Below, please find this adaptation of Rav Weinberger's drasha from this Shabbos, parshas Beshalach 5779. Rav Weinberger has reviewed this write-up and any corrections are incorporated herein. Enjoy!
Rav Moshe Weinberger
Parshas Beshalach – Shabbos Shirah 5779
The Song of Miriam
We
spoke on parshas Va’eira about the different leadership qualities of
Moshe and Aharon, how Hashem expresses Himself as “The Holy One” versus the
“Divine Presence,” and the different ways mothers and fathers express their
love for their children. On this Shabbos of the Song at the Sea and the Song of
Devorah, let us understand more deeply how women and mothers are the source of
our ability to succeed in this world.
The
men sang “I will sing to Hashem for He is very exalted…” (Shmos 15:1).
And regarding the women’s song, the passuk says, “And Miriam called out
to them, ‘Sing to Hashem for He is very exalted…’” (ibid 21). Why was it Miriam
who led the women’s song?
We
see that many years earlier, when she was just a child of six years old,
Pharaoh decreed, “Throw every newborn son into the river” (Shmos 1:22).
According to Chazal (Sota 12a; Shmos Raba 1:19), Miriam’s
father Amram, the greatest sage of the generation, gave up all hope and
separated from his wife, and all the other men followed suit, lest they give
birth to children who would immediately be murdered. It was only little Miriam
who stood up and started a movement against the despair which had overtaken the
entire generation: “Father! Your decree is worse than Pharaoh’s!” He brought
her argument before the beis din and he and they agreed with Miriam.
Only Miriam’s courage was able to overcome the despondency that had infected the
leaders of the generation.
We
see something similar in this week’s haftarah in which the general Barak
and the rest of the men were overcome with fear of the Kena’ani army and
their general Sisra. When the passuk says, “The caravans ceased, the
travelers walked on crooked paths” (Shoftim 5:6), Rashi explains
that this was because “the Jewish people were afraid to travel because of the
enemy.” Normal life stopped because the people were paralyzed with fear.
And
even when Devorah communicated the prophetic message that Hashem would deliver Kena’an
into their hands, Barak was still afraid. He told her, “If you will go with me,
then I will go, but if you will not go with me, I will not go” (ibid. 4:8).
She agreed and thereby led the entire army to victory.
But
this decisive defeat of the enemy’s will to fight came through another woman,
Yael, who personally assassinated Sisra in his own tent! (ibid. 21). Devorah
herself acknowledged the fact that Jewish women brought about the victory in
the song she sang celebrating Hashem’s deliverance. She relates how life
stopped for the Jewish people “until I, Devorah, rose up, until a mother of
Israel rose up” (ibid. 5:7). Chazal tell us that the Jewish people’s
victory in this war arose from the feminine side. They say the same thing about
our victory on Purim, when victory also came through a Jewish woman, Esther.
How
were Miriam, Devorah, Yael, and Esther able to revive the hopes of the Jewish
people when no one else could? We see the power of a “mother of Israel” to
inspire confidence, bravery, and strength in the people. While the men carried
the physical weapons (כלי נשק), the Jewish mothers
used something even more powerful than weapons, but which shares the same
Hebrew root word: kisses – נשיקות. A mother has the
power to speak to her children, her husband, or the entire Jewish people and
tell them, “You can do it! Hashem is with you! You will succeed!”
After
the salvation at the sea in this week’s parshah, the men proudly said,
“I will sing to Hashem!” But where did they get the strength to sing? There is
a backstory. When the passuk says, “And Miriam called out to them, ‘Sing
to Hashem,’” who was she speaking to? The men? The women? Both? The word for
“them” in the passuk is masculine, not feminine, which could indicate
that Miriam was speaking only to the men, or, at the very least, to both men
and women. According to one opinion in Chazal, Miriam was speaking not just to
the women, but to Moshe and the elders.
According
to this opinion, the men received the strength to sing from Miriam, the woman
who, as a child, had saved the Jewish people from despair of Pharaoh’s decree!
