Today is a special Shabbat. It is called Shabbat Shirah – the Shabbat of Song. Which, I know, sounds like every Shabbat we spend together here at Ner Shalom. But in this case it's referring to a particular song, one that appears this week in Torah, in Chapter 15 of the Book of Exodus.
It is the moment when – after all the fear and despair, after all the trembling, the smoke and fire and darkness and shaking of the earth – the Sea has finally parted and the Israelites and their multi-ethnic allies cross over as if on dry land. They reach the other side and the Sea rushes back, drowning the Pharaoh's pursuing armies.
The bedraggled Israelite refugees see this happen, and after what we imagine to be a moment of stunned silence, a song begins to well up. The Song of the Sea, we call it.
This song is unique in Torah – we chant it with a melody that's different from our usual Torah melody, and we write it out in a braided pattern, that looks almost like a depiction of the Sea parting.
It goes like this:
אָשִׁ֤ירָה לַּיהוָֹה֙ כִּי־גָאֹ֣ה גָּאָ֔ה ס֥וּס וְרֹכְב֖וֹ רָמָ֥ה בַיָּם
Ashirah Ladonai ki ga’oh ga’ah, sus v’rokhvo ramah vayam. “I sing to Yah, who has triumphed. The horse and its rider are overturned in the Sea!”
עָזִּ֤י וְזִמְרָת֙ יָ֔הּ וַיְהִי־לִ֖י לִישׁוּעָ֑ה זֶ֤ה אֵלִי֙ וְאַנְוֵ֔הוּ אֱלֹהֵ֥י אָבִ֖י וַאֲרֹמְמֶנְהוּ
Ozi v’zimrat Yah vay’hi li lishua, zeh Eli v’anvehu, Elohei avi va’arom’menhu. “The might and melody of Yah have saved me. This is my God whose beauty I will speak; the God of my ancestors, whom I will exalt.”
The song continues for a number of verses, praising God's power as defender and champion. Describing how the wind of God's breath parted the Sea. How the enemy sank in the water like a rock. In the Song, the Israelites keep replaying this moment of miracle over and over. And then in the eleventh verse, the Song goes:
מִי־כָמֹ֤כָה בָּאֵלִם֙ יְהֹוָ֔ה מִ֥י כָּמֹ֖כָה נֶאְדָּ֣ר בַּקֹּ֑דֶשׁ נוֹרָ֥א תְהִלֹּ֖ת עֹ֥שֵׂה פֶלֶא
Mi khamokha ba’eylim Adonai, mi kamokha ne’dar bakodesh. Nora t’hilot ‘oseh fele.
Very familiar words that we pray every time we're together. Big words of pure praise. Who is like you among the Mighty? Or as it was rendered in the Union Prayer Book of my childhood: “Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness, awe-inspiring, working wonders?”
So I want to take a moment with this phrase nora t’hilot, that the UPB translates as “awe-inspiring”. “Awe-inspiring” is pretty, but it kind of sidesteps a difficulty in the Hebrew. Nora all on its own means awesome, awe-inspiring, awful – great and terrible. T’hilot means “praise.” It would have been enough to just say nora – mi kamokha nedar bakodesh, nora, oseh-fele. So what does it mean to say instead that God is nora t’hilot – “terrible of praise?”
The medieval French commentator Rashi sees this as meaning something like God being “terrifying when it comes to the matter of praise.” That is, God is such an object of fear and dread that people don't recount God's praises, for fear that their words will come up short. In Talmud (BT Berachot 33b) an analogy is offered. It is like a king who possesses thousands of dinars of gold, and someone praises the king for all the silver he owns. Doesn't that end up being disparaging? I guess to update the analogy – you compliment me on my vest and I say, “What's the matter? You don’t like the tie?”
In other words any words of praise are necessarily incomplete, and thus potentially insulting by virtue of what they omit, and so everyone is terrified to open their mouths, according to Rashi. Spanish commentator Ibn Ezra agrees with Rashi’s interpretation, but adds that even knowing that our words will inevitably come up short, we have to do it anyway.
And this brings us around to a nagging question about the business of prayer itself. That we can never capture in our prayers and in our praise what ought to be said. We say this outright in the words of the kaddish. In the kaddish we say that God is l'eyla mikol birkhata v'shirata tushb'chata v'nechemata – God is above every possible blessing and song and accolade and soothing word.
In other words, when we engage with the Divine, words inevitably fail.
So what do we do? Sometimes we just have to shut up. As it says in Psalm 65, lekha dumiyah t’hilah. For you, God, silence is praise.
Or we might sing, hoping that the melody will go where the words can’t.
Or we might defer to Creation itself to do the business of praise. For instance in Psalm 148, among others: sun, moon, stars, let them praise God. Not through words, but by the wondrousness of their very existence. Let them be witnesses (because praise is a proceeding in which we do permit witnesses); let sun, moon and stars testify to the greatness of the Divine.
So silence, song, music, the witness of the natural world – all these might help. And yet we have inherited thousands upon thousands of words of prayer and praise. And they are not our own words from the heart, born in the moment, and they are in a language many of us don't speak, and which are then translated into the most unnatural English.
This turns the prayer experience into a bad first date. Like here you are, face to face at last with God, and it all seems like empty small talk. Or bad pickup lines. “Wow. Who is there like you? Awe-inspiring, working wonders.”
But maybe we can imagine ourself beyond the first date. Past the awkward words and the “I can't believe you would ever go out with me” spiral of self-consciousness. Maybe we can imagine ourself beyond that to some moment after we've moved in together. Still in the first blush of love, but past the era of small talk. Us – by which I mean me, or you – and the beloved Divine, side by side in bed, one of us reading a novel, the other working a crossword puzzle. No need for chit chat. Just being together says it all.
So let me propose that as a kavanah for the next time we open our hearts and mouths in prayer. That in our prayer we say the words of praise and of love, but we also let go of them and imagine ourselves not vying for God's company, but already in God's company, snuggled close, crossword in hand, not needing to say it all, letting the insufficient words be enough, or letting the loving silence hold.
Mi khamokha...
Who is like You among the mighty, among the angels? We both know the answer to that one: no one.
Nora t’hilot...
I'm almost afraid to put words to it – they will never be enough. But you know that already. So I'll do my best. Now honey – what's the answer to 23 across?