Haazinu - Mozart, Radio Telescopes and the Song of Life

[Music] one of the greatest sages of the last Thousand Years the V who lived from 1720 to 1797 once requested that his closest talim his disciples gather around him for a special meeting in a dimly lit room the Von looked at his talo and he said I've called you all into today in honor of a very special occasion because today marks the day that I have completed learning all the wisdom in the entire world I would therefore like to make a celebration he ex he explained that after studying for decades the entirety of the Ty and gaining Mastery over all of it he decided to learn the wisdom of the world astronomy geometry chemistry zoology physiology psychology biology geology just to name a few he learned it all in one of the greatest intellectual Feats in all of human history he quite literally mastered everything there is to know and after absorbing all the knowledge his brain could consume the last subject that remained was the wisdom of music and although its world is immense and its secrets are in inaccessible to all but a few he managed to Plum its incredibly vast depth so much so that Legend has it that the V upon his Mastery of the wisdom of Music approached Wolf Gang Mozart and played him the eighth note on a musical scale a scale that Mozart thought previously contained only seven notes and this gave Mozart such a stir that he reeled back and fainted on the spot and so upon completing his learning of all the wisdom in the world he called upon his disciples into a room and made a see him so let's ask the obvious question did the Jewish people's greatest Sage have anything better to do with his time than explore the world of music and then show his findings to one of the greatest composers of all time why would the vill take out precious time from his life to explore such seemingly irrelevant and trivial things the answer is found in par Hau the paraa is a song It's a song about our past and a song about our future it's a beautifully musical moment right before Misha's death but if all it is is a song then why does the Torah tell us to sing it constantly what is it about this song that propels the Torah to write in that whenever evil befalls us we should sing this song and it will confront our enemies how does a song confront our enemies isn't it just a song the answer is no it's not just a song it's a declaration of our musical DNA it's a declaration there are two ways to live life there are those who live it and there are those who sing it there are those who despite the hardships and the pain despite the distraction and the noise hear The Sweet Sound of hashem's Music floating in the air people who live life engulfed in song people who allow their souls to burst forth and sing the song of Hashem the tah is referred to as a song Because song is the most Transcendent way of living the tah is not an intellectual subject that we learn and teach the tah is a song that we hum and we sing the partial lets us in on the secret of music music is a force on Earth that is very powerful Spiritual music is a force on Earth that is incalculably power powerful as rlam alabes he lived from 1504 to 1584 a great calist who lived in the 1500s a composer of he would say music allows the soul to to transcend this world and connect itself to the singing angels in heaven the vag did not delve into music to discover the latest trends he was searching for the secrets of music to help his soul soar to enable his heart to beat with the rhythm of the T song the Jewish religion places great emphasis on music we have special Tunes we use on chabas we have special Tunes we use on y we have songs we sing during we have songs we sing on rasher we have n we play when aad walks into a room and Melodies we use when we recite at the foot of a Brave we don't learn gamar we sing it we don't read the Tyra we chant it each and every word has its unique trup we don't walk down the road of life we dance it the music that permeates our religion isn't there merely to ensure that our religious duties don't become manness and stale the music we inject into our religion is the song of the toyra itself the toyra is life's song and it saturates everything we do like the animals who sing hashem's praises we also sing to using the tah as our musical notes it's no coincidence that the entire parous Hau consists of exactly 613 words for it reminds us that the Toyah is our song it is our Anthem it is what we have been singing to the rest of the world on our Journey Through Time precisely as we were about to enter the land of eritis to begin our lives a new did mosa give us the message that the Torah is a song for that's when we needed that message the most precisely when it begins to get difficult does the Tyra's musical Essence become most pronounced precisely when the world loses sight of its sanctity does our job as the singers of the Tyra song become all the more important precisely when we leave the desert's Cocoon of Holiness and our training wheels come off do we need to cut clutch close to the song that keeps us going each and every creature in this world every bug every fish every blade of grass sings the song of Hashem not one of them forgets the only creature that sometimes forgets to show up to the choir of life is man in the choir of the universe only man can be found sometimes not singing Jews are the human representation in the world's choir the Torah is infinitely more than a mere book containing wisdom it is the very song of humanity it is the heartbeat of the world and the composition of life itself we are its trusted singers and we will forever keep on singing you ever wonder how owls see perfectly in the dark how do owls see in the absolute pitch darkness in a forest or a desert where the closest light is 45 miles away what does it mean that they have eyes with night vision if there's no light then there's no light what do their Superior eyes do the answer is that even in the most intense Darkness there is in fact light and one with the proper eyes can see it the Jews for the duration of our history have been living in a world that's gone dark but with the tah as our night vision goggles we see the light in the darkness we hear the harmony amidst the cacophony we connect ourselves to the Purity amidst The Barrage of desecration this para from the moment we marched out of the Clouds Of Glory has been our reminder to Keep on singing no matter how many times we get expelled and are forced to move our precious Nation elsewhere not a nation that we've been to hasn't expelled us we were expelled from Carthage in the year 250 we remained singing this song When We Were expelled from Alexandri in 4:15 we had this song on our lips when we were expelled from Clement in 554 and from vizigo in 612 we had the song of Tyra beating in our hearts whether it was the exposion from Toledo in 653 or Italy in 855 or s in 876 or Mayans in 1012 or France in8 1181 or England in 1290 or Switzerland in 1344 and Germany in 1349 and Strasburg in 1388 Austria 1422 Zurich in 1424 cologne in 1426 Savory in 1432 wburg in 1454 Genoa in 1550 Kiev in 1619 Hamburg in 1649 Lithuania in 1656 Russia in 1727 wora 7755 Romania in 1866 bararia 1919 it made no difference wherein it made no difference when the Jew got expelled and he limped along singing this song for the