Right after the song at the sea, Moshe told us, “If you will listen to the voice of Hashem your
G-d, do what is straight in His eyes, hearken to His mitzvos, and
observe His laws, I will not place on you the entire sickness that I placed on
Egypt” (Shmos 15:26). The passuk says “sickness,” singular,
rather than sicknesses, plural. According to the seforim hakedoshim, she
saved the Jewish people from the most debilitating sickness of all – despair.
As a child, and again at the sea, she told her brothers and sisters, “Be alive!
You can do it! Hashem is with us!”
The
womb is called the “source” of life in Hebrew – מקור.
And the numerical value of that word is equivalent to the word for “will” or
“desire” – רצון. Jewish women and mothers build us up from
womb to tomb so that we have the capacity to get out of bed and do what we need
to do to connect to Hashem and build the world.
The
feminine side of Shabbos empowers us in a similar way. When the Shabbos Queen
arrives, we sing in Lecha Dodi, “Shake yourself off! Arise from the
dust! … Awaken, awaken! For your light has arrived. Arise, my light!” Devorah
too sang, “Wake up, wake up! [said] Devorah. Awake! Awake! Utter a song!” (Shoftim
5:12). On Shabbos, we are healed from that sickness of the six days of the week
– heavy-heartedness, sadness, and despair, which often debilitates us even more
than the swords of our enemies.
Tu
BiShvat begins tomorrow night. On this day when the earliest-blooming trees awaken
from the inactivity of winter in Eretz Yisroel, we eat from the seven fruits
for which the land of Israel is praised, including the tamar – the date.
According to the passuk, Devorah judged the people sitting under the Tomer
Devorah – the date palm of Devorah (Shoftim 4:5). Why a date palm
specifically? According to Chazal, the secret of the date is that “Just
as the date has only one heart [pit], so too the Jewish people have only one
heart for their Father in Heaven” (Sukkah 45b).
And
one of our Jewish mothers, Tamar, also gave life to Dovid HaMelech and Moshiach
because she did not give up hope of carrying on Yehuda’s lineage, even when he
gave up. Commenting on the passuk, “The tzaddik blossoms like a Tamar,
he grows like a cedar in the Lebanon” (Tehillim 92:13), Chazal
say, “Just as the date palm has a beautiful appearance and all of its fruits
are sweet and good, so too the son of David will be beautiful of appearance and
all of his deeds will be sweet and good before Hashem” (Midrash Shochar Tov
on Tehillim 92). Moshiach’s great-grandmother Tamar gave him and
all of us the wherewithal to live beautiful lives.
My
wife showed me a beautiful article that illustrates this perfectly. Several rebbetzins
and educators were interviewed. One woman, Mrs. Miryam Swerdlov, a Chabad
educator in Crown Heights, wrote the following about her parents, particularly
her mother:
My parents have
always been inspiration to me, as well. I was born in Russia and came to
America when I was a little girl. Life was not easy for us, but I didn’t know
it. My father walked with his cane his entire life, but he was never bitter. He
would say in Yiddish, “Pick up your cane in your hand and start walking.” That
is how we lived. We were taught, no matter what life gives you, you keep
walking.
Although I have
limited memories of my mother, since I was so young when she died, I do
remember that she would sing constantly while working in the kitchen. Sometimes
she would sing liebedig songs, and sometimes she would sing slow songs.
I could always tell what mood she was in by what songs she sang. I learnt from
her that no matter what you are going through, you must put yourself together,
put on the best you have, put on your makeup, comb your sheitel, and
walk out with your shoulders back and your head held high, because you can do
it.
That is what Jewish
women like Tamar, Miriam, Devorah, Yael, Esther, and Mrs. Swerdlov’s mother
bring to us. Through their love and belief in us and Hashem’s providence, they
tell us, “You can do it!” Just like Miriam and Devorah, may the merit of Jewish
women herald the time when we will “Sing to Hashem a new song” )Tehillim
98:1) with the coming of the great-grandson of our mother Tamar, Moshiach
Tzidkeinu, soon in our days.
