Sometimes the hardest notes in life are not the end of the song. The story of Shamil and the Song of Haazinu reminds us that every moment is part of a greater melody, one that leads from longing to hope and from exile to redemption.
For a decade, beginning in 1954, the Rebbe had a custom on the night of Simchat Torah, after the Hakafot and the holiday meal, to teach an unfamiliar Chassidic melody from previous generations. On Simchat Torah night in 1958, before teaching the melody, the Rebbe said that he had heard this melody from Chassidim, together with a story:
“One hundred, one hundred and fifty years ago, there lived in the Caucasus Mountains semi savage tribes who were as free as birds of the air, without being subject to the laws of the monarchy or even the restrictions of civilized society. When the Czar began expanding his kingdom, he also wanted to conquer these Caucasus Mountains. But although he had many soldiers equipped with better weapons, while the tribesmen were few in number, he could not conquer them because they lived on high mountains.
In the end, the Russians acted through deception. They told the tribesmen that they wanted to make peace with them and would even grant them various benefits. After the tribesmen surrendered their weapons, the Russians captured their leader, whose name was Shamil, and exiled him to a distant land.
While in exile, he would occasionally remember the high mountains where he had been free from the chains of government, where he had neither the restrictions of a prison nor the restrictions and chains of living in a city and of civilization. Now he was enslaved, and he developed a powerful longing for the high mountains, where he had been as free as an eagle in the sky. He would sing this melody, whose beginning expresses longing and whose ending expresses hope that eventually he would return to his place.”
Who was this Shamil whom the Rebbe was speaking about?
Imam Shamil, who lived from 1797 to 1871, was a leader of tribes in the North Caucasus, a Muslim religious figure, politician, and rebel. He waged a determined struggle against the Russians, who sought to conquer the Caucasus region. After a long and prolonged struggle, Shamil surrendered to the Russian forces and was imprisoned in a small village in Dagestan. He was later exiled to the city of Kaluga, a small city in central Russia not far from Moscow. In 1869, the Russians allowed Shamil to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. Shamil died in Medina in 1871. His courage, bravery, and determination became legendary among his admirers.
The Rebbe then continued:
“When Jews heard this melody, they adapted it and interpreted it as referring to the soul descending into the body. The soul was hewn from beneath the Throne of Glory… It is connected to G-d Himself, and therefore it is free from all kinds of chains. It is united with G-dliness… And they tempted it, took it from there, and brought it down into a body and an animal soul, which is a descent from a high mountain to a deep pit. When the soul reflects on the source from which it was hewn, it awakens with a great thirst, ‘My soul thirsts for You, my flesh longs for You.’
…And when he reflects upon this, he awakens with longing for the high mountains, the root of the soul, standing in the state of these mountains, the Patriarchs… This is the beginning of the melody, the thirst and the longing. The final movement of the melody expresses the hope that he is certain that no one will be cast away, and that eventually he will awaken from the deep pit and reach his destination, above his previous level, because this is the purpose of the descent, which is for the sake of the ascent. He will reach and unite with G-d Himself, ‘to become absorbed in the body of the King.'” (Torat Menachem, Vol. 24, p. 133 and elsewhere)
The entire story of Shamil serves as a parable, created to provide the melody and the lesson in serving G-d. The story of the melody of Shamil can serve as a metaphor for the journey of the Jewish soul. The soul, which is spiritual and abstract by nature, descends from the upper worlds into our physical world and becomes clothed in the body of a human being. The physical body, with its needs and desires, can restrict the soul and, in a certain sense, become like a prison cell for it. The soul constantly longs for the spiritual freedom and delight it experienced before descending into this world. The melody of longing sung by Shamil can parallel the soul’s feeling of longing for its source.
Haazinu: The Song of the Journey
This week’s Torah portion is called Haazinu. Moses stands at the end of his life and gives the Jewish people his final words. But he does not give them a speech. He gives them a song: “Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak; let the earth hear the words of my mouth.”
And this is somewhat surprising. Because when we read this song, we do not always feel like singing.
Moses foresees a dark future for the Jewish people and declares some of the harshest prophecies of destruction in the Torah: “I would have said, ‘I will annihilate them, I will make their memory cease from mankind.'” Rashi explains: “I will cast them into the distant corners of the world, like rejected grain that is thrown to the edge of the field.”
Moses continues: “Were it not for the wrath of the enemy…” Were it not for the desecration of G-d’s name in the eyes of the nations, G-d would have destroyed Israel and erased the memory that such a nation ever existed. It will never be so.
So where is the song? How can a lament be called a song?
The Rebbe offers a remarkable insight that transforms all of life into one long song of anticipation for complete redemption. (Likkutei Sichot, Vol. 24, p. 233)
The Song of Haazinu portrays the complete structure of Jewish history. Moses takes the reader from the past into the future and makes clear that the suffering of exile leads toward complete redemption and is part of that same journey.
The curses are not presented in a separate chapter, as they are in the other passages of rebuke. Instead, they are presented as an intermediate stage on the way toward the happiness of redemption. The song is a panoramic picture of all the periods of Jewish history, past, present, and future.
Moses begins with the magnificent past, the Exodus from Egypt: “Like an eagle arousing its nest, hovering over its young, spreading its wings and taking them, carrying them on its pinions.” He then continues with the dark suffering of exile and immediately moves toward Israel’s victories over its enemies: “Sing joyfully, nations, with His people, for He will avenge the blood of His servants and bring retribution upon His foes.”
This is the Jewish song: the understanding that every moment is “for the good.” We are building another level toward a better future. We do not deny the pain. We cannot explain it at every moment. But instead of speaking only about suffering, we speak about patience, “suffering with meaning.” It is the understanding that a father does not cause pain for the sake of pain. (Rabbi Shneur Ashkenazi, Parsha, Issue 308)
And this is the message of the melody of Shamil, which begins with longing and ends with hope.
At the beginning, there is a person who is far from home. He remembers the high mountains and the freedom he once had, and he longs for them. But as the melody progresses, something changes: the longing becomes hope. He has not yet returned home, but he already knows that he will return.
And this is precisely the meaning of Haazinu.
Moses does not give us only a warning. He gives us perspective. He teaches us to look at the entire journey, from the Exodus, through exile and suffering, and toward redemption. That is why it is called a song. It’s not because every note in it is happy. It is a song because we know that the difficult notes are part of a complete melody.
Perhaps this is also the song of our own lives. We do not always understand the note we are currently playing. But we believe in the One who wrote the melody. He sees what we do not yet see.
And just as the melody of Shamil begins with longing and ends with hope, so too with Jewish history: exile is not the final word. The final word is redemption.
Therefore, as we stand now at the threshold of a new year, the message of Haazinu is this: Do not look only at the moment. Listen to the entire melody. And if sometimes it is difficult to hear the melody, keep singing. Because we are still in the middle of the song, but G-d already knows the ending.
And the ending is very good: the coming of Moshiach very soon.
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