Shir la-ma’alot: Jewish song in times of crisis

In my last post, I explored the idea of cultural tools that have helped us evolve generational resilience as a people over millennia of adversity. More recently, we have again turned to during these tools to help us cope with and make sense of our present difficulties, which include (in no particular order):

• music

• humour

• faith and optimism

• historical and religious perspective

• fostering interpersonal connections

These tools aren’t necessarily new, or unique to Jews. But it’s fascinating to see how naturally we turn to them to support and maintain national morale.

I will explore each of these strategies and their use, both historically and in the current war, in coming posts.

Today, let’s talk music.

We are far from the first Jews to use music and song, and song as prayer, to get through difficult times in general, and times of war in particular.

King David, the great warrior of Israel, was a gifted musician and songwriter, and many (possibly even a majority, I haven’t counted) of his tehillim (Psalms) contain his entreaties to G-d in times of trouble.

We have a tradition to recite tehillim in difficult times, particularly during illness, and certainly during war. Since October 7, it’s fair to say that millions of chapters have been recited worldwide, accompanied by tearful prayers for the dead, the wounded and those living in captivity. A popular online tehillim group website, Tehillim Yachad, has had a group running since October 7 for people to recite tehillim for “military success, return of the hostage and healing of the wounded”. At the time of writing, 1,282,170 chapters of tehillim (a total of 8545 complete books) have been recited by 122,232 individual participants in this single group. There are thousands of such groups active around the world.

We believe and hope that our prayers will storm the gates of heaven and change our fates and the fates of those dear to us. We genuinely believe in the power of prayer, not just as an ‘opium of the masses’, but as a tool to influence events, on both a personal and global level.

But tehillim serves an additional purpose during challenging times. Reciting tehillim with intent – not just contemplating our desired outcome, but considering the meaning of the words – reminds us that we are not alone, that our people have been here before and prevailed. We are not alone in our struggles, in our pain or in our suffering. Even Jewish heroes such as King David suffered pain, fear, and loneliness, and he too turned to G-d to ease his pain.