This weekend, we commemorate our ancestors first taste of freedom from slavery with Shabbat Shira – a Shabbat of Song. The horde of people, over 600,000 according to our text, made its way through the narrows of Mitzrayim, crossed through the miraculously parted Sea, and stepped into the Wilderness and an uncertain future. They met that uncertainty with song, and dance, and we revisit that moment every year.
God commands the Israelites, and their descendants (i.e. us) to remember this moment every day. We are to remember that God did this for us, but more importantly, we are to remember that it is possible. We are simultaneously navigating our narrow-places of constriction and stepping into the unknown every day, in small and not-so-small ways. Even when our lives feel grounded in routine, the realities of existence are such that we can never really know what exactly will happen next, what might befall us.
Shabbat Shira reminds us that moments of liberation are everywhere, and that while they may be frightening, or painful, or awe-inducing, they are also cause for celebration.
– Rabbi Callie Schulman