Rabbi David Fohrman: Hey Imu, thank you very much for hanging out with me. I wanted to get a chance to learn with you today and I appreciate you…I appreciate you…

Imu Shalev: I appreciate you, too.

Rabbi Fohrman: I appreciate you. Imu, you're appreciated. Thanks for being here.

Imu: That’s so great.

Welcome everyone to a brand new season of A Book Like No Other. As always, that was me, your humble narrator, Imu Shalev, and my teacher and friend Rabbi David Fohrman, settling in to begin our learning together. And our learning for this season, as it turned out, was a deep dive into a text that many of you may be familiar with: Shir Hama’alos. 

Shir Hama’alos is Psalm 126, and it's fairly well known as it is sung in many homes, including my home, right before benching on festive occasions like Shabbos and holidays. But as is often the case when studying Torah, texts that are well known to us may not be as well understood as we might have previously thought.

Take a close look at Shir Hama’alos, and you'll notice it's full of repetition and some really strange imagery. How do we make sense of so much going on in just six short verses? That's what we'll be exploring over the course of this season by breaking down this perek of Tehillim, analyzing it, and seeing if it may have any textual parallels to other places in Tanach. 

But before we dive in, I want to acknowledge something important. The psalm opens up with the words בְּשׁוּב יְקוָה אֶת־שִׁיבַת צִיּוֹן — When God returns the captives of Zion (Psalms 126:1). Those words along with the rest of the psalm, they struck me and they may have hit a chord for you as well. This perek clearly deals with the captives of Zion and the hope and the joy of their return.

We are living in a time where there are currently numerous captives of Zion, hostages whose return we are still fighting and praying for. Now, that's something we're not going to address overtly in this season, but you can be sure that it was very much in our minds and in our hearts as we were recording.

As such, we dedicate this season to those hostages; the ones who were murdered in captivity, the ones who we are still fighting and praying for, and the ones who God has so graciously and miraculously returned home.  May God bring all of our captives home, and may we see the joy of the complete return of all of Israel to Zion. 

With that in mind, let's return to the text of the psalm Shir Hama’alos and see what worlds of insight lie waiting for us just beneath the surface.

From Aleph Beta, this is A Book Like No Other, generously sponsored by Shari and Nathan Lindenbaum.

Rabbi Fohrman: So I thought maybe the first thing we would do is something that a teacher of mine, Rabbi Yosef Leibowitz, taught me to do whenever looking at a psalm. And he said, the first thing you do is you try to break it into parts.

My feeling here is that the psalm has two natural parts. What I'd like to do is actually just read through it in English and Hebrew, kind of get ourselves familiar with the psalm. But as you listen to the words, ask yourself where you would break the psalm in two. Okay, great, let's read it through. 

Imu: Okay. שִׁיר הַמַּעֲלוֹת — A song of ascents. בְּשׁוּב יְקוָה אֶת־שִׁיבַת צִיּוֹן הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים — When God brought back the returnings of Zion.

Rabbi Fohrman: Returnees of Zion.

Imu: Returnees, שִׁיבַת צִיּוֹן. We were as dreamers. This felt like a dream when God brought back the captives. אָז יִמָּלֵא שְׂחוֹק פִּינוּ — Then our mouths were filled with laughter, וּלְשׁוֹנֵנוּ רִנָּה — and our tongues with song. אָז — Then, יֹאמְרוּ בַגּוֹיִם — it will be said among the nations, הִגְדִּיל יְקוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִם־אֵלֶּה — God did great things with these people. הִגְדִּיל יְקוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִמָּנוּ, so it seems like the psalm is saying — Indeed, God has done great things with us. הָיִינוּ שְׂמֵחִים — We were really happy, we were really joyful. שׁוּבָה יְקוָה אֶת שְׁבִיתֵנוּ — God should return our captives, כַּאֲפִיקִים בַּנֶּגֶב — like streams in the dry land.

Rabbi Fohrman: Like flash floods in the Negev desert, these really huge outpourings of water that seem to come out of nowhere.

Imu: Right. It sounds like it's saying that it should be so fast and so unexpected, it would be like the אֲפִיקִים בַּנֶּגֶב.

הַזֹּרְעִים בְּדִמְעָה בְּרִנָּה יִקְצֹרוּ — Those who plant in tears, in joy shall they reap. הָלוֹךְ יֵלֵךְ  וּבָכֹה — He who goes in crying and in sadness, נֹשֵׂא מֶשֶׁךְ־הַזָּרַע — carrying the measure of seed, בֹּא־יָבֹא בְרִנָּה — he should come back this time with joy, נֹשֵׂא אֲלֻמֹּתָיו — the carrier of sheaves.

So in the beginning of the process, you're sad and it's seeds. And by the end, you're joyful and you have the fruits of those seeds.

