Droshos - Song of the Jewish Woman

What Are Women Doing All Day in Gan Eden?

We all received the Torah at Har Sinai. What remained with us after Har Sinai, though? Men learn the Torah, but what remains for women? After the festival of Shavuos ends, what do the women take from it?

It’s a question that is really rooted in something else. When a person dies, his soul goes to Gan Eden. What are women doing in Gan Eden? What are they doing all day there?

Is it possible that we are living our whole lives so we can go to Gan Eden after we die, yet we don’t even know what Gan Eden is….?

Chazal revealed to us what will be there, in Gan Eden, and from knowing their description, it can lead us to understand what women remain with after Shavuos is over. We will see what it is.

The Song of Miriam

In the Torah, there are many stories. Why does the Torah tell us all these stories? Is it solely that we should learn mussar and good ethics from them? That is true, but there is more to it.

From all of the stories in the Torah, which of them is a story all about women and the most applicable to women? The episode of Miriam, when she sang shirah (great song) with all the women by the sea, is the Torah’s story devoted entirely to women. From this story, we can learn the lessons that are unique to women.

Chazal state that in Gan Eden, there is a special chamber in Heaven, where the song of Miriam continues to be sung. It is headed by Miriam. It is not headed by any of our matriarchs, such as Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel or Leah. It is headed by Miriam!

If so, the great miracles that happened to the Jewish people didn’t end with the redemption from Egypt and the splitting of the sea. The miracles continue - because the song of Miriam is still continuing on in Heaven. All the miracles together throughout history are therefore a continuous chain. What is that great, continuing chain which Miriam began, which continues until this day? It was the “shirah” – the great song.

The Torah is called “shirah.” This is one of the names of the Torah. The Torah that is called “Shirah” – this is the “Torah” that is for women.

This is what women remained with after Har Sinai. The men learn the Torah - whereas the women “sing” the Torah.  Let us explain what this “song” is.

Shirah: The Song Upon a Chain of Events Strung Together

“Shirah” comes from the word “sharsheres”, which means “chain”. (Maybe that’s why women like to wear chains). This hints to us that a shirah is sung at when a certain “chain” is complete.

For example, when Yosef was sold to Egypt, it seemed like the worst thing possible. But when we take a look at the later events, we see how this led to all the great miracles of the Jewish people. It brought about the eventual redemption from Egypt, in which we expressed our shirah. Because when a person sees how the events of history are really all links in a certain chain, he sings.

Reflecting On Our Life

When a person never thinks or reflects into the events she went through in their life, she doesn’t see how all the events in her life connect together. She doesn’t see the ‘chain’. But when a person manages to connect all of her life experiences together, she can see how it all formed a certain ‘chain’ - and then she is able to come to sing the “shirah” about her life.

It is written, “Do not forsake the Torah of your mother.” What does this mean? What “Torah” did your mother learn? She didn’t learn Gemara or Zohar. It is the “shirah” of your mother that continues on! That is the “Torah of your mother.”

To illustrate, a girl becomes bas mitzvah, and then she grows up and gets married.

When she was a baby, she cried, but what happens when she gets married? She sings, out of joy. That is “Shirah” – it is to think about how much you have come so far in your life.

“Shirah” is a concept that is unique for women to use. Men have the mitzvah to learn Torah, whereas women are exempt from learning Torah. The deeper meaning of this is because women think about the Torah in a different way than men do. Women take the time to think thoughts of emunah (faith in G-d), and from that, a woman is able to come to sing the shirah.

The halachah is that a man is not allowed to hear a woman singing. The deep reason behind this is because a woman’s special avodah (task)is “shirah”, her song - which is not a man’s avodah. Therefore, he has no place in hearing a woman’s “shirah”.

The Greatness of Women: The Song of Emunah

It was Miriam who began the shirah. She was also the one who helped Moshe survive; these two facts are interconnected with each other, as follows.

