"He felt inspired in his heart to sing. His heart told him to
sing" (Rashi).
We can only grasp the significance of these words if we study
the nature of the heart of a Jew. Thus says the Rambam in the
laws of divorce: "Whoever is overcome by his yetzer
hora to nullify a commandment or commit a sin and is
administered lashes until he submits to doing what is
incumbent upon him, or to distance himself from what is
forbidden to him, is not considered to be acting under
coercion since he really wishes to be part of Jewry and
wishes to obey all of the commandments and stay away from
sin. However, it is his evil inclination that overpowers him.
But once he is subjected to lashes to the point that his
inclination is weakened, then he says, `I will obey.' At this
point, he has already banished the evil desire."
We learn from this marvelous message that the heart of a Jew
is bound with unbreakable cords to the Will of his Creator,
and anything that he does contrary to that Will is only
because he has succumbed to the influence of his evil
impulse, and not because this is his intrinsic will. The
yetzer befuddles his senses and desensitizes them to
what he truly wishes to do in his heart and soul. This is
evident in the words of Chazal commenting on the verse in
Shir HaShirim, "`I am asleep and my heart is awake' --
`my heart' designates Hashem."
This obfuscation of a person's real will, resulting from his
being overcome by his impulses, is really the prime cause of
every aberration from the true, straightforward path onto a
road leading away from Torah and mitzvos. It is a person's
task and mission to remove these obstacles so that he can
muster his resources and his mind to execute what is his
true, instinctive will, to unite them within himself. This
unification and single purpose is the pivotal point of
emunah in a person's life on this earth.
What is the condition of a person's spirit when he focuses on
the central point of emunah? "When a person merits the
realization that his purpose in life is to acknowledge
Hashem's existence, he is suddenly suffused with a boundless
joy, and his soul is blissful. Then does his imagination
complement his intellect to gaze in tandem upon the
pleasantness of Hashem. And all the fleshly pleasures
dissipate and disappear and his refined soul is bathed in
holiness. It separates from his polluted body to roam freely
among the heavenly spheres. When a person ascends to these
spiritual values, he discovers before him a new world, for a
person in this world can transcend momentarily to the level
of an angel and bask in heavenly, holy bliss. And then, all
the pleasures on earth pale and fade to nothingness compared
to the spiritual sublimeness of a person's adherence to his
Creator" (Chazon Ish: Emunah Uvitochon p. 11).
One who examines the Song at the Sea, even with a limited
view, will see in it an eternal vista-view. How did Israel
merit this sublime level of spirituality? "In what merit was
Jewry privileged to say shiroh at the sea? In the
merit of the faith they exhibited. We see earlier written,
`And Israel saw the great hand and they believed in Hashem
and in Moshe His servant'" (Tanchuma Beshalach, 11).
They reached a prime point in their emunoh, a juncture
at which the intellect united with the inner will and
instinctively, they felt the inner urge, need and desire to
sing. When a person finds himself at such a state of mind-
heart to hear and feel what his inner heart is saying to him,
he is essentially separated from his polluted body and a new
world is revealed before him. He gazes upon this new world
and beholds eternity, and is moved, inspired to burst forth
in a song of eternity, a praise to the Eternal Creator.
This is true song, not what we surmise to be a gift of
expression, a poetic talent like the other artistic modes of
expression -- like that stringing together of words produced
by some hapless drunkard weaving crazily through the streets.
And this `work of art' has been hailed and established as the
national anthem!
True song is latent within the soul of man and it sings on,
uninterruptedly. For the expression of the heart is the true,
inner will that reverberates and pulses within. At select
times, a person can hear this song, this message of the
heart, at those times when he merits tuning in to the
essential point of truth. And when a person reaches this
state of his faith not budging from him, when he is capable
of always following in its light, then he will be capable of
hearing the song which his heart is perennially singing.
The Shechina revealed Itself at the exodus from Egypt,
and the Splitting of the Sea removed from Israel the
dominance of the yetzer hora. Then their intellects
were able to unite with the true inner desire of the heart.
And they believed. And from within them, spontaneously, rose
up the song which the heart demands that we sing, constantly
and uninterruptedly.
