The 21st of Nissan corresponds to the 7th day of Passover, and the recitation of the Shirat HaYam is part of the daily Torah Reading. Some Sepharadi communities recite a song in Ladino based on the Shirat Hayam, the Ketuba del Seten Dia de Pesah (the Marriage Contract of Yom Vayyosha/the Day of “Vayosha” after the opening word in Exodus 14:30). It is the custom of the Ḥassidei ḤaBaD to stay up all night learning (just as on Shavuot and Hoshana Raba). The day also corresponds with the 6th day of the Omer, Yesod sheb’Ḥesed (Foundation within Lovingkindness) in the order of the lower sefirot or creative emanations.

So how is it that the Song of the Sea is celebrated on this one day, the seventh of Passover? Our god is the god of light and the dark. Our understanding of the non-dual unity of G‽D embraces the reality of suffering in the world as well as our responsibility to challenge G‽D for permitting it. The one time in the year in which G‽D’s divine aspect as Mashkhit (executioner) is dared invoked is on the night of Passover, during the telling of the Passover Haggadah, when G‽D is described through midrash as the Shekhina carrying her sword, protecting her people. The rest of the year we shun from invoking this aspect, I believe, because we want to beckon G‽D’s lovingkindness and compassion (ḥesed and raḥamim) to overwhelm G‽D’s attributes of justice and discipline (din and gevurah), even as these latter attributes were so key in the redemption of Bnei Yisrael from Mitzrayim and their birth as a people.

In the worldview of Rabbinic Judaism that I know, the continued existence of this world (Olam Hazeh) is suspended in the balance of the deeds of humankind in their Nature. However the world tilts towards meriting destruction, the world is saved, moment after moment by virtue of our individual actions and those of other righteous individuals. Any invocation of divine justice and discipline is thus existentially dangerous. But on Passover, this invocation is permitted, because the invention of Bnei Yisroel is founded on the idea that its very identity as a people is only validated by it demanding justice and modelling loving, non-predatory consensual relationships, between all beings in the world. The continued existence of Olam Hazeh is thus bound up in the idea of an activist people helping to bend the history of the world towards justice through modeling compassion and loving-kindness.

We should always merit to live up to these ideals and save the world from the suffering caused by the predatory behavior of those, like Pharoah, who persued in order to devour, and who were in turn devoured. Jewish identity is born at a cost — of taking responsibility to do good in the world: to increase fairness and behave with compassion (and this is my understanding for the song’s inclusion in the morning prayers read every day).

Rabbi Hillel Ḥayim Yisraeli-Lavery shares a performance of a melody (linked below) which he learned for the Shirat Hayam from צוף דבש Tsuf Devash, a Moroccan synagogue in the Old City of Jerusalem. If there is something about this tune that strikes one as particularly celebratory, it might be because the relationship between G‽D and the Jewish people is traditionally described as a marriage consummated with the Covenant at Mt. Sinai. The passage of Bnei Yisrael through the Sea of Reeds towards Mt. Sinai thus begins a bridal march commencing in the theophany at Mt. Sinai, 42 days later.

Any mention of rejoicing even at the cost of the death or injury of one’s enemy must be tempered as all Bnei Adam are made B’Tzelem Elohim (with divine likeness). The Talmud Bavli Megillah 10b teaches,