Multiple Points of Impact

This past weekend was my mother’s fifth Yahrzeit. It was a kind of surreal milestone, made more unusual by the snowy quiet of the day that preceded it. As I was settling into my time of remembering on Saturday night, I was fortunate to join in a post-Shabbat jam, led by my friend and colleague Rabbi Ben Shalva. 
​There are few things I find more healing than singing with other people, and I was starting to breathe a little more easily when Ben started playing the familiar strains of “If I Had a Hammer.” Almost immediately, I was transported in my mind to a memory of standing on my parents’ front porch, hearing my mother sing that song to me. It was as if she was right there with me. I was so grateful for her presence on a night when her memory was very much on my mind. 

My parents raised me and my brother on a steady diet of Motown and folk music. We saw Peter, Paul, and Mary in concert a good number of times, and I knew their songs by heart. “If I Had a Hammer” was definitely in the regular rotation. And although both of my parents couldn’t have possibly been more “square,” they never shied away from the social messages often at the heart of the songs in the folk music tradition. 

It was in part through those songs that I learned to care about the values of equality, justice, and making room for multiple voices to be heard. Indeed, the songs we sing speak volumes about who we are and who we might become. 

Mom’s Yahrzeit falls on or around the week of Parashat B’Shalaḥ, when we chant another song, the Song of the Sea. After escaping the violent pursuit by the Egyptians and miraculously crossing the sea, the Israelites, led by Moshe and Miriam, cry out in song. Their song is an expression of their gratitude, of their joy that God protected them. 

At the same time, a well-known midrashic interpretation of this week’s Torah reading (Babylonian Talmud Megillah 10b) envisions the heavenly angels bearing witness to the Israelites’ escape into the sea and seeking to turn to each other in joyful song. But the Holy Blessed One said, “My creations are drowning in the sea and you wish to sing?!” While it was acceptable for the Israelites to focus on their own experience and sing about their miraculous deliverance, God expected the angels to have a broader perspective, understanding that the salvation of the Israelites brought with it the destruction of the Egyptians. 

We are not angels and we can only really know our own experiences. But the Talmud’s words are meant to be instructive to us as well. Everything that happens in this world has multiple points of impact. Our moments of song and celebration may entail suffering for others. Our own songs should be sung, but we must not allow them to drown out everything else. 

Shabbat shalom.