Dedicated to a Refuah Shelaima for Moshe Aaron ben Nacha Itta.
There are so many topics in this week’s parsha that one could make relevant toward the state of the Jewish people today. One could explore that idea of purposeful confusion, of how Hashem led Bnei Yisrael in a roundabout path in order to lead the Mitzrim after them, just as Hashem leads our people on a circuitous route through history. One could talk about feeling cornered by an enemy (enemies) and needing a clear path forward. And, one could write about the need for two arms in battle - the physical fighting force and the spiriYtual fighting force.
I’m not going to write on any of those topics herein.
The Torah only uses two pasukim to discuss Miriam’s song: “Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took her timbrel in hand, and all the women followed her with timbrels and dancing. Miriam led them in responsive song, beginning, ‘Sing to God for He is most exalted; horse and rider He cast into the sea’” (Shemos 15:20-21).
One could wonder about the fact that it doesn’t state that Miriam and the women sang, but rather that Miriam led them in responsive song, and that song repeated teh words of Moshe’s song. Stated that way is sounds like a negative, like a trope that can be parsed as women being simple followers rather than powerful in their own right. This, of course, we know is not true.
Thinking a little deeper, there is another interesting distinction between the two songs. Moshe’s song begins: Az Yashir - and there are many discussions about the grammar here, about the use of the future tense form of the noun (not to mention singular, but we will not go into that here). The song was sung and the song will be sung upon the ultimate salvation. Here now, and then - 1, 2.
Miriam’s song, however, is immediately thereafter. It says and she answered, but perhaps the answering was a way of stating that it isn’t now and then, it’s constant. Miriam took here timbrel and the women all followed with their instruments. Sing a song unaccompanied and it is beautiful; sing a song with a full accompaniment and it resonates new depths.
Miriam and the women responded to the song taught by Moshe and that response, perhaps, demonstrates that the song was not just for now and then, but that it must resonate through our lives. They took it up with timbrels and dancing, with their whole being - physical and spiritual.
This Dvar Torah is being written in Yerushalayim, where I am visiting my daughter in seminary, and so I have our young women particularly in mind. These young women have come from all over the world to learn how to make Torah sing in their own voices. It is a different experience than the young men who come here to study in Yeshiva, who sit and learn and delve int ot he gemara. The education they are receiving at Seminary is meant to take them from the defined lanes of high school into a world where they will become the foundations of the Yiddishkeit of their future homes. They are not learning theoretical concepts or delving into the complex arguments under the law, but rather, they are formatting a constant response as the teachers push them to build themselves as individuals. In these Seminary programs there is plenty of music and dancing and expressions of joy because these women are learning how to live Torah.
This Dvar Torah has no specific takeaway conclusion, as I so often like to include, but rather it is a salute to our young women and their teachers…and to all women who remember that it is the women who bring the constant response and who make the Torah sing in their lives and in their homes.
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