The Holiness of Music

Our Holy Rabbis teach that Hashem created the world with ten utterances.

But it’s deeper than that.

Hashem sang the world into existence.

The Tikuney Zohar states that if you take the first word of the Torah, Breisheit, and rearrange the letters, it spells Shirat Av or the song of our Father.

This means that the world is literally made out of music.

Shirat Av can also be read as Shirat Aleph Beis, or the song of the Aleph Beit.

This is in accordance with the Sefer Yetzirah, which teaches that Hashem created the world with the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet.

Our Rabbis teach that each person is a letter in the Torah.  If we add the dimension that Hashem sang the letters, then that means that each of us is also a musical note.

Did you hear that?  Each of us are musical notes in the song of creation!

Our Holy Rabbis gave us a map of the heavens.  In it, they revealed that the Palace of Returning to G-d is right next to the Palace of Song.  But the Modzitzer Rebbe goes further.  He says the palace of Returning to G-d is the Palace of song.

When we come together in love and devotion, we gather all of the notes of existence together in harmony.

In a beautiful indication of just how holy song is – Hashem commanded that the Leviim receive a special additional sanctification – not just for their work in the Holy Temple – but for the music they played, too.

Sadly, today there is no Holy Temple in Yerushalayim to bring offerings.  But in a very deep way there still is a way to serve Hashem like we did back then.

With song.  Our songs are offerings.

Our Sages teach that ten Great Songs are destined to be sung to Hashem.  Nine of them, including the Shir shel Yam, the song we sang after we crossed the Red Sea, have already been sung.

One song awaits.  The song we will sing when Hashem brings our holy Mashiach at the time of the Redemption.

May the time come soon when we sing this great final song, and bring all of creation into harmony with our Creator.