Rabbi Fohrman: So Imu, where would you break the psalm in two? Where would you break it in two, and what do you think the two parts are? What would be the best title for each part?

Imu: Yeah, so my first thought would probably be to break it evenly, three verses and three verses both. The first three and the second three begin with the idea of שִׁיבַת, of returning to Zion. In the beginning, it seems like there’s this dream. Like, here's what's going to happen when God returns the captives. And then verse four seems like a prayer, “I would really hope for this to happen, for God to please return the captives.” That would, I guess, be my first instinct on a split.

Rabbi Fohrman: And I would agree with you. It's almost like the Psalmist gives it away for you by creating this headline at the beginning of each, which is almost exactly the same words, שׁוּבָה יְקוָה אֶת שְׁבִיתֵנוּ, right? Same thing, it's just a little bit of a difference.

And the first time around, it's: בְּשׁוּב יְקוָה אֶת־שִׁיבַת צִיּוֹן — When God returns the captive of Zion, this is how it's going to be. It's going to be like we were His dreamers. And so there's this description in the first three verses of the way things are going to be when this thing happens, and it's almost like a prophecy. 

But then the second three verses go back and reprise those words, but say it a little bit differently instead of “This is how it's going to be.” שׁוּבָה יְקוָה אֶת שְׁבִיתֵנוּ — God, could You please actually make this happen? That's a prayer. Could you please do this thing quickly?

So the first three verses are a description, and the second three verses are a prayer for that description to actually happen.

Imu: So I think verse four is a prayer. Verse five and six don't feel like prayers to me. I would say verses one, two, three are a vision for the future, and verses four, five, six are like, now that we're not in that future, verse four is a prayer. Verse five and six are comfort to those who are expecting that future. Those who are sad end up in a place where there's joy and fulfillment.

You could still think you've got two parts. It's just that the parts would be about the future, and then four, five, six is the present.

Rabbi Fohrman: I see. So the present is, “Could You please make this happen in the future? Hey, in the present, things aren't that great. We are planting in tears.” Don't worry about it. Things are eventually going to be good. Uh-huh, I like that.

Imu: Okay, so we had our two parts, our two halves of the psalm: One half that's kind of a prophecy of the future and one half that's an expression of longing for that future.

With that in mind, Rabbi Fohrman wanted to zoom in specifically on the first half of the perek and examine some of the oddities in the text there. He suspected that that would set us up on a path to really understand what's happening under the surface of the first part of Shir Hama’alos.

Rabbi Fohrman: So there's two parts to the psalm, and the two parts kind of play off each other. But Imu, notice that that sort of playing off of each other happens in the first part of the psalm, too. There's a couple other parts that sound similar. One of the other parts in the first part of the psalm where you're not even sure what you're up to. Is it this version of it? Is it that version of it? Where else do you get that?

Imu: In verse two, there's a הִגְדִּיל יְקוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִם־אֵלֶּה, right? God has done greatly with these. And then we just repeat the exact same phrase right after, another הִגְדִּיל יְקוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִמָּנוּ, right?

Rabbi Fohrman: Right. And why are we talking about אָז יֹאמְרוּ בַגּוֹיִם — Then the gentiles will say, הִגְדִּיל יְקוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִם־אֵלֶּה — Look how great it is that God did this with them? And then we go and say הִגְדִּיל יְקוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִמָּנוּ — God did this great thing with us. Like, if you're going to say God did this great thing with us, if the Israelites are the first-person narrator here, so let it just be the first-person. Why are we concerned with the Gentiles saying the same thing? 

And that's confusing, frankly. I mean, we sing this, and if you're not paying close attention, you can get muddled with which one you're up to, say the wrong one, think maybe you should start all over again.

It happens also with the הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים piece. When God will return our captives, הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים — we will be His dreamers. But that's not the only time you have a הָיִינוּ. Where else do you get another הָיִינוּ?

Imu: So there's הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים and הָיִינוּ שְׂמֵחִים.

Rabbi Fohrman: Right, same thing. You have הָיִינוּ שְׂמֵחִים. You're thinking, is it הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים? Is it הָיִינוּ שְׂמֵחִים? I'm not sure. Maybe we should go back to the beginning. How do we understand all this repetition, all these playing off of each other? And it strikes me that there's a method to that madness, and I wanted to share with you a theory about that.

So what I want to suggest is that the first part of the psalm actually has a story. And one of the virtues of creating a story out of something is that you take a whole bunch of things and you make it one thing, right? People can remember stories because it's a story.

So here, too, I want to suggest that if you think about the first part of this psalm, it looks like there are a whole bunch of things going on. It looks like there are five things going on, but I want to suggest that they're one thing because they're all connected and there's a story. Let's first look at what those five things are without the story and just see how random they are.