Chazal say that when Moshe was placed into a basket in the Nile River, Miriam hid in the bushes, waiting to see what would happen to her baby brother whom she prophesied about, and she continued to look after him, watching from a distance. Chazal also state that she was older than Aharon and Moshe; she was three years older than Aharon, and six years older than Moshe. It was not by chance that she was older than Moshe and that she was his older sister who looked after him. In telling us this, Chazal are trying to convey to us that if not for Miriam’s involvement with Moshe, there wouldn’t have been a redemption.

Miriam was older than Moshe, thus she was able to look after him, and enable him to survive. If so, the whole redemption was enabled through Miriam. This is the depth behind the words of the Sages, that “In the merit of the righteous women, the Jewish people were redeemed from Egypt.” It is referring, in particular, to the righteous actions taken by Miriam, to ensure Moshe’s survival. If not for Miriam, there would be no Moshe!

Miriam’s name comes from the word “merirus”, ‘bitterness’. When she sang the shirah, she was alluding to the fact that although the Jewish people first went through ‘bitterness’ in Egypt, now, they were singing. She revealed the chain of events, through revealing the stark contrast between the the bitterness of Egypt with the miracles of the redemption and the splitting of the sea.

In a certain way, the “song of Miriam” is on a greater level than the Torah which Moshe gave. This is because it is written, “Az yashir Moshe” – “Then, Moshe sang.” We learn from this that the men only sing after the miracles are complete [whereas the women were already singing before, because they believed already in the miracles].

The Gemara also states that “Az Yashir” is a song of the future, in which Moshe will lead all the men to sing; whereas Miriam was singing with the women even before the miracles. “Vatashar Miriam” - “And Miriam sang.” The women, headed by Miriam, were already singing from before.

A Woman Prepares For The Torah – With Her Song of Faith

This shows us what a woman’s role in the Torah is. With men, there is a chain of tradition, starting from Moshe, continuing to Yehoshua, and so forth. Moshe revealed the Torah to the men - but Miriam revealed shirah to the women.

The shirah which the women sang by the sea was essentially their own unique preparation to receive the Torah. They prepared themselves for the Torah by singing the shirah. Now that we have seen the root concept – that a woman’s Torah is shirah – we can proceed to explain how it can also affect us practically.

Having Time To Reflect

To actualize this concept, a woman should take the time every day and think a little: “What has happened to me since the time I was born? What were the major events and stages I went through in my life?” Then, try to see how Hashem was there, with you, throughout each time that you can recall.

If only we would all do this, we would discover so much happiness in our life. It would show all of us the “chain” of events in our life, and when we have the “chain”, we have a cause for shirah.

To illustrate, the Chofetz Chaim one day sat down and went through his entire life in his head, thanking Hashem for all that he had in his life. He spoke to Hashem, saying, “Hashem, thank you for letting me learn Torah my entire life. Thank you for meriting me that I write sefer Mishnah Berurah. Thank you for my wife, and for the children which You gave me.”

The prophet states that Moshiach will reveal a “new Torah”. What is the “new Torah” that Moshiach will reveal? He will not simply reveal a “new Torah” that is different from the current one, chas v’shalom.

Rather, he will reveal the entire story of the Jewish people throughout history - and this will show us the great chain of events, which will lead us to the great shirah we will sing then.

When a person takes the time each day to think about his life and to see the chain of events in his life, he can find how Hashem was always there in his life, and he can come to thank Hashem for his entire whole life that he has lived until now.

Doing this shouldn’t be just a ‘lip service’; it should be a deep reflection into your life. When you have this deep reflection into your life, you can come to have shirah about your life. Your heart will become so full of gratitude, that it will burst out in song - to Hashem.

This is the meaning of the “Torah of your mother”. This is the “Torah” which a mother must give to her children: she teaches them how to “sing the shirah” about everything we have gone through in our life, to see how it all connects into one chain.

Without this, a woman only knows how to make use of song when she hums empty songs to her children…and often it is a non-Jewish song….

A Woman’s Torah Comes From Within

The Torah which men learn is usually from a teacher, or from another outside source, such as from a sefer; if none of the above, it is acquired in the Beis Midrash. This is because a man requires some outer source to learn Torah from. But a woman’s Torah doesn’t need a teacher. She doesn’t need a sefer to learn it, and she doesn’t need a Beis Midrash to learn it in. It is a Torah that comes from within herself.

