Sing unto G-d, sing a new song
O sing praises to G-d, give thanks to Him with a song…
Debbie Friedman quoting Psalms

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord
Girl Scout Camp, Psalm 100

Music speaks louder than words
It’s the only thing that the whole world listens to.
Music speaks louder than words,
When you sing, people understand.

Sometimes the love that you feel inside
Gets lost between your heart and your mind
And the words don’t really say the things you wanted them to.
But then you feel in someone’s song

What you’d been trying to say all along
And somehow with the magic of music the message comes through.
Peter Paul and Mary

I’d like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony
I’d like to hold it in my arms
And keep it company

All things shall perish from under the sky,
Music alone shall live
Music alone shall live
Music alone shall live, never to die.
Girl Scout Camp

Imagine that last world. A world without music. Music is powerful. It is evocative. It can capture our emotions better than words, as Peter, Paul and Mary sang.

And it is something we are commanded to do. To use music to praise G-d. It says so over and over again in the Psalms. Make a joyful noise to the Lord. It is good to praise G-d with song, with harp and lyre, drum and shofar cymbals sounding and resounding.

We are even told to “Sing a new song unto G-d “and in every generation and in every country we have done precisely that. Created new music that is meaningful to that generation, to that time and place to worship G-d. That’s what Debbie Friedman did. That’s what Solomni Rossi did. That’s what my professor, Sol Zim did. It is his Lador vador we typically sing. From generation to generation. That is precisely the initiative we have been undertaking at Congregation Kneseth Israel. Because music is a gateway. It is an entry point. It makes prayer more accessible. It increases our spirituality.

But melody adds not only to the beauty of our services and prayers but also our ability to understand the words.

As has been done for thousands of years, at CKI we chant Torah. The Talmud teaches that “If one reads [Torah] without chant or studies [Mishnah] without melody, of him is it written, ‘I gave them laws that were not good’ (Ezekiel 20:25).” (Megilah 32). There are different cantillation systems for different books—for instance Torah and Haftarah sound different. So do Song of Songs, Ruth, Esther, Lamentations. And we chant the High Holiday portions in a different trope or ta’am. In even modern day yeshivot, learning is still done in a singsong voice.

Why bother? Because it is a way to help us understand. It becomes the punctuation marks. You already know how to do this. Look at V’ahavta. Better yet, sing it. That’s Torah trope!

Cantillation is also a tool to aid memory. Remember those bards, wandering storytellers, chanted their songs. Think about Homer and the Odyssey or Beowulf, or the Canterbury Tales all of which were chanted so they could be remembered.

Nusach, are the traditional tunes, or modes that we sing the service with. Shabbat nusach is upbeat, in a major key, a taste, maybe the sound, of the world to come.

High Holiday Nusach is designed to create the atmosphere of a coronation of the King. It is like a royal march.

Weekday nusach not as flowery. It is bare bones, a single note, because people are more rushed in their workday world.

These become the auditory clues to the mood and the tone of the service.

In rabbinical school we were required to take a series of classes called Tefilah and Seminar. One year, that class addressed how to lead a shivah minyan. There was a big debate about whether to use weekday nusach or Shabbat morning which more people would know. One my way home I stopped to pay a shiva call to a classmate in CT. I figured I would just say hi and be on my way. But the rabbi hadn’t shown up and my classmate said, “You’ll lead the minyan” as she thrust a siddur into my hand I had never seen. In came another classmate, ordained the previous year. I said, “Great, Danny, you’re here. You’ll lead.” He declined saying he had a cold. But he stood next to me and whispered to me, not having been in that class earlier, “So what nusach will you use.” I answered, “What ever comes out of my mouth.”

Maybe you are still thinking, why bother? I can’t master all of this. It is confusing. I don’t care.

Judaism has something for you, too. A niggun is a song without words. Introduced by the Chasidim, they transport us to a deeper level, allows us to pray without worrying about words, Hebrew, etc. Another way to enter prayer. We have some very talented musicians and composers here. Stewart Levin, our choir director and house band leader has written his own niggun. So has Gareth Sitz.

One Chasidic master, R. Dov Baer said, in describing niggunim, “The ecstasy produced by melody … is in the category of spontaneous ecstasy alone, without any choice or intellectual will whatsoever.” That’s because, as he said, “words can become idols. They concretize that which cannot be concretized. Ideas can intellectualize experience. Melody is pure soul.”

So why today? Because today, shortly, we are going to read, actually sing, the Song at the Sea. This Shabbat becomes known as Shabbat Shirah, the Sabbath of Song. This is the Shabbat we are commanded to feed the birds. Because they bring us song. Part of the Song of the Sea you recognize, we sing it at every service. Mi Chamocha. Who is like You. And there are hundreds of settings of it. Possibly every one in this room has their favorite.

Think about the setting. The Israelites have just crossed the sea. They are finally free. How would you feel? Relieved? Joyous? Tired? Anxious? You might think, “Wow!” Or maybe as our Hebrew School kids said, “That was cool!” “That was amazing!” “That was awesome.” “Do it again!” “How did You do that?” “What just happened here?” “What happened to the Egyptians?” “We are safe now.” “We are free.” “Thank you G-d.” “Hallelujah.” One girl said she would have fainted. They got the awesomeness of this moment. Just like Moses when he first sang Mi Chamocha. And that is what real prayer is–the prompting our hearts to what is going on around us.

And our text proclaims, “Ze Eli! This is my G-d!” They said. Together as one. An entry point into spirituality. One each of us needs to find for ourselves. Today. Not just historically. So that when we sing, “Ze Eli,” we mean it for ourselves. Each of us individually.

Moses wasn’t the only one who sang. Miriam took a tof, a timbrel, a tambourine, a drum in her hand and led the women in song.

I learned this week that in the Dead Sea Scrolls, in the Qumran text there is an addition to the Biblical text. Preserved in the feminine imperative are half the lines of Miriam’s song. It was thrilling to learn about this and the link between this song and other women’s songs, such as Deborah’s song, which we will also read this morning, Hannah’s prayer, and Judith’s. These pieces of poetry, song are amongst the oldest in scripture.

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1096&context=classicsfacpub

https://rabbisylviarothschild.com/tag/meaning-of-the-name-miriam/

And for me as a woman rabbi, it makes modern day arguments about why women’s voices in prayer are not kosher, less and less valid. Women have always prayed. Women have always sung. Women will continue to do so.

The Lubbevitcher Rebbe taught this:
“We don’t sing when we are frightened, despairing, sleepy, or after a heavy meal. We sing when we are pining after one whom we love, when we are yearning for better times, when we are celebrating an achievement or anticipating a revelation. We don’t sing when we are complacent. We sing when we are striving for something, or when we have tasted joy and are climbing it to the heavens. Song is prayer, the endeavor to rise above the petty cares of life and cleave to one’s source. Song is the quest for redemption.”

http://www.chabad.org/holidays/passover/pesach_cdo/aid/2565981/jewish/Miriams-Song.htm

Let us sing and rejoice. Let’s go sing this special portion together.