Thing Number One: בְּשׁוּב יְקוָה אֶת־שִׁיבַת צִיּוֹן הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים — When God returns the captives of Zion, we were like dreamers. That's Thing Number One.

Thing Number Two: אָז יִמָּלֵא שְׂחוֹק פִּינוּ וּלְשׁוֹנֵנוּ רִנָּה — We were really happy. We were laughing. Our mouths were filled with song.

Thing Number Three: אָז יֹאמְרוּ בַגּוֹיִם הִגְדִּיל יְקוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִם־אֵלֶּה — Then the nations will say, “How great is God that he's done this with them.” That's Thing Number Three.

Thing Number Four is, we will say: הִגְדִּיל יְקוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִמָּנוּ — How great is God that he's done this with us.

And Thing Number Five is: הָיִינוּ שְׂמֵחִים — We were happy.

And so the question is, how do those things tie together? And the answer is, they’re an unfolding story. One kind of leads to the other. And like with any story, any good story has two elements to it.

I go back to that great Aaron Sorkin line, which is that every story has got to have an intention and an obstacle. Any story that you have has got to have two things. It's got to have something that a protagonist wants really badly, and it's got to have some sort of obstacle that's standing in the way. Then you've got a story. If you don't have that, no matter how interesting things seem to be, you don't really have a story.

So here, the question is, if this is a story about שִׁיבַת צִיּוֹן, about the way God will redeem our captives, what is the intention and what's the obstacle?

Imu: My first instinct without reading the verses carefully would be, the intention is we want our captives home. We want to return to Zion.

Rabbi Fohrman: So you would think, right? Like, you would tell me, if we're going to talk about returning our captives, then the most important thing I want is my captives home. Except we're talking about a case where that has happened already, right? The setting for the story is the return of the captives of Zion. So we're not telling a story about whether they will return or not. We're telling a story of what happens when they return. So that's not the intention anymore. The intention is, we want something when they return.

Imu: Right. So if I'm going to be a careful text-reader, I will jump to the end to look for the intention. And at the end of verse three, they have joy; הָיִינוּ שְׂמֵחִים — We're happy. So is it possible that we're dealing with a people who are depressed or deeply saddened and they can't feel joy?

Rabbi Fohrman: The same way, Imu, that you looked to the text to tell you what the intention is, look to the text to tell me what the obstacle is. If the intention is we want to be happy about it, what would stand in the way of being happy? I mean, this is the happiest thing in the world. What's standing in the way?

Imu: So we could cut the verses short, right? If I were the editor, I could be like, “God returned the captives, we're happy.” But that's actually not what you get. What you get is הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים. It didn't feel real. When God returns the captives, it feels like a dream because we're so, I would imagine, so steeped in sadness and the expectation that our reality is grim; that when something good happens, I don't even believe it. My reality, goodness, feels like a dream, and badness feels like life.

Rabbi Fohrman: Exactly. So therefore, you just met the obstacle. What is the obstacle to feeling happy?

Imu: Not trusting that good happens in the world?

Rabbi Fohrman: Well, now you're getting philosophical. In the words of the text, what does the text tell you the obstacle is?

Imu: They're in a daze.

Rabbi Fohrman: The obstacle is I'm in a daze. How do I get happy if I'm in a daze? That is the story of the first part of the song. Intention, obstacle. I'm dying to be happy. I don't know how to be happy, because it doesn't even feel real. I'm so dazed. How do I get out of the daze? How do I make this even feel real?

And now you can get more philosophical. Why are you in a daze? Because reality has been so depressing, I didn't even see how things could change. It's so out of my experience that when it happens in a flash, I'm utterly unprepared. It's like, what do I even do? I can't assimilate this reality.

And what's the danger, by the way, if I can never get to הָיִינוּ שְׂמֵחִים, if I remain in הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים land? 

Imu: Then I'll be depressed no matter what happens. I'll just be trapped in sadness.

Rabbi Fohrman: Yeah, it's the worst. Imagine the best thing has happened to you, and it just skips off of your consciousness because you just can't even accept it, right? How do I assimilate this new reality? So in an emotional way, if I'm stuck in הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים land, I was like dreamers. The challenge is, is there a journey from הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים to הָיִינוּ שְׂמֵחִים. 

And now you see why הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים/הָיִינוּ שְׂמֵחִים sounds so similar. It's supposed to trip you up. It's supposed to be that when you sing this, you're not sure which one you're in. The whole point is, how do I get from this phase to another phase? How do I turn that switch to journey from הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים to הָיִינוּ שְׂמֵחִים, “We were like dreamers” to “We were actually happy.” I can't be happy. I can't have any emotion if I'm in a dream.

