One of the beautiful moments of daily prayer by our students in both Sinai Akiba Academy and Sinai Temple Religious School is when they sing the prayer ozi vzimrat yah, an essential verse in the Song of The Sea, that the Israelites sang as they went from slavery to freedom. Onkelos, who translates the Torah from Hebrew to Aramaic, explains it means, “God is my might and my praise.”
Yet, Ramban sees a strong connection between the two words, ozi and zimrat, thus giving the meaning, “The song of my strength is eternal.”
How true of the songs we sing.
We all have had the experience of not being able to recite the lyrics of our favorite songs or prayers without a melody because in our hearts, we know they are meant to be sung.
It is the melody that carries us through. Be it a moment of joy and or a moment of sorrow, song’s presence uplifts the soul.
The Talmud tells us that someone working in the fields should use song to pass the time.
Melody can create memory and melody can recapture memory. At this miraculous moment of crossing the sea, Moses and Miriam and the people had a multitude of options to pursue, but they chose to sing, because song is eternal strength.
