B'shalach. Singing Liberation doesn't have to be joyful

We are arriving at the moment of the Exodus from Egypt.

Parashat Beshalach is also Shabbat Shirah, in honor of the Shirat HaYam, the Song at the Sea, which the Children of Israel sang when they crossed to the other side of the sea and finally found themselves safe from all danger.

From a Hasidic perspective, this story is a parable.

We have all known our own Egypts—life situations, professional or personal, in which we felt stuck. At times, we were prisoners of our own patterns.

And then sometimes, when we were able to listen to the voice of hope—that small voice coming from who knows where, telling us that it might be possible for things to be otherwise—we began to act, sometimes even to struggle, so that things might change.

There was resistance facing us, and resistance within us as well. We all lost feathers along the way.

But one day, suddenly, we were ready.

And we tore ourselves away from that impossible situation, from that semblance of life that sometimes felt comfortable, yet within which we could not truly be ourselves.

Often, at the beginning, we had to hold firm. Like being pursued by Pharaoh’s army, we felt chased—by others, by regret, by fear, by the temptation to turn back.

And sometimes, we received help; we prayed, and we kept moving forward.

Even when it felt as though there were a wall in front of us—a Sea of Reeds that seemed to leave no way through.

Yet we had to keep going.

And suddenly, almost miraculously, a passage opened where only a moment earlier the obstacle had seemed sealed and impenetrable.

Then, when we knew we had reached the other side, we could breathe. And sometimes, even sing.

The very first thing Bnei Israel do once they have crossed the sea of their liberation is to sing.

“Then Moses and the Children of Israel sang this song to the Eternal”(Exodus 15:1)

אָ֣ז יָשִֽׁיר־משֶׁה֩ וּבְנֵ֨י יִשְׂרָאֵ֜ל אֶת־הַשִּׁירָ֤ה הַזֹּאת֙ לַֽיהֹוָ֔ה

But what is this shirah—which in Hebrew means song or poetry—and why does celebrating Shabbat Shirah still carry meaning today, far beyond the mythical account of the Exodus from Egypt?

According to the Hasidic master Sfat Emet, shirah points to a capacity that exists within each of us:

“Shirah is when everything is drawn into line and alignment toward its source, toward its root, which is Divine vitality.”

שירה. הוא להיות הכל נמשך בקו ושורה למקור שורשו שהוא חיותו ית'

Playing on a word association between shirah (song) and shurah (row or line), the Sfat Emet suggests that singing is an act of (re)alignment with one’s root.

One consequence of this interpretation is that it overturns the way we usually perceive the Song of the Sea.

In the biblical narrative, the song seems to arise spontaneously, as a result of relief and the joy of liberation. And it is true that song often comes as a reaction of the system to a joy that needs to be expressed, released.

But song can also be the starting point of that feeling of liberation.Without waiting for it to arise spontaneously, song can begin—as Rabbi Nachman teaches—as a choice and as a practice: here, the practice of realigning ourselves with the Source of life.

This week, I went to a concert by the wonderful Israeli singer Yonatan Razel. As we were walking there, my beloved, David, began humming “Ve-shavu banim”—“And the children shall return to their borders.”

It is taken from Jeremiah (31:16):

“And the children shall return to their borders.”

וְשָׁבוּ בָנִים, לִגְבוּלָם

It is a very well-known song in Israel, often sung in hope and in celebration of the return of the hostages to their homes.

David began to sing, and then stopped.

“Can we sing this now?” he asked—or perhaps asked himself out loud, pensively.

The last of the children of Israel to return from captivity after the Hamas invasion of 2023 had finally come home. He returned after his body had been held hostage for nearly two and a half years.Could one rejoice and sing about the return of the last hostage—when that return was in a coffin?

If we understand shirah, as the Sfat Emet does, as something far deeper than a spontaneous expression of joy—if we see it as a somatic practice of realignment with our source—then yes.

Song, as a practice, does not need to be joyful. And that is a blessing.

Today, as Israelis can finally remove the yellow ribbons that had tightened around their wrists and their hearts, they are singing a song that goes beyond sadness and joy.

A sadness that also comes from the price paid for this sorrowful “victory” that is no victory at all;

sorrow over the suffering inflicted upon “Egypt” as the cost of our salvation—a suffering that echoes, strangely and painfully, millennia later, in the same region.

We are not joyful about having had to wage this war, nor about what we were drawn into, nor about some of the ways we responded.

So today, the song rising within me might also be a long lament for a shared humanity that keeps drowning in its pharaonic madness.

It is a song that speaks as much of relief as of anxiety for the future of this country; of sorrow in the face of the madness of my own people and of those on the other side;

and of a longing for peace and for life—a longing to nourish a hope that, like the song of the waves of the sea, rises and falls, but keeps singing.