Imu: It's funny, it reminds me actually of that first week of leaving Egypt. Until they get to the splitting of the sea, you don't hear them singing or that joyful in that first week. And then only after the sea, וּלְשׁוֹנֵנוּ רִנָּה, did they actually sing a song. But even after that, in the story of Mara, they're bitter. There is this idea of just because something good happens to you doesn't mean that you automatically switch your mood and your attitude. Actually, it can feel like a dream. It can feel like maybe it didn't really happen.

I think one of the things that we often struggle with when trying to understand the people of the desert is like, “Hey, you were saved. Let's move on.” And they don't appear to be able to move on, right? They're very wary of their new reality, whether they can trust it. And even after Az Yashir, after they sing their song, they get to Mara and they experience this bitterness. You have the juxtaposition of initial joy, but also “Can I really trust this?” I think that that's what it's reminding me of. 

Rabbi Fohrman: Yeah, that's fascinating. I hadn't really thought about it in terms of that, but in a way you're right. The very first “return to Zion,” we might say, at least on the national level, was the Exodus from Egypt when everyone was going to the Land of Israel. And what you're arguing is, maybe that was a version of הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים, that the malady that struck people there was that they just couldn't assimilate the reality of what was happening to them. Amazing things were happening to them, but how do you take that in?

Imu: So by bringing up the Exodus story, I've taken us on a little bit of a tangent, but one that both of us thought was relevant and resonant. You see, the first half of Shir Hama’alos seemed to be dealing with a problem. The captives were redeemed but were too much in a daze to experience the joy of that redemption.

And when thinking about the Israelites coming out of Egypt, they seem to be dealing with this same problem. They too had been redeemed but seemed to be stuck in a daze that kept them from coming to a place of joy. It was powerful to see the resonances in what seemed to be parallel situations, especially so many generations apart.

But returning to Shir Hama’alos, if the obstacle was that they were in a daze and that was keeping them from the intention of reaching a state of joy, how do you actually get past that obstacle?

That was the question that we were left with, and Rabbi Fohrman was suggesting that the answer was this five part story in the first half of the psalm. So we turned back to that story to see how it would unfold.

Rabbi Fohrman: Okay, so we've identified the intention and the obstacle in the story. So having identified the intention and obstacle, let's tell the story. How do you get to the resolution of הָיִינוּ שְׂמֵחִים from your starting position, הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים? So let's read through the story. Let's read through the five stages.

Stage One, the problem. We were like dreamers. We were in a daze. It just didn't even feel real.

Stage Two is אָז יִמָּלֵא שְׂחוֹק פִּינוּ וּלְשׁוֹנֵנוּ רִנָּה. In a dream, what part of your mind is active and what part of your mind is passive? The subconscious mind gets to play, right? 

Imu: Yes. 

Rabbi Fohrman: And what's the hallmark of a dream? Like, when you start telling a dream over during the day, what's the hallmark?

Imu: Absurdity.

Rabbi Fohrman: Absurdity. Dreams are always absurd, always something really weird that just doesn't make sense happens and you're always embarrassed about it.

Imu: Yeah, you know, “Oh, we were at your house, but also it was Costa Rica.”

Rabbi Fohrman: Exactly. It never makes any sense. Why? Because your mind has two basic aspects to it, right? Your subconscious mind, your conscious mind. So the hallmark of your conscious mind is, everything makes sense, and during the day your conscious mind gets to be in charge and everything makes sense and everything is ordered and that's the way you live your life.

But your subconscious mind doesn't care about things making sense. The subconscious mind is not really concerned with all those things. Absurdity is the mark of the subconscious mind.

So here you have this notion that if I'm dreaming, the one thing that I can't do is cognize what's going on, the real problem I have in being happy. Happiness would flow through if I could actually wrap my mind around what was happening. If I could get it logically, then I could have an emotion which flows from that.

The problem is my mind can't wrap itself around it, at least my conscious mind can't, and therefore I can't speak about it. Words are the tools of the conscious mind. It's how we take things and make sense of them. I make sense of the world through my ability to talk about it, to create subjects and verbs and objects and syntax, and that's the one thing that I absolutely can't do if I'm entirely overwhelmed. That's why I feel like I'm in a dream. I'm literally speechless.

But if you cannot talk, there's still things you can do with your mouth if your conscious logical part of your mind is not yet working. What else can you do with your mouth that can express things if you can't talk words?

Imu: You can laugh and you can sing. 

Rabbi Fohrman: And you can cry. You can laugh, sing, and cry, and this psalm is about all three of those things. And here, in this verse, we get laughter and singing. I may not be able to understand yet logically, but that subconscious part of my mind will still let me laugh. It will still let me sing. There's something about that which just goes beyond the very logical kind of thing that I use words for. I can laugh, I can sing, and that's the first way that I'll express this overwhelming feeling which is sweeping over me and that I feel swept away with. That's Stage Two.

