Shabbat Shirah brings music, meaning to Mountain Synagogue
Congregants display the Shabbat Shirah Torah portion.
Lily Levin photo
A tambourine-lover with creative tactics meant to take congregants outside of their comfort zone, Rabbi RuthE Levy of Mountain Synagogue in Franklin doesn’t mess around when it comes to musical shabbat.
Known in Hebrew as Shabbat Shirah, this service takes place at the beginning of the harvest season, long before the Jewish holiday of Passover — the latter holiday at the start of April 2026, the former portion in late February — but it tells a well-known Passover story.
The fourth of 13 special shabbats on the Jewish calendar, Shabbat Shirah, which means sabbath of Singing, celebrates the splitting of the Sea of Reeds after the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt — and the power of Jewish women’s song.
Meanwhile, Levy had invited former rabbinical school classmate and current Knoxville-based rabbi Shoshanah “Shush” Carson to shake up that Saturday morning parashah, strumming and singing beautiful melodies for the 20 or so in attendance.
In a pre-event press release, Levy described Carson as a musician that “weaves Torah, prayer and the sacredness of everyday life through text, mysticism and personal story, giving voice to what is often hidden between the lines.”
Carson’s artistic talent was introduced by short Torah passage clarifying the day’s special designation within Jewish liturgy as Shabbat Shirah.
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A congregant read the verses’ English translation: “Then Miriam, the prophet Aaron’s sister, picked up a hand drum, and all the women went out after her dance with hand drums, and Miriam chanted for them, ‘sing to God who has triumphed gloriously. Horse and driver have been hurled into the sea.’”
According to biblical tradition, the moment was marked by ‘Shirat HaYam,’ or ‘Song of the Sea,’ a melody of both migration and presence that acknowledges the long path ahead while finding comfort in the eternal company of God.
Carson explained that she’d be performing Ozi v’Zimrat Yah, one of the better-known parts of Shirat HaYam, and reached for her guitar. She closed her eyes and strummed the first few chords, voice filled with deep, resonant vibrato, head swaying with the ebb and flow of the sound.
At the end of the Torah service, Levy directed two attendees to lift the scrolls and spread them lengthwise so the portion would be visible to the audience. At first, the confusion was palpable, but congregants quickly understood what Levy was getting at upon seeing the verses.
In any given service, full Torah columns etched with Hebrew letters document the weekly portion. This parashah, however, looks like poetry — lines of different lengths, more empty space than words.
Levy clarified that Shabbat Shirah is one of only three sabbaths when this phenomenon occurs.
Carson, meanwhile, underscored the day’s philosophical importance. Shabbat Shirah, she said, is a “space for the unsayable, because not everything that matters can be written in ink.”
“Our tradition teaches us that the Torah was given black fire written upon white fire. The black fire is what we see — the letters, the words, the laws, the stories — but the white fire is just as sacred … We’re reminded [by white fire] that the Torah is not only read, but it’s chanted; not only transmitted, but it’s voiced; not only written, but it’s heard,” continued Carson.
The rabbi recounted that once, she’d confided in Levy that while she loved the Torah, she couldn’t quite see herself in its verses. The stories, Carson had told her friend of four years, are mainly about men. So are the ideas. And so are the voices. Women appear every so often, but mainly as supporting characters and sometimes lacking agency, power or autonomy.
The same day, she said, “I told RuthE that I was writing a paper about the possibility of there being female angels in Judaism, asking whether, somewhere in our vast and beautiful tradition, there might be a messenger of God with a feminine face.”
Not too long after that conversation, Levy wrote and sent Carson her very own textual interpretation, or midrash.
“It was her way of saying, ‘you are in the Torah, you are seen,’” Carson said of the other rabbi’s gift before reciting the story to the audience.
According to Carson’s recounting of Levy’s words, when Ezra began the great undertaking of writing the Torah, God sent him a chorus of helpers: “malchot,” or “playful little girl angels.”
As he etched the letters, the angels would sing a corresponding tune.
But when Ezra had nearly finished writing the Torah — all but a single stroke — the malchot were nowhere to be found. Concerned, he unrolled the scrolls, and the room filled with laughter and sound. Turns out the malchot were hiding within the sacred words.
“And they took something with them, the musical notes and the vowels. That’s why the Torah is written with no vowels,” said Carson.
“The Torah does not sing on its own. It waits for human breath, for human voice, for us to uncover the white fire hidden in between the black ink. Each time we chant Torah, we release the angels. Each time we sing, the letters awaken. Each time we dare to bring our own voice to the sacred text, the Torah becomes whole again,” she added.
After the midrash, announcements were read and the two rabbis led the group in several other tunes and prayers, encouraging congregants to make use of the tambourines on their chairs.
When the service ended, in typical Jewish fashion, attendees reorganized the small, converted church space into a row of tables, brought out the food and prepared for nosh.
