The Need to Sing

Miriam's Song

by Debbie Friedman

And the women dancing with their timbrels

followed Miriam as she sang her song,
sing a song to the One whom we've exalted,
Miriam and the women danced and danced the whole night long}

When Miriam stood upon the shores and gazed across the sea
the wonder of this miracle she soon came to believe.
Whoever thought the sea would part with an outstretched hand
and we would pass to freedom and march to the promised land!

Rebbe Nachman:

A holy melody has the power to bring one to the level of prophecy. Music is the foundation of true attachment to God. Music has a tremendous power to draw you to God. Get into the habit of always singing a tune. It will give you a new life and send joy into your soul. Then you will be able to bind yourself to God. It is especially good to sing on Shabbat and the festivals, and at a wedding celebration. (From Advice 'melody')

Aviva Zornberg, The Particulars of Rapture: Reflections on Exodus (225-226)

At the end of the Song, Miriam (the prophetess, as the Torah emphasizes) leads the women responsively in another Song. She is, indeed named for the first time, as she sings and dances; though she figured prominently in chapter 2 (bringing the infant Moses to his mother to nurse), she has remained anonymous, simply "Moses's sister," until now. Essentially, she plays the role of Moses among the men; she sings and the women answer...

The clearest contrast to the men is that the women play musical instruments -- "drums" -- and dance during their Song; also that the opening words of their Song -- "Sing to God..." are not identical with those of the men's Song -- "Let me sing to God..."

All the difference of what the women bring to their Song is crystallized in these drums, expressive of faith in what is not yet....They prepare for miracles: almost a contradiction in terms. They are set for wonder, carrying the instruments of song with them through the corridors of fear...

The fact that "Miriam, the prophetess," leads the women reminds us of her prophetic function in the dark days of Egypt. But, more poignantly, her very name is connected with the bitterness (Marah) of those days. The midrash [commentary] links her, unlike the other redeemers, Moses and Aaron, back to the beginnings of Egyptian persecution:

"I had no peace" (Job 3:26): from the first decree that Pharaoh laid upon me - "And they embittered (va-yimareru) their lives" (Exodus 1:13)...But then God raised up a redeemer for me -- that is, Miriam, named for bitterness. (Exodus Rabbah 1:12 and 12:3)

The very origin of the story of the Exodus is signified by "bitterness." Still nameless, and with this bitterness of her people's suffering in her veins, Miriam rises as a prophetess. She redeems it, but not in a magical sense. She does not make it disappear: rather, she re-deems it, she re-thinks it, she sings it into a different place. Forever, her name will speak of it. Her Song will arise from it, anticipating the future without denying present and past.

Judith Plaskow, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (38-39)

...important religious roles were sometimes available to individual women. On the other side, however, whatever they tell us of women's religious power, the stories of exceptional women also allow us to glimpse a process of textual editing through which the roles of women are downplayed and obscured. Miriam, for instance, is called a prophetess. As the one who leads the women in a victory dance on the far shores of the Red Sea, she is clearly an important religious figure in the preconquest Israelite community...

The same passages that hint at Miriam's importance, however, at the same time undercut it. The dance at the Sea links Miriam with a foundational event of Israelite history, but she appears in the narrative with no introduction and no account of her rise to religious leadership. This surprising silence suggests that there were other Miriam traditions that were excluded from the Torah....

The Torah leaves us, then, with tantalizing hints concerning Miriam's importance and influence and the nature of her religious role, but she is by no means accorded the narrative attention the few texts concerning her suggest she deserves.

Then sang Moses and the children of Israel this song to G‑d, and they spoke, saying... (15:1)

How did they render the song?

Rabbi Akiva says: Moses said, "I will sing to G‑d," and they responded, "I will sing to G‑d"; Moses said, "For God has triumphed gloriously" and they responded, "I will sing to G‑d" (and so on with each verse -- Moses would sing the verse, and they would respond with the refrain, "I will sing to G‑d").

Rabbi Eliezer says: Moses said, "I will sing to G‑d," and they responded, "I will sing to G‑d"; Moses said, "For God has triumphed gloriously," and they responded, "For God has triumphed gloriously" (and so on -- they repeated each verse after Moses).

Rabbi Nechemiah says: Moses sang the opening words of the song, after which they each sang it on their own.

(Talmud and Rashi, Sotah 30b)

These three opinions represent three levels of leadership.

Rabbi Akiva describes an ideal in which a people completely abnegate their individuality to the collective identity embodied by the leader. Moses alone sang the nation's gratitude to G‑d, their experience of redemption, and their vision of their future as G‑d's people. The people had nothing further to say as individuals, other than to affirm their unanimous assent to what Moses was expressing.

At first glance, this seems the ultimate in unity: hundreds of thousands of hearts and minds yielding to a single program and vision. Rabbi Eliezer, however, argues that this is but a superficial unity -- an externally imposed unity of the moment, rather than an inner, enduring unity. When people set aside their own thoughts and feelings to accept what is dictated to them by a higher authority, they are united only in word and deed; their inner selves remain different and distinct. Such a unity is inevitably short-lived: sooner or later their intrinsic differences and counter-aims will assert themselves, and fissures will begin to appear also in their unanimous exterior. So Rabbi Eliezer interprets the Torah's description of Israel's song to say that they did not merely affirm Moses' song with a refrain, but repeated his words themselves. Each individual Jew internalized Moses' words, so that they became the expression of their own understanding and feelings. The very same words assumed hundreds of thousands of nuances of meaning, as they were absorbed by each of the minds, and articulated by each of the mouths, of the people of Israel.

Rabbi Nechemiah, however, is still not satisfied. If Israel repeated these verses after Moses, this would imply that their song did not stem from the very deepest part of themselves. For if the people were truly one with Moses and his articulation of the quintessence of Israel, why would they need to hear their song from his lips before they could sing it themselves? It was enough, says Rabbi Nechemiah, that Moses started them off with the first words of the song, so as to stimulate their deepest experience of the miracle, with the result that each of them sang the entire song on their own.

(The Lubavitcher Rebbe)

“Prayer is not thinking. To the thinker, God is an object; to the man who prays, [God] is the subject.” - Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man’s Quest for God, p. 12