Imu: It’s lovely, first of all, the idea that there are three things that you can do with your mouth that are different than speaking, that are an expression of how you feel that isn't just a description of how you feel. But I also see something in these verses that supports your idea that they're in a dreamlike state, that they were as dreamers. It doesn't really say that they were laughing and singing. It says אָז יִמָּלֵא שְׂחוֹק פִּינוּ, which is that laughter would be filled in our mouths and song would fill our tongues. And that's not active. That's not like “to laugh,” but it's almost like the unconscious filled our mouths with laughter.

Rabbi Fohrman: That's interesting, that’s really cool. If you think about the paralysis that hits the body in a dream, your sense of laughing in a dream would be like that. If I'm laughing in the dream, the feeling would be that I can't actually laugh the way I would usually laugh, which is an active thing. My mouth is paralyzed, but somehow there's this laughter that's filling my mouth. That's what it would feel like if I am dream-laughing, if I am dream-singing.

So you're right, maybe it's a description of still being in a dream, but in the dream, I'm dream-singing. In the dream, I'm dream-laughing. And how do I break out of the dream?

But the first stage is, at least in the dream I'm laughing. At least in the dream I'm singing. Fascinating.

Imu: I'm also struck now by something you taught in a course that predates Aleph Beta around the very nature of laughter, which is that all good jokes or all laughter sort of emerges from either absurdity or the confluence of opposites. So if there's a guy who slips on a banana peel, he's standing up straight, he's vertical, and then he goes horizontal. There's something funny about that. And it's even funnier if that guy is particularly proud, if he's an arrogant person. It's even funnier that that guy is the one who slips because there's this juxtaposition of opposites.

Rabbi Fohrman: What you're suggesting, I think, is that the nature of laughter is that it is a response to absurdity. So if a dream is by nature absurd, the first step in coming to grips with that is, okay, I guess I could laugh about it. Laughter is something which we do with the absurd. I can still be in the dream and all of the absurdity of the dream, and I can dream-laugh about it. 

And then maybe Stage Two is, having dream-laughed about it, maybe I can even dream-sing about it. Maybe singing is a step away from the absurdity of laughter into another kind of expression.

Imu: Yeah, I think so, too. And it reminds me of someone who laughed at good news, right? It reminds me actually of Sarah. Here's a person who spent her life in sadness that she couldn't bear a child, and when she overheard that she was going to bear a child, she laughed. And it sort of makes sense because was she ready to just process the fact that like, “Oh, everything's going to be great and you're going to be a mom now,” all of a sudden? She's processing her emotions, and so she laughs. 

Rabbi Fohrman: That's very beautiful. By the way, even for Sarah, if you go back to that verse where Sarah laughs, she names the child “Laughter” because of that. So that would be in Genesis 21, verse 3: וַיִּקְרָא אַבְרָהָם אֶת־שֶׁם־בְּנוֹ הַנּוֹלַד־לוֹ אֲשֶׁר־יָלְדָה־לּוֹ שָׂרָה יִצְחָק — Abraham calls that child “Laughter” after the laughter that Sarah experienced when hearing about this. It sounded so absurd. 

And then, if you look at Sarah's response: וַתֹּאמֶר שָׂרָה — Sarah says, צְחֹק עָשָׂה לִי אֱלֹקים — God has made a laughter for me (Genesis 21:6). “This is just absurd.”

And look at the very next verse. The very next verse is, all of a sudden, she breaks into poetry: וַתֹּאמֶר מִי מִלֵּל לְאַבְרָהָם הֵינִיקָה בָנִים שָׂרָה כִּי־יָלַדְתִּי בֵן לִזְקֻנָיו. It's actually a little ditty. She's actually reverting to song. She's making up a little song, right? מִי מִלֵּל לְאַבְרָהָם — Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would ultimately nurse children for him, that I have given a child to him in his old age?

It's poetry all of a sudden, because the only way she can express herself is something that goes beyond the cognitive. Let me make a little song about this. So I think you're right about that, that sort of transition from laughter into song is the way that we begin to make things real.

So let's go back to our unfolding story and see if we can tell the rest of it. We start, we're like dreamers. And then in the dream, I love that notion that we're not even laughing but our mouths were passively filled with laughter as if we're still paralyzed, still within the dream world.

We're dream-laughing, we're dream-singing. We're trying to break out of the dream and then something happens that shatters the dream. Something gets through cognitively. Suddenly, there are words. הִגְדִּיל יְקוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִם־אֵלֶּה, somebody's talking. אָז יֹאמְרוּ בַגּוֹיִם, it's not us. How come all of a sudden we can cognize it?

Imu: It's not us. They're cognizing.

