Poetry in our Lives: Shabbat Shirah

      Two months ago my wife and I spent a week on Nantucket, and on a bulletin board there we found a notice that "Congregation Shirat Hayam will reconvene May 27". "Shirat Hayam" is a very good name for a congregation on an island 30 miles out to sea although, apparently, it is only active in the summertime. Maybe some here also remember our past rabbi, many years ago: he named one of his daughters Shirah.

      What is poetry, anyway? It is distinguished in two ways. First, it follows a special style--for instance, rhyme and meter-- and second, it is written concisely, for emotional impact. It is the second item that really counts: the special language is only there to wake up the feeling.

      Poetry in the bible is like that, too, but the style differs. Western poetry relies heavily on rhyme and meter--on words whose endings match, and on a repeated rhythm of stressed and unstressed syllables. For instance:

      The bible does not use rhyming words, and its meter is rudimentary. What it does use is repetition: statements are repeated a second time, but in different words. Take today's reading, for instance:

      You do not always find this repetition in the Song of the Sea, or in the song of Deborah, but these are very old poems, more spontaneous and less formal.

      In later poetry , for instance in the psalms, the repetition may be more regular. For instance, in Psalm 92 which we sing for Kabbalat Shabbat:

      Poems have a second attribute, both in the bible and at later times: the language is austere, words are carefully selected. Each line in the above psalm uses only 3 words in the original Hebrew. In addition visual images are often used. For instance, Pharaoh and his hosts "sank like lead in mighty waters." You will find something unusual in almost every line of "Shirat Hayam."

      But all these are secondary, are merely props to the main theme: a poem is meant to touch you--you the listener, you the reader. That is why psalms and prayers use the poetic form, why both the biblical prophets and Shakespeare used poetry. A good poem stirs you, it grabs you, especially when set to melody. Poems are the natural language to express love. They are also powerful in wartime, to express ideas and causes for which men endure hardship and risk their lives. In the civil war, soldiers marched into battle singing "glory, glory, hallelujah!" You know the words (an echo of Isaiah, ch. 63, haftarah of Deuteronomy, ch. 29):

      Every generation has its own style, and the recent trend is towards free unrhymed verse. We heard earlier the "Shirat Hayam" of the bible. In the 20th century the Jewish writer Stephan Zweig retold the story in his own words (originally in German), in a verse-drama titled "Jeremiah":

      In the 19th century and early 20th, poems and songs expressed the moods and hopes of America, and then, suddenly, they almost disappeared from the scene.

      I am not sure why; maybe it has to do with the rise of TV and the decline of literacy. Maybe it is because people now rarely sing, but rather listen, to songs which are barely understandable, and when you do understand the words you realize you have not been missing much. Poetry has ceased to be a significant part of everyday life, and we are all poorer because of that.

      It survives, of course, as a cottage industry. People continue to write poems, people like you and me--in no way "professional" poets. How many of you write poems now and then? I do--not many, it is a hard task. But sometimes you need to express yourself--express love, or hope, or frustration--and then nothing else will do. I will finish with an example.

      A week ago something terrible happened here in Greenbelt. A 9-year old boy, Vikram Golla, a very bright child, was accidentally killed by a school bus. His father is a scientist with NASA. You probably heard about it, and maybe also read the article about him in the Washington Post, which included a poem by one of Vikram's teachers, Kathleen Hackett: