9 Responses to “Ten Greatest Songs of All Time”

1. micha
   February 2nd, 2012 @ 5:54 am

   Rav Hirsch writes that the messianic song is different in kind and name than the other 9. The first 9 are called “shirah”, in the feminine. History was not yet over, and thus the moment of song would eventually give birth to something else. The song of the messianic era is a “shir”, in the masculine, as nothing else will be born from it. He uses this notion, e.g., in his explanation of how “Mizmor shir leyom haShabbos” must refer to the ultimate Shabbos of the messianic era, not the weekly Shabbos. Which is what fits the content.

   I am not sure what he would say about this medrash (1) listing them together nor (2) listing Shiras Adam and Shir haGeulah separately. It seems that Adam wrote a shir for the ge’ulah. Or is it just /about/ the ge’ulah?

2. Alex
   February 2nd, 2012 @ 2:17 pm

   Micha, where does Rav Hirsch say this?

3. micha
   February 2nd, 2012 @ 2:43 pm

   RSRH says this on Psalm 96:1, but I forget if it’s in his Psalms or Siddur (second paragraph of Qabbalas Shabbos). He gets the distinction between shirah and shir from the Mekhilta on Beshalach.

4. Judy Resnick
   February 2nd, 2012 @ 6:01 pm

   A similar machlokes is found in the commentary to the Pesach Haggadah. Both the “zachor” and “nekeivah” versions of the phrase appear in the Haggadah: i.e., “shirah chadashah” and “shir chadash.” Ask this question again during Chol Hamoed after the two sedera, when I have dug our various haggados with their commentaries out of the Pesach boxes.

5. Adam
   February 3rd, 2012 @ 2:28 am

   It should say Sisra’s army. Kind of forgot a word there.

6. Aryeh Leib Ecker
   February 3rd, 2012 @ 1:30 pm

   I would like to submit Uncle Moishy’s “Hashem Is Here Hashem Is There Hashem Is Truly Everywhere,” and “Torah Tzivah Lanu Moshe” as #1 and #2.

7. David Linn
   February 4th, 2012 @ 9:54 pm

   Reb. Heller speaks about this in “This Way Up”. She basically says that the first 9 songs were responsive or reactive and that the 10th will be proactive.

8. Judy Resnick
   February 5th, 2012 @ 12:03 am

   It’s too bad that only one of Dovid Hamelech’s 150 incomparable songs (Sefer Tehillim) makes the list. Kind of reminds me of the famous story of how Dovid Hamelech once said, “O HKBH, no one has sung as many songs of praise to you as I have.” Whereupon a frog hopped up to the palace window and rebuked him, “Dovid, know that we frogs have been singing thousands of songs of praise to HKBH, starting from long before you were born, and continuing long after you are gone.” Well, maybe we humans have sung nine great songs (with the tenth soon, G-d willing) but the frogs have far outshone us in the singing department! Ribet! Ribet!

9. David Linn
   February 5th, 2012 @ 12:54 am

   Aryeh Leib, what about the “Pizza Song”?!

Leave a Reply