Beshalaj 5776 - English

By Rabbi Dario Feiguin

B´nei Israel Congregation, Costa Rica

Celebrating unity through music

After centuries of anti-Semitism, Crusades, the Inquisition and the Shoah, Pope Francis’ visit to the Synagogue of Rome a few days ago is a very important step in the path towards unity.  Something similar happened a few years ago when the Lubavitch Rabbi z”l visited the Dalai Lama, or when other famous Rabbis and Jewish academics did the same, like Zalman Schachter Shalomi z”l.

There is a common language in all spiritual quests, which allows us to add instead of divide, to heal deep wounds and to try and not cause more suffering.  

On the other hand, we are conscious of where extremisms are taking us.  We though Al-Fatah was the worst, until Hamas came along.  But then we got Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, and now ISIS and their Islamic State.  

We have to choose what road we follow: that of hate or that of dialogue.  

This Shabat Shirah we discover a key towards a universal language of reconciliation.  A Midrash tells us that only when G’d saw Miriam and the People of Israel singing and dancing after the crossing of the Sea of Reeds, did He decide to give them the Torah.   

Every religious tradition uses music as a vehicle to the soul.  We sing our tefilot, we chant the Parashah and the Haftarah, and we even pray and vibrate with the “Nigunim”, those melodies without lyrics that transport us directly and with no intermediaries to, as Maimonides would say, “the palace itself of the King of the Universe.”

Miriam used an Egyptian tambourine, the Leviim used several instruments from the Canaanites (see Psalm 150), the Moroccans and Sephardim used the lute, the Mizrachim used the goblet drums, the European Klezmorim used the accordions, the violins, and the clarinets, the first reformers used the organ, and today we even use the guitar, the African djembe, and the Indian sitar and table.  All this without becoming followers of Amon or Ra, Muslims, Protestants, supporters of Sai Baba or of another remote African religion.   

Music is a dimension in which the human spirit can express itself freely.  It is also a way to choose the path towards reconciliation between all of G’d’s creatures.  

Let us have a Shabbat Shirah, a Shabbat of music and poetry, of openness and Shalom.  

Rabbi Darío Feiguin.