Bridge between the physical and spiritual...

Composed Shanna Aleph, 12/5/06

The bridge between the physical and the non physical

Yesterday I was sitting in Rav Yoel's Chug, and I began observing all the people sitting around the table, closing their eyes, and singing. I began asking myself, how does this work? What power does singing have that it is capable of brining someone to tears? How does singing make people feel an indescribable surge of spirituality, and an immense, pulsating connection to Hashem?

In order to understand such a concept, we need to first understand what it is to speak. Rabbis and parents tell us all the time to "watch your mouth." It is a generally accepted principle that improper speech is impolite, and therefore we should try to refrain from degrading ourselves and insulting others. We rarely think about the idea that out of the trillions of species of organisms that exist, only humans can talk, and we almost never wonder why that is. In other words, most people are familiar with the adage "speech is what separates the humans from the animal kingdom," but most people have never pondered the implications.

Analyzing the process of a spoken word reveals the depth of the principle referred to above.

When we want to say something, what happens? Our brain takes our intended thought and sends a signal via electric nerve impulses to our voice box to produce the proper combination of vibrations, which ultimately results in what we call a "sound." The entire sound production process is purely physical. The only non-physical entity throughout the entire process was the thought itself, which up until now was confined to a prison of physical entities before it was finally allowed to depart via speech in the form of a sound. The resulting sound is completely intangible. The vibrations utilized to produce the sound can be measured in the form of waves, but the sound itself can never be felt. In other words, humans (purely physical beings) are actually capable of producing something purely spiritual and non-physical!

Why do we have this complex brain-nerve impulse-larynx-mouth system that is capable of producing an intangible substance? According to evolutionists, we have this system because it serves as an extremely efficient way to communicate, and therefore it was a beneficial mutation that survived. The only problem with claiming that our complex speech system originated as a product of genetic mutation is that while the entire system of speech for the purpose of communication is truly an efficient system, each individual piece of the system serves no inherent beneficial purpose; the larynx can do nothing without the brain. Therefore, even if someone was born with a genetic mutation dictating the creation of a larynx, he would have also have had to have been born with the simultaneous mutations coding for nerves to connect the voice box to the brain, and mutations for the brain to now suddenly know the correct vibration patterns for sound production. All these mutations would have to have occurred in one life span and to a minimum of two people, for how else is speech useful if there is no one with which to communicate? The principle of mutation is one useful mutation that gets passed on, but the mutation for only a larynx serves no purpose, and therefore would not get passed on.

This is difficult to understand, but is better understood with another analogy. The human eye should not have ever been developed according to evolutionists. There were approximately 10,000 mutations before the eye could actually work as an eye. A mutation is only passed on if it is beneficial, but the 9,999 mutations the eye underwent before it mutated into a functioning human eye were all completely non beneficial, and therefore should have never been passed on to the next generation. Evolutionists have no explanation for this simple organ, how much more so for a complex organ system! Therefore, to claim that speech developed as a beneficial mutation is ridiculous.

Rather, the purpose of having this complex system of producing intangible entities is because we need it to connect to the other intangible entity, Hashem. Evolution didn’t give us this speech system, god did, and he gave it to us in order for us to have a means of connecting to him. When a purely physical human being produces a sound, he is taking himself, a physical being, and connecting himself to the only other non-physical being, Hashem. In other words, speech is the bridge from the physical world to the non physical world.

That's why we need to be very careful of what comes out of our mouth. When we use dirty language we take this spiritual substance and taint it with physical filth. We have this limitless potential to connect to God through the gift of speech, but instead we are pushing ourselves farther away from him.

Having explained all this, I think now we can understand how singing can transplant a person from feeling mundane and physical, to feeling connected to something deep and spiritual.

Logically speaking, singing is a perfected form of speech. A spoken thought is usually monotone and staccato, but a song is a harmonious blend of sweet sounding elegance and grace. In essence, the perfection in the harmony of a song can be equated to the perfection of Hashem.

When we speak to one another, most of our time is spent speaking about our daily lives. Very little of our spoken words are spoken words are spoken about Hashem, and therefore how can we expect to connect to him? However, when we stop and sing, and use our ability to connect to God in its highest most perfected form, and use it for the sole purpose of connecting to God, how can we not feel a pulsating connection to our creator?