הדר השירה המשך בכיוון
The beauty of poetry is the continuance of a direction. Throughout the ages, when people searched for depth, they turned to poetry, song. In the modern era specifically, when superficiality is rampant, people are searching desperately for meaning, and very often turn to the different forms of poetic expression. The truth is that depth is not to be found through ‘analytical thinking’. In the future, we know, there will be no difficulties in the Torah, no questions. Without questions, there is no analysis. Still, we will constantly be discovering more profound insights in Torah. That’s the essence of poetry: revealing a deeper aspect of that which we already know. “נִשְׁמַת כָּל חַי תְּבָרֵךְ אֶת שִׁמְךָ יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ”- The soul of every living creature should bless your name, HaShem our God.” Each person has experienced his Creator in a unique way and therefore has his own song. But it’s not meant to be a detached expression of personal history, rather the unique insight imparted to each distinct vantage point.
However, there is, so to speak a “danger” to such expression. Sometimes these poetic expressions are beautiful and clever, yet that beauty and cleverness will not develop into anything greater. The person will appreciate the poetry; he basks in its light, but it will not “take” him anywhere. People very often use the expression: “I was moved…”, but they still find themselves in the same place. The Mashgiach, z”l, referred to that as “mussar journalism”- it’s nice and deep, evocative, but like a newspaper only for today; tomorrow it will be forgotten.
Genuine depth develops: there is a subsequent continuance of direction. A deeper truth motivates and opens up for him new possibilities of action, or empowers him to continue and develop new insights.
קול התחינה קשב הבינה
The voice of a request (is understood through) intent contemplation. “קול”, the voice, is the part of the request that is not communicated through words. It makes up the words and is found within them. It represents the deeper meaning, the original intention. For example, your wife unexpectedly asks you to do the dishes. Being an agreeable husband, you clean the dishes, but you didn’t really listen to her. Why is she asking now? What is bothering her and what does she really want? This requires קשב הבינה- intent contemplation.
This is a basic and important principle in chinuch, education. The more experienced the educator is, the more cynical he often becomes. He thinks he knows all the issues, and that all that is required of him is a superficial diagnosis. With that approach, he will never hear the inner voice behind what’s being said. The educator must listen carefully, and be willing to be surprised.
Parenthetically, when you understand what “קול” really means, it is very uncomfortable to say “שמע קולנו” during davening. We are asking Hashem to consider the inner meaning and intent of our davening. The actual words of our davening are incredible- those are the words of the אנשי כנסת הגדולה; they were written with רוח הקודש. But the קול, the voice- that is ours. That’s not always a very pleasant thing to think about. We ask for all these great things, like we are supposed to- but what do we want health for, for what do we need sustenance? The קול is our inner agenda, and if it doesn’t match up with Hashem’s plan (or even contradicts it,) that’s not a very successful request. For example, if you have an idea for a new dental hygiene product, and you want to sell it to Johnson and Johnson, you schedule a meeting with the vice-President and you try to sell the idea, “This product will put your company at the forefront of innovative oral hygiene.” You surely won’t tell him, “I think you should invest in this product because I have to pay off my debt.” That’s a surefire way to botch the meeting and he’ll never meet with you again. They need to hear why it’s profitable for them. Still, we ask Hashem to listen to our inner intentions, and it can be shameful to consider what those actually are.
טוב מתק טעמי תורה
Good is the sweetness of the reasonings of the Torah. In general sweetness isn’t appropriate for Avodas Hashem. The Rambam (מורה ג:מו) writes that sweet things are not brought on the מזבח. The problem with sweetness is that the person relishes it and remains content where he is. He stays with the sweetness. Sweet things are not brought on the מזבח because they are confined to here: they don’t go up to Hashem. The sweetness of the Torah is different: it moves the person to be open to more, to expand his horizons. This is connected to what the אגלי טל writes about in his introduction, that the enjoyment of Torah learning does not contradict it’s being לשמה, but rather compliments it.
נגינות ישרים נאוה תהלה
The music of the Straight is a yearning to praise (Hashem). “נאוה” is related to the word “תאוה”, desire. An example of this is the celebration of the women at קריעת ים סוף. After the miraculous salvation of קריעת ים סוף, Miriam took her drum and all the women followed her with drums and dancing. Rashi comments, “מבטחות היו צדקניות שבדור שהקב”ה עושה להם נסים והוציאו תפים ממצרים”- the righteous women of that generation were confident that God would perform miracles for them and they therefore brought drums from Egypt. Rashi writes in the following comment, “ותען להם מרים – משה אמר שירה לאנשים, הוא אומר והם עונין אחריו, ומרים אמרה שירה לנשים”- “Moshe sang to the men. He sang and they answered after him. And Miriam sang to the women.” Note that Rashi does not say that the women answered Miriam’s song. They didn’t sing, they made music with their drums. The music was like the “קול”- it was deeper than the actual words. It was an expression of their deep bitachon. The Passuk says “ותען להם מרים”, with the word “להם” being in the masculine form. She didn’t answer in song the women (feminine), but rather the drums (masculine). She spoke out in words the deep desire which was expressed in their music, the urge to praise Hashem: “שירו ליקוק כי גאה גאה…“