The Shira

The Shirah was the song of praise sung by the Children of Israel when they crossed over the Red (Reed) Sea after leaving Egypt and the waters split. They walked through dry land between piled up mountains of water and the Egyptians pursuing them were drowned.

The Shira as it is written in a Sefer Torah

The normal way words are written in the Torah is on straight lines following one another with gaps left only at the end of each chapter.

The Shirah is the only place where there is a spacing in a brick like formation as shown on the adjacent page. This layout is according to tradition and is shown in the Rambam’s monumental work Yad Hachazoka. I have not seen any reason given for this layout which is unique in the five books of Moses. Furthermore, the song starts with the words אשירה לה' and ends ה ימלך לעולם ועד.

The question then arises as to why the two lines below the final sentence are still written in the same brick like formation. If you look immediately above you will find that the introduction, which commences with the words אשירה לה' is written in the normal manner with no gaps. Therefore, it is even more strange that after the song apparently ends there should be more brick like formations.

I suggest that the key to the answer lies in the last line of the brick like formation. If you look at the first word of the last line, this reads הים - HaYom, “the sea”, if you look at the final word it once again reads הים HaYom “the sea” and in the middle, you have the words ובני ישראל הלכו ביבשה בתוך “and the Children of Israel walked on dry land in the midst of”.

What we have is a bird's eye view of what happened because of the two gaps which have been deliberately left to emphasis the waters on the two sides and the Children of Israel walking on dry land between them. (See copy of the layout on the adjacent page)

I mentioned earlier on that I had not seen any explanation given as to why the whole Shirah is written in brick like formation. I should like to suggest a possible reason.

There are a number of names of Hashem, most of which we are familiar with as we use them continually during our prayers and are mentioned clearly in the Torah. There is, however, one particular one known as the Shem Ayin Bais שם ע"ב which is quoted by Rashi on a Mishnah in Succah page 45A and he explains that these are in fact 72 separate combinations of three letters which come from three verses just before the Shirah (Chapter 14, verses 19, 20 and 21). Each verse consists of 72 letters and the method used is to take the first letter of the first verse, the last letter of the second verse and the first letter of the third verse, which therefore makes the word
והוVov Hay Vov, and so on. A detailed explanation of this is given by the Zohar on the spot.

The final statement at the end of the third verse isויבקעו המים , “and the waters split”. It would seem, therefore, that this emanation of the 72 words were those used by Hashem to wrought the miracle of the splitting of the sea.

Going back to the brick like formation of the Shirah if you count each brick individually and I mean by a brick, for example, אשירה Oshirah and the next four words as one brick, the word סוס Sus as a separate brick etc., and you then go forward until the final word in brick like formation “HaYom”, you will find that there are exactly 72 bricks. As the Bnei Yisroel then saw such wonders and reached such a high level of holy spirit, Ruach Hakodesh, they instinctively understood the use of the 72 combinations and their song of praise is likewise split into 72 bricks.

To re-enforce my suggestion, I want to turn to the verse before the Shirah which is immediately above and starts with the wordsויראו ישראל את היד הגדולה and endsובמשה עבדו. This states that the Israelites saw the Great Hand which Hashem had brought upon Egypt, the people revered Hashem had faith in Hashem and Moshe His servant.

We know that in addition to the Hebrew letters serving to form words, each individual letter has a numerical value for example, an aleph is one, a yud is ten etc. If you take the initial letters of the whole of the verse and add them together, they total 216 which is exactly three times 72. I mentioned earlier on that the 72 combinations each have three letters and therefore this is really, at a deep level what the Children of Israel saw, namely, that these 216 letters in total had been used to produce the great miracle, the splitting of the sea.

* * *

The Shirah was the song of praise which the Bnei Yisroel sang together to Hashem after the vanquishing of their foes and all future wars and praises pertaining thereto up to the coming of Moshiach are hinted therein. The last phrase ה' ימלך לעולם ועד is in the future tense and we are told that Hashem will be King (recognised by all) for ever and ever, this applies to the time of the Moshiach onwards.

