Do you remember the movie, Midnight Express? It was a mediocre movie made in
1978. It was a story about a young
American, caught smuggling hashish out of Turkey. About his nightmare in the Turkish justice
system and a Turkish prison. It was an
eminently forgettable film, though not without a couple of humorous moments to
make it memorable. In one such moment, a
group of foreigners behind held in the prison talk of escaping. One of them tells the others that, underneath
the prison are catacombs where Christians hid for their lives during the Muslim
conquest. One of the group taps the
wall, puts his ear to it and nods.
“Gotta be here someplace. Thought I heard a couple of dead Christians
singing down there.”
It’s a powerful stereotype, that of
singing Christians. But in reality,
almost all religious traditions include singing or chanting during worship. I think the Quakers are about the only group
that does not. I’ll never forget when I
was invited into an American Indian sweat lodge. I couldn’t join in the chanting in Lakota, so
I chanted in Hebrew. I chanted the Shema
to the Lakota beat. Nobody seemed to
mind; they even offered me a toke from their peace-pipe afterward.
Anybody who knows my wife Clara and
me, and has attended any of our programs, knows that we love to sing. We include as much singing as we think you
can stand – and then a little bit more! – in our services. Sometimes, Clara breaks into spontaneous
song…when I’ve gone a little long for my sermon, for example. Nobody seems to mind. We go out when we can, to join singing and
ukulele-strumming nights; I strum and sing, but Clara only sings.
Some Jewish congregations like to
sing more than others. Clara and I
belonged to a Conservative Synagogue in Colorado Springs when I was stationed
there, at the Air Force Academy. I held
services at the Academy, for the cadets, on Friday evenings and would attend
the Saturday morning service at the synagogue.
I never noticed that not everybody around me was singing, but many weren’t,
or they were singing quietly. I
sometimes wondered why people would stare at me.
One day we got a new Cantor with a
lovely voice. But she complained to the
Rabbi about the guy several rows back, near the window, who sings so loudly.
“Oh, that’s Rabbi Don,” the Rabbi
told her. “He sings so loudly because he’s deaf and can’t hear himself.”
Shortly thereafter, I was fitted for
my first hearing aids. The first
Saturday I wore them, the Cantor came over to me after the service.
“Congratulations on your new hearing
aids,” she told me.
That was funny. I hadn’t told anybody I had them. And they were the kind that hide inside one’s
ears, impossible to see if you’re not looking for them. But the Cantor knew I had them, because I
wasn’t singing quite so loudly as before.
As I said, we love to sing. But maybe, just maybe, it’s more than
that. Maybe we have to sing! I don’t think that’s an exaggeration at
all. If you’re feeling down, feeling
that the world is just pressing down on you…sing! You’ll see what I mean. When you sing, it is much easier to think
that maybe, just maybe, everything will work out in the end.
Psychotherapy by a skilled
therapist, is a wonderful tool. But nine
times out of ten, singing will be more effective. And it’s cheaper, too!
In this week’s Torah reading, Moses
and the people Israel break out in song.
Boy, did they need it! Enslaved
by Pharaoh. Under the grinding pressure
of taskmasters. The crack of the
whip. Edicts that their male babies be
killed. Unhappy? Gather your own straw! That’ll teach you people to complain! Then the plagues, ten of ‘em. Remember:
only the last one, the Smiting of the Firstborn, spared the
Israelites. The first nine plagues hurt
the Israelites also.
Then, at the shore of the sea, a
miracle! Pharaoh’s chariots bear down on
the assembled Israelites. The sea splits
for them to cross over. When the
Egyptians give pursuit, the waters crash down upon them, wiping them out
entirely.
Look, I’d be willing to wager that
the people Israel, at this point in their history, were not given to frequent,
spontaneous singing. But when their
adversary drowned or turned back, how could they not sing! At that moment, I imagine, there was no embarrassment. Nobody worried that their voices might be
off-key. Nobody worried about how
professional or amateurish they might sound.
They must have let loose, uninhibited and with unbridled joy.
The splitting of the sea, and the
drowning of the Egyptians was a grand miracle.
We seldom see such miracles. We
have to settle for small miracles. The
problem with the small ones is that, if you’re not paying attention, you might
miss them altogether. That’s where
singing comes in. If you sing out your
joy, you will feel joy. If you
sing out thanks for miracles, your eyes will be opened to the miracle that
you’ve already experienced…but probably missed.
Music soothes the ‘savage
soul.’ But it also uplifts the civilised
one! So we should never be embarrassed
to sing out. We should sing, knowing
that our song will help to heal our own souls of most of what might be
oppressing us. But we should know that
our song floats heavenward. In the time
it takes to reach the ears of the angels, our notes are corrected so that
everyone is true and on key. Our song is
only pleasing to the angels, and to G-d Himself. But you know what? When they hear the perfection of our song, we
hear it as well. So if our song sounds
good to us, that is proof that the heavenly hosts are enjoying it.
Then, our distant ancestors sang out
their joy upon their deliverance from Pharaoh.
Today, despite all the tsurres in the world, we can sing out our
joy that we are here and alive and whole and able to celebrate Shabbat. That is a sublime gift indeed. And worth singing about. Shabbat shalom.
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