With last night’s Golden Globe Awards and this Thursday’s Academy Award nominations, we find ourselves in a period in which all forms of theatre- on stage, on television, and on the big screen, are put under the microscope.

What do we look for in a nominee? What makes us get beyond one person or the other? It is not an answer reserved solely for the arts. In any scenario, we look for believability. We hope that this person can transport us to their world- through costumes, through dialogue, and through acting. It is believability and vulnerability that catch on with the people, allowing them to begin to believe in something greater. In the bible, there is no greater moment for us as a people than the triumphant song delivered by the Israelites after crossing the Sea of Reeds. This Shirat Hayam (song of the sea) is more than a melody. It is great theatre. It encapsulates the baggage that years of slavery places on a people, the fear that a sea that will not part as an Egyptian overlord does not give up in his pursuit. It is the literal crying out to a God that finally listened. It is a cry of relief, a cry of hope.

The reciting of the epic-lyric poem Shirat Hayam during Parshat B’shalach is the main reason we call the portion Shabbat Shira, a Sabbath of song.  As we see, beyond the melody, it is the backstory and theatrical nature of the moment that make it meaningful generations later. Each morning we recount the Shira experience in our tefillot. We realize that the song can only be a triumphant one if we had each person play their part: To Nachson, who took the first steps in the water; To Moses, the most unlikely of leaders who played the role so well;  To an Almighty that created that shock and awe that made a people believe for the first time. Shabbat Shira is more than just a Sabbath of Song- it is the backstory, the appreciation of what it took to get to that moment in time. It is a time to appreciate the artistry of that moment, when we became one for the first time.