Jew knows that this song is the song of life itself and the world would cease to exist without the Jews singing it the the high holy days is a time when we relearn our song It's a time when we realign ourselves and focus on yet again singing The Melodies of Hashem once a year we take time out of our Lives to reaffirm that the tune of hashem's T is the most powerful force in the universe and we are the lucky members of his choir in the year 1960 Bell Labs a very large telecommunications company built the largest radio transmitter in the world and installed it in the city of Hell New Jersey it was a satellite transmission system that they called Echo and Arnold penas and Robert Wilson the two directors of the project realized the massive power this invention had in its potential use as a radio telescope hearing sounds from distances no other machine could hear in the history of the world and with Worldwide excitement and anticipation they turned on the machine for the very first time and what they heard confused them because for some reason there was a background hum that they couldn't seem to get rid of first they thought the machine was broken so they reexamined every inch of it and they turned it back on and the hum was still there so then they thought the birds that were living in the general vicinity of the machine were interfering with the machine's transmitters so they cleared the area of birds but the hum remained so utterly confused and at a loss they began listening more carefully to the sound and what they realized shocked the world there was nothing wrong with the machine there were no birds interfering the sound that they heard was the very sound of the creation of the world thousands of years ago it was the penetrating blast of the world coming into existence and that sound still reverberated and echoed deep into the Galaxy this machine was the first that could pick it up for man to hear Jews have been hearing this sound from the day we were born this is the sound of our life it's the sound we Forever sing it's the drum beat of our nation the sound of creation is the song that propels us to do all that we do some might need technologically advanced radio telescopes to hear it feel it in every breath we take rman of breev would often say that there are three levels of song There are songs that have both words and a tune a higher level of song is one that has just a tune no words but the highest level of song the level where song is most acutely pronounced and the level at which our soul can best join along and sing with its Angelic Brothers in heaven is the song of sheer unadulterated silence for then and only then can one hear the song of the universe itself the song of Tyra the song of Life the song of us every challenge we overcome Every Blessing we make every ounce of repentance we do is another note making up this Holy song a song that is the undercurrent of humanity you ever wonder why at the great part party that AOS threw during the PM story there is not one mention of Music whatsoever the Milla mentions virtually every form of luxury basically in existence that was at that party and yet doesn't mention one word about music did the great aashish one of the greatest party throwers in the history of party throwers really throw a party without music so alz explains that music was banned at this historic party why because aash was petrified of it being that the party was largely a celebration of the Jews low state of spirituality a phoh feared that allowing music at the party would strike a cord in The Souls of the Jews present and Inspire them to grow spiritually he was afraid that music would remind their souls of the song of the Tyra that their souls should have been singing he was petrified of the Jews being reminded of the song of creation that we all tasked with humming it's no coincidence that sha that hainu is shabis shua for it's the perfect reminder of who we are and the musical responsibilities we have in singing a song in the world in our busy lives that is easy to forget Hau is there as a reminder we are the musical notes of the world's song London England is home to some of the most famous poetry theaters in the world a poetry theater is where poets compete to read out loud classical poetry in the most authentic and dramatic way and the crowd judges them so one such event took place one cold winter night several years ago and with the theater filled to capacity the contestants were handed the poem that would be that evening's competition it was chapter 98 inim a Psalm that spoke about singing a new song to Hashem each contestant had a turn and they were all basically mediocre until one young man walked up on stage and left the crowd in a thunderous Applause he was energetic he had a great voice he was handsome he had the perfect facial expressions when he's saying each verse and he was selected unanimously as the winner of the competition and right as the curtains were about to close and the stage was about to clear an old man from the back of the theater stood up and he called out wait he walked slowly with his Cane up to the front of the stage and he asked the winner of the competition if he can come up the winner said sure and the crowd fell into a curious silence the old man took the microphone he cleared his throat and he said if I may just for a moment sing a rendition of that poem in its original language he began the slow melodious singing [Music] of he closed his eyes and he looked up and he kept on singing and the audience Frozen in shock just stared at him they never saw anything like that the man almost in a trance kept on singing Z [Music] he singing while he softly tapped his right foot there wasn't a dry eye in the theater the man continued until the very end and with a River of Tears the crowd erupted into a thunderous Standing Ovation the man opened up his eyes he smiled with a small smile and with a twinkle in his eye he walked off the stage so the crowd f out of their seats and the old man took his Cane and he walked outside into the cold London Street and the young winner of the competition ran outside and looked for the old man and he spotted him walking slowly alone and he caught up to him sir sir the young man called out I feel as though you should be the one who gets the award not me you were fantastic up there the old man stopped and he looked at the man and he said no no no young man you were great you did a great job keep the trophy but the young man insisted no you were better I don't deserve it the the old man looked at him and said I refuse you did a great job okay said the boy but please tell me this why is it that when I was up on stage the crowd smiled and clapped but when you were up there they cried the old man stopped walking he looked the young man in his eyes after a moment of silence he removed his arm from his coat and rolled up his sleeve see these numbers the man asked pointing to the numbers tattooed on his arm you learn poetry in college I learned poetry in aitz King David to you is a composer King David to me is my grandfather he rolled down his sleeve he put his coat back on and he looked once again into the eyes of the young man and said you may have gotten up on that stage and sang that song I am that song and with that the old man took his Cane and walked off into the night [Music]