Chazal say that “Avraham learned Torah from himself.”[1] Avraham figured out what the Hashem wanted, without ever having to receive the Torah. This is the kind of Torah that women have: they can get the Torah just from within themselves, from their own heart.

It is written, “Write the words of Torah on your heart.” This is referring to the Torah of women, who learn Torah from their heart.

Learning Chovos HaLevovos: Shaar HaBechinah

In order for a woman to reach it, though, she must set aside time of the day to reflect about all that has happened to her until now, and to see how all of the events were links in a giant chain.

To practically work on this, it is recommended for a woman to learn Chovos HaLevovos: Sha’ar HaBechinah (Duties of the Heart: The Gate of Reflection), specifically with the commentary of the “Lev Tov”. Learning it can awaken your thoughts on how to think about Hashem’s goodness in your life. It can help you see the chain of events in your life, and it can help you reveal a chain which is unlike no other in the world.

Discovering Your Own Unique Song

When you want to buy a new chain, you go to the jewelry store. You look for a unique chain, a chain of which there is none like in the rest of the world. But the “chain” which you can uncover from your life is actually the chain which is unlike any other in the world! It is each woman’s personal shirah which no one else has. Every woman’s life is made up of different experiences, thus each person has her own shirah that’s unique to her.

The average lifespan on this world is seventy years. How will we leave this world? Will we leave it with crying? If we do, then we were born with crying, and we will leave this world crying. But if we think deeply into our life and see how Hashem was always in our life, we can come to sing shirah - and we will end our life with song.

Let’s say a woman would want to write a biography about her life. What would she write there? It’s possible that she will write about her life, recounting all of the struggles and pain that she went through, yet this doesn’t necessarily cause her to sing shirah about her life. Instead, she is just sad about her whole life. What would be the point of writing such a biography? Yet, with many people, this is how the biography would look like…one big story of pain…

But if a woman would see how all of the events in her life are all part of one big of chain, a chain that can lead her to feel grateful to Hashem over her whole life and all that she’s gone through - she would break out in song, in shirah. Now that would be a true biography.

The Song of Women In Gan Eden

When a woman goes to Gan Eden after her life ends, she enters that special chamber in Heaven where Miriam sings with all women if she sang shirah in her life. But she doesn’t continue to sing the same song that the other women are singing there. She adds in her own song that she has reached in her own personal life, because each and every woman has her own unique song that she can reveal, about her own life that she has lived.

“Shirah chadashah” – there is a “new song” which we can reveal. The higher of level of faith a woman reaches in her life, the greater her “song” can become. She can transform her whole life into a giant chain of events that brings her to have “shirah”.

Try It

Practically speaking, a woman should set aside time, take a piece of paper and write down all of the major events she went through in her life, and then think about all of the kindness that Hashem has showed her, throughout her whole life.

Connecting The Puzzle Pieces

However, you might encounter a difficulty as you do this. You might have a hard time seeing how certain events connect, and you are don’t see the connection. But we can compare this to a puzzle that is missing pieces.

When you make a puzzle, it takes time until you figure out where all the pieces go. You aren’t sure where a certain piece goes, so you put it on the side and come back to it later. Slowly as you add on more pieces, you see the picture, even though you don’t have the whole picture; and you are then able to figure out where those pieces go, because the picture has become a little clearer.

Therefore, take all the parts of your life that you know are really part of the puzzle, and look at them as puzzle pieces which you don’t know what to do with right now. Eventually, you will see that these hard to understand events in your life are also part of the puzzle that makes up your life. As long as you are aware that everything you went through is somehow part of the ‘puzzle’, you will be able to put it all together one day.

Tehillim – The Ultimate Song

Sefer Tehillim is all a shirah. It is the song of Dovid HaMelech’s life, which encompasses the entire life that every Jew will ever go through. They are all describing a chain of events that he connected together, to form his shirah.

