PARSHAT B’SHALACH, SHABBOS SHIRA
By: Suri Davis
This is the parshah of derech eretz, because we know that derech eretz kadmah l’torah, and next week is the parshah in which the torah is given.
In Az Yashir, the verse states Zeh Keli v’anvehu, the Mechilta expounds that V’anvehu, and I will glorify Him, is a contraction of Ani v’hu, He, Hashem, and I.
How do glorify G-d, by doing His mitzvoth, how does G-d glorify us by giving us the mitzvoth, in that we were each born with tzelem elokim, in G-d’s image, with a great potential to be G-dlike, we are desparate to actualize the Godliness in ourselves, and would be an absolute loss, if G-d had birthed us without a Torah.
So often we scream out, “this baby did not come with a manual”, so not true, the Torah is our manual, it is a guide in all situations.
Next week we read Yisro, the parshah in which G-d gives us the Torah. But the Rabbis tell us that Derech Eretz kadmah l’torah, literally translated, the path of the Earth comes before the Torah. Coloquially we understand this to mean that the way we treat others, the mitzvoth between man and his fellow man takes precedence over learning Torah, for after all what is learning the mitzvoth if we do not perform the mitzvoth.
I want to submit to you that we break down the term Derech Eretz to its literal translation, the ways of the Earth and its connection with our Eretz/land, where the eyes are G-d are keeping watch from the beginning of the year until the end of the year, constantly.
Moshe could not bring forth the first and second plague because it meant hitting the water. Moses could not hit the water because the water protected Moshe when he was an infant and Miriam hid him in the basket on the water.
Moshe could not bring forth the third plague because he would have had to have hit the earth. He could not hit the earth because when he lived in Pharoah’s home and saw the Egyptian kill a Jew, and in turn Moshe hit the Egyptian and killed him, it was the earth that opened its mouth to swallow the Egyptian and literally bury the evidence.
Furthermore, this week’s parshah, discussed the manna with which God nourished the Jews in the desert. Moses warns the Jews that they must collect a double portion of Manna on Fridays because on Shabbos they may not collect the manna because of the rules of Shabbos. The manna fell nevertheless and to prevent the Jews from violating the laws of Shabbos by collecting the manna, the birds ate the manna on Shabbos to prevent the violation of the Shabbos. This is why it is customary on the Friday before Shabbos shira to feed the birds, to thank them and repay them the kindness thousands of years after the birds in the desert saved the Jews from sinning.
After all these years, we still have to thank the birds? Why?
Let us hearken to another shira, this time perek shira. Before we sang our praise to Hashem, all the creations of the earth, both animate and inanimate, sang their praises to G-d. We can read these praises in perek shira.
Interestingly, this is Shabbos shira, where we thank the birds, this is the Shabbos of our redemption, when our pursuers were wiped off the face of the earth, so they could no longer be a threat to us, let us see how the birds praise G-d as revealed in perek shira. They state Psalm 84:4:
“Even a bird found a house and a swallow her nest, where she placed her chicks upon Your altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King and my G-d.” This psalm was written by David as he fled into exile and yearned for the place of the altar and Ark.
The birds sing of redemption, of chicks nesting in the altar, as the Jews lost their home, Israel. All these years, as we are in exile, it is as though we empathize with these birds who sing about yearning for redemption, for their home again. The Lubavitcher rebbe’s zmirot book has the song of the little bird yearning for its home. It resonates, as the Jews are being redeemed from Egypt, they too look for their home.
We tend to look down on animate and inanimate objects as they are lower forms of being. Yet they too sing G-d’s praises, and we learn from the respect that Moshe had to defer to the Nile and to the Earth in gratitude for what they did for him, that we have to feed the birds to show gratitude thousands of years later, that this is the beginning of Derech Eretz, the path of the earth. It starts here.
Israel has been closed off from us now for months because of the pandemic. Once more, we Jews in the diaspora can feel longing for our homeland, a yearning we haven’t truly felt since 1948, when Israel first became a state and all Jews were welcomed to its shores.
Derech Eretz, the path to our land has been closed literally. Those who have faith in the land, those who know their bounty directly from the land, those who live in the land closest to G-d’s heart where G-d chose to build His Temple are role models to us in faith in G-d and dedication to our ancestry. Let us pause.
Joyous Tu B’shvat
Shabbat shalom.
-Suri