Rabbi Fohrman: Exactly, they're cognizing it. The nations around us looking on, they can get it.

Imu: They can see it before we can.

Rabbi Fohrman: They can see before we can. They can understand it before we can. So they get it. They're like, “Oh my gosh, this is pretty significant. We can analyze this. You know what this is about? הִגְדִּיל יְקוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִם־אֵלֶּה. Look at how amazing God is that He's done this with these guys.” That is cognitive, but we're not the people who say it. They can say it because they're not experiencing it.

But the reason why we care is because we hear it. And when we hear it, look what we say. Almost exactly the same thing. Why do we say almost exactly the same thing?

Imu: We didn't get it beforehand.

Rabbi Fohrman: We didn't get it beforehand. We heard what they were saying, and having heard what they were saying, they gave us the words. We took their words. It's like, oh, really? That's what's happening? I guess that's what's happening. הִגְדִּיל יְקוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִם־אֵלֶּה, you're right. הִגְדִּיל יְקוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִמָּנוּ, it is amazing what God has done to us! And suddenly we've got it in our brains. We've got it in our minds. And now that we've got it and we've wrapped our cognitive mind about it, our conscious mind, הָיִינוּ שְׂמֵחִים. We're no longer הָיִינוּ כְּחֹלְמִים, in a dream. Now we're actually happy in the real world.

Imu: This is really beautiful. Look at this story that you slowed down and shared here. This is incredible. It reminds me of this show that I'm watching, it's called Couples Therapy. And what's fascinating to me is, this therapist is often going to childhood trauma. She wants to know what happened to you in your life, and they tell these terrible stories, you know, parents who did terrible things. And often the person relaying these stories doesn't really know that what happened to them as a kid was terrible. And the therapist needs to say, “Wow, that sounds really terrible.”

And what I noticed is that the people are often saying, “Oh, it was? It was terrible?” They didn't know, almost. They didn't really get it until they hear someone on the outside saying what it means to them.

And so that's what I'm hearing here, but counterintuitively, actually about something good. Here is a people who've been through trauma who are now being redeemed, and they can't be happy immediately. It's sort of shocking.

Rabbi Fohrman: It is.

Imu: So we'd explored the five stages laid out in the story of the first half of Shir Hama’alos, of getting from the dreamlike days to laughter and song, then to cognition of the outsider, moving to personal cognition, and finally to a state of joy. And by tracking this story in the first part of the perek, we saw that this joyous prophecy of redemption is addressing something pretty deep.

It's acknowledging the struggle of residual trauma even after a crisis has passed, and that happiness isn't a given or an immediate reaction, but a process. And it also highlighted the importance of the role of reaching a stage of cognition to finally achieving a state of real joy. 

Now, if you remember earlier on, I'd suggested that Israel during the Exodus was actually going through a similar process as the one being laid out in the first half of Shir Hama’alos. They, too, had been traumatized during their stay in Egypt, and it had seemed to me that they were struggling with processing that residual trauma in the desert even after God had redeemed them.

This idea had stuck with Rabbi Fohrman and it raised a question for him. If Israel indeed was in a daze when they left Egypt, if they really needed to process that residual trauma to get to a state of joy, did they ever achieve that? And if they did, did they go through the five stages laid out in Psalms to do it? Would we be able to see that process actually play out in the Book of Exodus?

So on the spot, Rabbi Fohrman invited me to jump over to Exodus and find out.

Rabbi Fohrman: I want to go back to this thing that you kind of extemporaneously put in here and explore it for a minute with you, which is this notion that maybe our first national experience of this was the Exile from Egypt and the return to Zion. Let's try to read through the five stages and see, do they actually apply to the Exodus? Would you go through that with me? Let's see if we can do that. 

So when we left Egypt after that tenth plague and we were marching forth, you'd assume that that was the most joyous moment in the world, right? But it wasn't yet. They were like in a dream state. They were shocked. They were numb. So what, then, would וּלְשׁוֹנֵנוּ רִנָּה refer to? Maybe we don't have an example of שְׂחוֹק פִּינוּ. I'm not sure if we do, but we certainly do of וּלְשׁוֹנֵנוּ רִנָּה, right?

Imu: Can I make a suggestion on שְׂחוֹק פִּינוּ that’s maybe, like, wild? I wonder, something did fill their mouths on those days when they left Egypt. Why are you smiling? Do you know what I'm talking about?

Rabbi Fohrman: You're thinking of matzah.

Imu: I am thinking of matzah, because there was a joke that was played with the matzah, right?

Rabbi Fohrman: That is hilarious, actually, now that you think about it. Back in the Haggadah, what do we say about matzah? Lechem oni, we ate it as slaves. And here we are being redeemed, and you'd think we'd finally get a decent piece of sourdough. But all we got is this lousy matzah, but for a great reason, it's hilarious. Like, the reason why we're eating flatbread now is not because we're working so hard we don't have time to let our dough rise. It's because God redeemed us so quickly, we don't have time to let our dough rise.