If someone says Tehillim from her heart, she connects to that shirah - and this is a very clear example of a woman’s Torah. We should aspire to connect ourselves to the shirah of Tehillim.

However, this shouldn’t just be an ‘aspiration’ in our life. We should realize some of our aspirations even now, even at the beginning of our way – “sof maaseh b’machshavah techilah”, “the end of action is first in the thought.”

Tehillim is the ultimate Shirah, because it is the all-inclusive song of the Jewish people. After we discover our own personal song in our life, we can connect ourselves to the songs we see in Tehillim. That is our ultimate goal, the ultimate level of shirah. But even before we get to that level, we can at least discover our own personal song in our private lives.

Preparing for Shavuos

If a woman wants to prepare for Shavuos, it should be very clear to her: What is a man’s Torah, and what is a woman’s Torah? What is the Torah which women have in Gan Eden? It is the shirah!

If a woman goes her whole life and never reveals a shirah about her life, what will she do when she gets to Gan Eden? Imagine a person who comes to a wedding and he doesn’t understand the language of anybody there. He will not enjoy the wedding. To be able to enjoy the spiritual pleasure of Gan Eden, which is shirah, we need to already be used to the “language” of shirah already on this world.

To give an example, Hashem decided to destroy the world in the generation of Noach. He was very distraught about the generations from Adam to Noach, and the Torah writes that “Hashem was said in His heart.” No one cries when they read this – people only cry when they read about the destruction of the Beis Mikdash. But if you think about it, the ten generations in between Adam and Noach were also a very sad time; they were also a cause for destruction. This is just an example of how we need to think into events and see how it all connects.

In Conclusion

The words here are not ‘ideas’. They are a way of life, for someone who wants to live an inner kind of life.  It is the nature of a woman to turn everything into “ideas”, as opposed to turning them into actuality, but we have to make sure that we actually do them, and not remain with mere “ideas”. These are not ‘ideas’ - these are rather ‘instructions’ for an inner way to live.

They might sound very strange at first, but it only sounds strange to us when we are very negatively affected by the materialism of this world’s lifestyle.

May we each merit to reveal our own personal, deep shirah – and may all of our songs come together and reveal the complete shirah, which is the song of Creation.

Questions And Answers With The Rav

Q: Is shirah only for women, and not for men?

A: It is a stronger point by women than it is by men.

Q: Is this the same thing as “Hakaras HaTov” (gratitude)?

A: Gratitude is only for one specific event, but the avodah of “shirah” which we have described here is about connecting many events together. Emunah has to come before anything. The Chovos HaLevovos first discusses Emunah before he discusses how to have gratitude to Hashem.

Again, let us repeat that “shirah” is not an idea. It is a very deep, internal self-expression. This is not an “idea” – it should actually be practiced in your life.

Q: How can we include our children in this?

A: Slowly begin to include your children in your shirah as you express it, and eventually with time, they will open up and learn themselves how to have shirah in their own life.

The message behind of what I am trying to tell you here, is that women here in America are very far from the true kind of life, and that we must return to the true kind of life. There are a lot of lies going on in life. Many people know that the American lifestyle is full of lies, but they simply don’t have the strength to deal with it.

People who want to work on themselves learn Shemiras HaLashon and say “Perek Shirah”, but is this enough to help us live a true kind of life?!

I will tell you a story. Rav Shimshon Pincus zt”l was born in America, but he moved to Eretz Yisrael when he was young and grew up there. Once on a visit to America, he got a ride with someone, and his driver picked up a young girl who needed a ride. The girl got into the car. The driver turned to Rav Pincus and said to him, “Why don’t you say hello to her?”

Rav Pincus responded that it is forbidden according to Halacha for a man to greet a woman he doesn’t know. The driver responded, “Here in America, you are supposed to greet everyone.”

This story shows how wrong the way of life in America is. Of course, there are problems in Eretz Yisrael too. But the problems here in America are much worse, because the very way of life here is totally upside down from the truth. It is very far from the way in which our Avos lived; that men should greet women they don’t know?!

Life here in America is full of falsity, but if we are really dedicated to living a true kind of life, we can do so.