At the time of the second temple, when the חשמנאים - Hasmonians rose up against the Greeks leading to the miracle of Chanukah the acclaimed leader of the war was יהודה המכבי, Yehuda HaMacabi. A reason given for this unusual surname is that when he went into battle with his small band of religious Jews against the mighty armies of Greece, his battle cry was מי כמכה באלם ה'“Who is like unto you among the strong ones, Hashem” the first letters spell out מכבי, and as we all know, he won a series of spectacular victories leading to the recapturing of Yerushalyim and the Bais HaMikdosh.

Why did he choose this battle cry? If you look at the Shirah as a whole, you will notice that this phrase appears right in the heart of it. Yehuda HaMacabi told his followers that in the same way as Hashem performed a miracle to help the Children of Israel when they were going out of Egypt, He would help them again in their struggle to vanquish their degenerate enemies. The numerical value of the first letters of the words מי כמכה באלם ה' add up to 72 and as mentioned above this was the emanation of Hashem at a time of the going out of Egypt and he managed to reawaken this for his own generation.

The miracle of Chanukah took place, according to the Seder Olam, in the year 3595 from the creation of the world, this was 234 years before the second Temple was destroyed. The total numerical value of the four words, מי כמכה באלם ה add up to exactly 234. Would it be too much to suggest that as reward and merit for Yehuda HaMacabi using this phrase as his rallying call Hashem granted a further 234 years from the Ness of Chanukah that the Bais HaMikdosh should remain standing.

Furthermore, if one counts the letters from אז ישיר, Oz Yoshir up to באלם ה, BoElim Hashem, there are 420 which is exactly the total amount of years that the second temple stood.

We begin to understand some of the depth of the Shirah and perhaps part of the reason as to why this was incorporated into the פסוקי דזמרה said every morning…

* * *

King David, Dovid Hamelech, composed תהילים, the Psalms and in his own brilliant and unique way praised and thanked Hashem at length. Anyone who reads the Tehillim is struck by the fact that with his genius he used his own expressions. However, there is one place where he lifted half of a verse directly from the Torah. In chapter 118 which commences הודו לה' כי טוב כי לעולם חסדו “let us give thanks to Hashem for he is good, for His kindness is forever”. He continues מן המצר קראתי י-ה ענני במרחב י-ה “From being oppressed I called upon Hashem and Hashem answered me with expansiveness.” and shortly afterwards he uses the expressionעזי וזמרת י-ה ויהי לי לישועה which translates as “Hashem is my might and my praise and He was a salvation for me.” or “Hashem’s might and His cutting away (of the enemy) was a salvation for me” this is half of a verse taken directly from the Shirah. Surely Dovid Hamelech who was a supreme creator of verses must have had some special reason to have utilised half of a verse from Torah and in particular from the Shirah.

If one looks at the way Dovid vividly describes in this chapter of Tehillim the problems he encountered that, always with the help of Hashem, he managed to overcome, we can perhaps understand why he borrowed this phrase from the Shirah.

When the Children of Israel stood with their backs to the sea, watching with trepidation Pharaoh and his armed hosts coming towards them, they were terrified. They looked to the right, and saw a wilderness with wild animals, snakes etc., they looked to the left and saw the same picture. There were those among them who said that they should nevertheless try to run into the wilderness to escape, others said that they should fight the Egyptians and some even said that they should give in to the Egyptians and become slaves again. But they did pray to Hashem for a salvation. That salvation came in the most unexpected manner, namely, that they turned round walked into the sea which then split and they were saved and the Egyptians drowned.

I believe that Dovid Hamelech especially introduced this verse expression עזי וזמרת י-ה ויהי לי לישועה which can be translated either as “Hashem is my might and my praise and He was a salvation for me.” or “Hashem’s might and His cutting away (of the enemy) was a salvation for me” to emphasise that he likewise had often been in a situation where he could not see a way out and that Hashem had helped and saved him in the most unexpected manner.