They Packed Drums

There is a detail in this week's parsha that I cannot get past.

The Israelites are leaving Egypt. They have been slaves for generations. They are carrying unleavened dough on their backs because there was no time to let it rise. They are walking into a desert with their children, their elderly, their animals, no supply chain, no map, and a army behind them. And the women packed drums.

Parashat Beshalach — Shabbat Shirah, the Shabbat of Song — contains the most famous musical moment in the Torah. The sea splits. The Egyptians drown. Moses and the Israelites open their mouths and sing the Shirah, the Song at the Sea:

אָ֣ז יָשִֽׁיר־מֹשֶׁה֩ וּבְנֵ֨י יִשְׂרָאֵ֜ל אֶת־הַשִּׁירָ֤ה הַזֹּאת֙ לַֽיהֹוָ֔ה וַיֹּאמְר֖וּ לֵאמֹ֑ר        אָשִׁ֤ירָה לַֽיהֹוָה֙ כִּֽי־גָאֹ֣ה גָּאָ֔ה        ס֥וּס וְרֹכְב֖וֹ רָמָ֥ה בַיָּֽם׃        

Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to GOD. They said: I will sing to GOD, who has triumphed gloriously; Horse and driver have been hurled into the sea.

— Shemot 15:1

The Shirah is one of the few passages in a Torah scroll written in a special format — brick-like, stacked, with open spaces between the words so it looks different on the parchment from everything around it. Scribes have preserved this layout for thousands of years. You can see it the moment the scroll is open: the song has its own architecture.

But the moment that stops me isn't the Shirah. It comes after — in two verses near the end of the song sequence, where the camera shifts:

וַתִּקַּח֩ מִרְיָ֨ם הַנְּבִיאָ֜ה אֲח֧וֹת אַהֲרֹ֛ן אֶת־הַתֹּ֖ף בְּיָדָ֑הּ וַתֵּצֶ֤אןָ כׇֽל־הַנָּשִׁים֙ אַחֲרֶ֔יהָ בְּתֻפִּ֖ים וּבִמְחֹלֹֽת׃

Then Miriam the prophet, Aaron’s sister, picked up a hand-drum, and all the women went out after her in dance with hand-drums.

— Shemot 15:20

Hand-drums. Timbrels. The Hebrew is tuppim — percussion instruments, carried by women who had been slaves twelve hours earlier.

Rashi, citing the Mechilta, asks the obvious question. Where did the drums come from? They were fleeing. They barely had time to bake bread. And his answer: the righteous women of that generation were confident that God would perform miracles for them, and they brought timbrels with them from Egypt.

They packed drums before they knew there would be a reason to play them.

I have been thinking about this all week, because on Monday, January 26, the body of Master Sergeant Ran Gvili was found in a cemetery in Gaza City and brought home to Israel. He was twenty-four years old. A police officer in the Yasam counter-terror unit, he had been recovering from a broken shoulder on the morning of October 7, 2023, when he heard what was happening, put on his uniform, and drove to the front. He fought at Kibbutz Alumim. He was killed defending the border communities and the Nova Festival survivors, and his body was taken to Gaza. He was the last hostage — the last Israeli held there. Eight hundred and forty-three days.

When the soldiers brought him out of Gaza, they gathered around his body and sang Ani Ma'amin — "I believe, with perfect faith." The IDF's top commanders stood and saluted as the troops sang Hatikvah.

His brother Omri said at the funeral: "our pride is much greater than our sorrow." His mother Talik stood at the graveside and called herself a proud, proud mother. She said: "the people of Israel live and are strong." His sister Shira said: "I feel a crazy sense of freedom. I feel relief. I'm sad, very sad, that it ended this way. But it needed to end sometime, and I'm so happy he's come back home."

For the first time since 2014, no Israeli captives remain in Gaza.

I keep coming back to the timbrels. The women did not wait for the miracle to believe in it. They packed the instruments before the sea split, before there was any evidence that singing would be warranted. The bread didn't rise. The drums went into the bags anyway.

There is a custom on Shabbat Shirah to put out grain for the birds. The origin is disputed — some trace it to a midrash about the manna, where birds confirmed that the manna fell in double portions on Friday, vindicating Moses against doubters. Others connect it simply to the theme of song: on the Shabbat when we read about singing, we feed the creatures who sing every morning without being asked. Either way, it is a quiet act. You leave something outside. You trust it will be found.

Last Shabbat, congregations sang Az Yashir together during Shacharit, same as every week. It is part of the daily liturgy — the Song at the Sea, recited every morning, not just on this Shabbat. Most weeks it rolls by. A few lines, a melody, a transition to the next section.

But once a year the parsha catches up with the prayer, and the song you say every day becomes the song you actually read. The room shifts. People lean in. The melody stretches. You realize you have been carrying this song in your mouth every morning like a woman carrying a drum out of Egypt — and on Shabbat Shirah, you finally hear it.

Ran Gvili's family carried something for 843 days. They carried it when the evidence said to put it down. His mother said she drove into a rainbow once, early on, and it accompanied her until she entered it, and then it disappeared. They kept going.

The righteous women of that generation were confident. That is what Rashi says. Not that they knew. Not that they had proof. Confident. They packed instruments for a celebration that hadn't happened yet — and when the sea opened, they were ready.

Shabbat shalom.

— Uriel ben Avraham