46 | SEPTEMBER 21 • 2023 

W

ith Haazinu we 
climb to one 
of the peaks of 
Jewish spirituality. For a 
month Moses had taught the 
people. He had 
told them their 
history and 
destiny, and the 
laws that would 
make theirs a 
unique society 
of people bound 
in covenant with 
one another and with God. He 
renewed the covenant and then 
handed the leadership on to his 
successor and disciple Joshua. 
His final act would be bless-
ing the people, tribe by tribe. 
But before that, there was one 
more thing he had to do. He 
had to sum up his prophetic 
message in a way the people 
would always remember and 
be inspired by. He knew that 
the best way of doing so is by 
music. So the last thing Moses 

did before giving the people 
his deathbed blessing was to 
teach them a song.
There is something pro-
foundly spiritual about music. 
When language aspires to the 
transcendent, and the soul 
longs to break free of the grav-
itational pull of the earth, it 
modulates into song. Jewish 
history is not so much read as 
sung. The rabbis enumerated 
10 songs at key moments in 
the life of the nation. There 
was the song of the Israelites 
in Egypt (Is. 30:29), the song 
at the Red Sea (Ex. 15), the 
song at the well (Num. 21), 
and Haazinu, Moses’ song at 
the end of his life. Joshua sang 
a song (Josh. 10:12-13). So did 
Deborah (Jud. 5), Hannah (1 
Sam. 2) and David (2 Sam. 22). 
There was the Song of 
Solomon, Shir ha-Shirim, 
about which Rabbi Akiva said, 
“
All songs are holy, but the 
Song of Songs is the holy of 

holies.” The 10th song has not 
yet been sung. It is the song of 
the Messiah.

THE POWER OF MUSIC 
Many biblical texts speak 
of the power of music to 
restore the soul. When Saul 
was depressed, David would 
play for him and his spirit 
would be restored (1 Sam. 16). 
David himself was known as 
the “sweet singer of Israel” (2 
Sam. 23:1). Elisha called for a 
harpist to play so that the pro-
phetic spirit could rest upon 
him (2 Kings 3:15). The Levites 
sang in the Temple. Every day, 
in Judaism, we preface our 
morning prayers with Pesukei 
de-Zimra, the “Verses of Song” 
with their magnificent cre-
scendo, Psalm 150, in which 
instruments and the human 
voice combine to sing God’s 
praises.
Mystics go further and 
speak of the song of the uni-

verse, what Pythagoras called 
“the music of the spheres”
. 
This is what Psalm 19 means 
when it says, “The heavens 
declare the glory of God; the 
skies proclaim the work of His 
hands … There is no speech, 
there are no words, where 
their voice is not heard. Their 
music carries throughout the 
earth, their words to the end 
of the world.” Beneath the 
silence, audible only to the 
inner ear, creation sings to its 
Creator.
So, when we pray, we do not 
read; we sing. When we engage 
with sacred texts, we do not 
recite; we chant. Every text and 
every time has, in Judaism, its 
own specific melody. There 
are different tunes for shacha-
rit, minchah and maariv, 
the morning, afternoon and 
evening prayers. There are 
different melodies and moods 
for the prayers for a weekday, 
Shabbat, the three pilgrimage 

Rabbi Lord 
Jonathan 
Sacks

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH

The Spirituality of Song

