What's Our New Song?
"the pillar of cloud moved from in front of the people and stood behind them."
Photo by Ghiora Aharoni
Dear friends,
It appears as though a shift has happened. Everyone I speak to is looking for the right way to act, to respond, to not respond. The old playbook doesn’t feel right. What we did in the past isn’t working. How we thought about the world was off. Though the work hasn’t changed, the methods may need to.
This evening begins Shabbat Shirah, Shabbat of song, on which we read the Song of the Sea, our song of amazement at being delivered from the hands of our enslavers into freedom. We’re supposed to sing, but this year we’re not sure exactly what or how. “How can we sing the song of God in this cold, foreign land,” asked the exiled psalmist. He was yearning for Jerusalem, which he was kicked out of by the empire. Today this poet’s descendants threaten to do the same to their cousins. As for us, we’re still here where we were, but feel, how shall I say, out of place.
The wondrous second verse in the Song of the Sea reads:
עזי וזמרת יה ויהי לי לישועה
It’s impossible to translate eloquently, but might be rendered as:
My strength
and the song of the goddess
Have become my saving grace.
It’s the phrase זמרת יה, “the song of the goddess,” or “God’s singing,” or perhaps “the divine soprano,” that I think might be helpful in the context of finding our new song. God’s singing is never static. My sixteen-year-old told me this week that the first definition of God he’s heard that makes any sense to him is that God is change. If that formulation has some truth to it, and it very well may, then God’s song can never be the same. You can never dip your toe in the same godsong twice. It is in constant motion. Being present enough to hear it, and certainly to sing along to the song of the universe is dependent on our ability to notice, adapt to, and accept what is.
As the poem implies, there is great strength in that ability to be with change. We have in this world a fortress of strength that is unchanging, stable as a rock - and next to it there is the unbreakable power to be in flux. “One should always be as flexible as a reed and not as stiff as a cedar,” taught Rabbi Elazar in the Talmud.
Tonight, I’m excited to gather to wash the world away with our singing. Every Shabbat we “Sing a new song to God.” It’s a type of unlikely miracle that a group of people can’t repeat music identically, even in the precise Western mode of making music. That's what allows us to be able to sing new songs. Perhaps music brings out our godliness. There will be four wonderful musicians, food and a significant number of the only ones I really trust to help us find our new song: kids.
If you haven’t yet experienced our Brooklyn Shabbatot in Fort Greene, they’re pretty great (and easy to get to from anywhere, right behind Barclays Center).
I hope to see you there.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Misha