Let My People Go
A day of Jewish and Black joy
Yesterday was Shabbat Shira, the sabbath of singing. We rarely go to synagogue for services on Saturday mornings - if we do go for Shabbat, we go on Friday evenings - but all of Hebrew School was encouraged to attend this one because the second- and third-grade choir would be singing.
For those who don’t know: Jews read the whole Torah, which contains the first five books of the bible, from cover to cover every year. (Cover to cover is a misnomer; the Torah we read from in shul is a scroll, so it’s more like… okay, sorry, I’m just being pedantic here.) This piece explains why, if you’re interested in the history of it all! I particularly wanted us to go yesterday because Robbie will be in second grade next year, so I wanted to get him excited for when he’d participate in Shabbat Shira.
Anyway, Shabbat Shira is when we read the Torah portion about the Israelites escaping captivity in Egypt. They cross the Red Sea, the Egyptians in hot pursuit, and, just as the last Israelite sets foot on the opposite bank, the waters return to the riverbed, drowning their enslavers; Miriam, the sister of Moses, then leads the Israelites in songs of joy and praise.
Dear reader, I spent most of the service surreptitiously wiping tears from my eyes. I’ve regularly welled up at services as an adult, even before October 7, 2023. It’s just such a miracle to be in community with other Jews, especially when that community is intergenerational, praying and singing together despite everything we’ve been through over the millennia. They - the abstract “they” in the historical sense; very real and identifiable “they” in the modern - keep trying to kill us, but we’re still here. And so we celebrate with a service all about joy, about triumphing, with God’s help, over those* who seek to destroy us.
מִֽי־כָמֹ֤כָה בָּֽאֵלִם֙ יְהוָ֔ה מִ֥י כָּמֹ֖כָה נֶאְדָּ֣ר בַּקֹּ֑דֶשׁ נוֹרָ֥א תְהִלֹּ֖ת עֹ֥שֵׂה פֶֽלֶא׃
.שִׁירָה חֲדָשָׁה שִׁבְּחוּ גְאוּלִים לְשִׁמְךָ עַל שְׂפַת הַיָּם, יַֽחַד כֻּלָּם הוֹדוּ וְהִמְלִֽיכוּ וְאָמְרוּ: יְיָ יִמְלֹךְ לְעוֹלָם וָעֶדWHO IS LIKE YOU, O God, among the gods that are worshiped? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in splendor, working wonders?
With new song, inspired, at the shore of the Sea, the redeemed sang Your praise. In unison they all offered thanks. Acknowledging Your Sovereignty, that said: “Adonai will reign forever!”Exodus 15:11, 18
After the service, my mom and I headed to the Kennedy Center to see the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Launched in 1958 by “Alvin Ailey and a group of young, Black modern dancers” with a performance at New York’s 92nd Street Y**, the company is “dedicated to uplifting the African American experience while enriching and preserving the legacy of modern dance.” It was an experience unlike any other I’ve had at the Kennedy Center: we white audience members were unquestionably in the minority. (The audience at Hamilton, which I also saw at the Kennedy Center, was definitely whiter… but that’s an essay for someone else more qualified than I to write.)
I was surprised to find that it felt a lot like the morning at synagogue. The audience was much more participatory than at other classic dance performances I’ve attended; they applauded more easily after difficult passages, whooped more audibly after each segment, and clapped and sang along to the spirituals that closed out the production. It was, in short, a service of joy. They - the abstract “they” in the historical sense; very real and identifiable “they” in the modern - keep trying to kill us, but we’re still here.
Here’s where, when drafting in this piece, I let things sit overnight, hoping I would come to some kind of conclusion or call to action. There are whole academic texts about “how the Exodus narrative has served not only as a source of inspiration but also as a guide for collective action in the struggle for freedom and equality” for enslaved Black people in the 19th century and for the Civil Rights movement in the 20th. But I just keep coming back to the simple and unoriginal idea that joy is resistance. Coming together in community, whether it be to pray or sing or dance (or all of the above!) is an act of resolution and resolve. Joy is an antidote to fear and a catalyst for hope. Find it, make it, and, whenever you come across it, participate in it with your whole self.
They tried - are trying - to kill us, but we’re still here!
*I hate that I feel I have to include a disclaimer, but: this is not an endorsement of Israel’s actions against Palestinians.
**By the way, the 92nd Street Y is a YMHA, or Young Men’s Hebrew Association, not a YMCA, and was founded in the late 19th century to help Jewish immigrants assimilate. Parallels abound!