Imu: The symbol of oppression now becomes the symbol of escape or the symbol of freedom.

Rabbi Fohrman: Isn't that funny? So in a way, matzah might be God's joke. “Hey guys, it's matzah again, but for an entirely different reason.” It's hilarious. It's absurd. The matzah is absurd, and our mouths were full of it.

Imu: Right. 

Rabbi Fohrman: Which, by the way, happens before we sing. Because where did they eat matzah, according to the text? It's before the Song Of The Sea.

Imu: The whole seven days. There's a seven-day festival of eating matzah which culminates at the Song Of The Sea.

Rabbi Fohrman: Yes. They leave in the middle of the night and they're in a dreamlike state. They eat the matzah and the dreamlike state. And then, what could be more dreamlike than the absurdity of a sea splitting with walls of water and walking through? It's Crazy Town. It's the ultimate dream. That doesn't happen in the real world. Is this a dream?

So what do they do?

Imu: They sing.

Rabbi Fohrman: וּלְשׁוֹנֵנוּ רִנָּה, they sing. So they got this poetry. Now, if that's the song, is there an אָז יֹאמְרוּ בַגּוֹיִם הִגְדִּיל יְקוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִם־אֵלֶּה? So let's actually look back to the song and see if we can find that. The song is in Exodus, what is it, 15-ish? Okay, can you find that in the song?

So what's interesting is, the song breaks into two parts. The first part of the song talks about the actual victory of the sea. The second part of the song talks about the reaction of the victory of the sea, the reaction of the nations. But if you look carefully, at least to my eye…

Imu: You don't get their words.

Rabbi Fohrman: Well, you don’t get their words. If anything, they're speechless. You know why? Because look what's happening. It's sort of happening to them, right?

In other words, when the redemption of the captives of Zion happens, something amazing happens to Israel, but nothing's really happening to the nations. So the nations are objective third-person observers and they can cognize what's happening. Not so at the Song Of The Sea.

Song Of The Sea, something great happened to Israel but something cataclysmic happened to the leading nation of the world which changes everything for the nations of the world. Because if God is going to come down and is going to assert His power in the world, then everything is different. And how does that manifest itself for the nations? The nations do respond, but interestingly, they are dumbstruck. Look at the first thing we hear about the nations.

Imu: So it’s [verse] 14: שָׁמְעוּ עַמִּים יִרְגָּזוּן — The nations hear and they tremble, חִיל אָחַז יֹשְׁבֵי פְּלָשֶׁת. These trembling pangs.

Rabbi Fohrman: Trembling hits them.

Imu: אָחַז, it’s taken hold of them. This isn't something they're choosing to do. The unconscious now is choosing for them that they tremble.

Rabbi Fohrman: They're in a dream. They're panicking, they're trembling. And by the way, if you've ever trembled in fear, don't you actually have that feeling like you're paralyzed and what's happening to you is not of your own volition? Like you are being made to tremble? That's what it feels like. Keep on reading the next verse, verse 15.

Imu: אָז נִבְהֲלוּ אַלּוּפֵי אֱדוֹם — The chieftains of Edom become terribly scared.

Rabbi Fohrman: Right? נִבְהֲל is, by the way, an interesting word. Do you know where the word נִבְהֲל appears elsewhere? Where else do we have נִבְהֲל?

Imu: Yosef's brothers.

Rabbi Fohrman: Yes, Yosef's brothers. When were they נִבְהֲל, so discombobulated that they couldn't?

Imu: Yeah, it's almost like their blood drains. I think it's when they discover Benjamin's cup. Is that what it is? Or…?

Rabbi Fohrman: Later. It's when Joseph reveals—

Imu: Okay, I know. It's basically this revelation which should be a laughter moment because it's so shocking, but really not a time to laugh.

Rabbi Fohrman: It's so shocking that they're speechless, right? How's it go?  לֹא־יָכְלוּ אֶחָיו לַעֲנוֹת אֹתוֹ כִּי נִבְהֲלוּ מִפָּנָיו (Genesis 40:3). Literally the same language. They were trembling, their mouths were agape, they couldn't say anything. So the same thing is happening now to אַלּוּפֵי אֱדוֹם. All of these other nations are looking and they just can't even talk.

Imu: That you knew where that was, that נִבְהֲלוּ at the tip of your tongue. Like, “Oh, that's just like when they…”

Rabbi Fohrman: You'll see there's a reason why I knew it.

 אָז נִבְהֲלוּ אַלּוּפֵי אֱדוֹם. You were saying before, what does the אָז remind you of?

Imu: Az Yashir.

