level given to us (gratis) on Seder night.

So, we can't really admire our ancestors for the mind-blowing vision ("This is my G-d") they had.

But we can admire them for the decision they made to try to take a step beyond the transient experience, and make its inspiration a permanent foundation for service of G-d.  This is the second part of the verse quoted at the start: "...and I will build Him a Sanctuary (v'anvehu)."  The translation follows the reading of Onkelos, and the first of Rashi's interpretations: the Jews pledged to build a Temple (from the word, naveh--habitation) to be the focal point for G-d's presence in this world, to bring holiness permanently into our national life.

There are other interpretations of, v'anvehu, however.  One is based on the root for the word, beauty (noi), and appears in the Talmud:

This is my God, and I will adorn him: [i.e.,] adorn thyself before Him in [the fulfilment of] precepts. Make a beautiful sukkah in His honour, a beautiful lulav, a beautiful shofar, beautiful tzitzis, and a beautiful Scroll of the Law, and write it with fine ink, a fine reed [-pen], and a skilled penman, and wrap it about with beautiful silks.  (Shabbos 133b)

The Jews were declaring that they would make their service of G-d beautiful--the concept of hiddur mitzvah.

And not just with the "ritual" objects of mitzvos, but with our very selves--our character traits and personalities.

For the Talmud goes on:

Abba Saul interpreted, and I will be like him [based on the similarity to the words ani v' hu--literally, I and He]: be thou like Him: just as He is gracious and compassionate, so be thou gracious and compassionate.  

To make oneself more G-dlike: the ultimate glorification (and beautification) of Hashem, if you will.  And, as Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch writes, truly the natural consequence of the declaration, This is my G-d: "He shall be...the Director of my movements...v'anvehu, and so I will offer myself to be His home.  My whole existence and life shall be a Temple of His glorification..."  (Hirsch, Commentary to Exodus, p. 189)

Inspiration is to be welcomed, but as our ethical masters stress, it must be made concrete in some project, declaration or commitment.  This is precisely what our ancestors chose to do.  They had the vision...and they pledged to make themselves a resting place for His glory.  May Hashem inspire us (in davening, at home...or wherever), and may we have the strength to use that inspiration--when it comes--to dedicate ourselves more wholly to serving Him.

GOOD SHABBOS!!!

Insights Into Genesis
Insights Into Exodus

Rabbi Yosef Edelstein is Director of the Savannah Torah Education Project (STEP). Phone: 912-355-0157;
fax: 912-354-9923; e-mail: Yosef18@aol.com

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