Rabbi Fohrman: We sing, so that's what we do because we can't talk about it, but somebody else can't talk about it. They're just speechless. And that's these Gentiles, because their whole world is turned topsy-turvy. So notice that through the whole second part of this song, we're talking about what's happening to the Gentiles, but it's not what's happening in our story of the psalm. There is no אָז יֹאמְרוּ בַגּוֹיִם הִגְדִּיל יְקוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִם־אֵלֶּה. Instead, everyone in the Gentile world is discombobulated.

Now, if you think about that, this never changes, right? Keep on reading. תִּפֹּל עֲלֵיהֶם אֵימָתָה וָפַחַד בִּגְדֹל זְרוֹעֲךָ יִדְּמוּ כָּאָבֶן, right? This terrible fear falls upon them, and the fear might be helpful because…

Imu: Well even there, by the way, there's the word gadol. It’s supposed to be הִגְדִּיל יְקוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִמָּנוּ, but here it’s…

Rabbi Fohrman: You're right, it does seem to be a play of הִגְדִּיל יְקוָה. Instead of הִגְדִּיל יְקוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִם־אֵלֶּה, Gentiles calmly looking at the situation saying, “Wow, that was very profound of God and wonderful of God to do this thing,” they are literally trembling.

תִּפֹּל עֲלֵיהֶם אֵימָתָה וָפַחַד. Aimah is a deeper kind of fear than פַחַד. It's a paralysis fear, בִּגְדֹל זְרוֹעֲךָ — in the greatness of Your power. יִדְּמוּ כָּאָבֶן — They are literally paralyzed like stone. עַד־יַעֲבֹר עַמְּךָ יְקוָה — Until we pass into the land, and the passing through the water will create such fear among the nations of Canaan that we'll be able to pass through the Jordan and pass into the land. 

So it works for us in a way, this fear of the nations, because it sets up our ability to conquer Israel. But one could argue, maybe it doesn't completely work for us because you don't have the full expression of Psalm 126. You need the goyim to actually be able to cognize it, to not be dumbstruck, so that you cannot be dumbstruck. And that never happens.

Imu: Wow, really. Because the penultimate thing in Shir Hama’alos before we become truly happy is that the nations are able to say הִגְדִּיל יְקוָה לַעֲשׂוֹת עִם־אֵלֶּה.

Rabbi Fohrman: That's right. And if they can't say that, where does that leave us as we leave Shirat HaYam (Song Of The Sea)?

Imu: Always questioning it. Wow.

Rabbi Fohrman: Always questioning. And what happens next?

Imu: That's when they get to Mara. Right after they sang, they regress.

Rabbi Fohrman: Listen to the whole Mara podcast? The whole thesis of that is that God gave them fresh water, but they couldn't even deal with it because of their memories and their trauma. It just felt like the bitterness of Egypt all over again, and we don't feel we can even drink it. It's almost as if they took fresh water and saw it as bitter water. And somehow, they impute bitterness almost everywhere.

God keeps on giving them things. God gives them manna. They can't even deal with that. Three simple laws. It's like, “No, no, no.” And God keeps on trying to just sort of tease them into this idea that, hey, it's going to be okay. Hey, it's going to be okay. And somehow they never quite get to הָיִינוּ שְׂמֵחִים.

And if you think about the cataclysms in the desert, I wonder if that's part of the reason why.

Imu: I have to say, I found our exploration into the Exodus story fascinating. It brought out for me that regardless of whether the Psalmist actually had the Exodus story in mind when he wrote Shir Hama’alos, it still resonated through the Exodus story because it was dealing with something that's true of human nature. He's dealing with how we process trauma, and the Exodus stories seem to beautifully reflect the Israelites’ attempt to process their trauma and come to a place of joy, as well as the consequences of perhaps not having processed it fully and not in the way set out by Shir Hama’alos.

Ultimately, what Rabbi Fohrman shared with me today isn't as much about intertextuality as it is about the nature of human psychology, and that makes this perek of Tehillim mean so much more to me. Partially because it helps us get in touch with our own human psychology, and partially because it's seemingly telling us a spiritual reality.

What a beautiful way to end this season…except we're not done with the season! Not by a long shot. We've only seen half of the psalm. What did Rabbi Fohrman have up his sleeve for the second half of Shir Hama’alos?

Well, I'm going to give you a little tease. You know how the psalm opens up with dreamers and it ends with sheaves of wheat? Dreamers, dreams and sheaves of wheat. Dreams and sheaves of wheat. Does that remind you of anything?

Well, I don't know about you, but it reminds me of Yosef the Dreamer and his infamous dream of the sheaves of wheat. Could there really be a connection between this psalm and the Yosef story? And what does that have to do with moving from a dreamlike daze to a state of joy? 

Join us next time to find out.