Interesting name...

When we spoke about being pieces of a jigsaw puzzle yesterday, we were still missing a few of them. One major element that we need to understand, is what the definition of Shira actually is. Why sing? And what is the etymology of the word Shira? And where do we see it manifest in history?

Actually, the various midrashim, looking from different angles, give various groupings of the 'Ten Great Songs' of history. There is something special about seeing a whole picture, a full circle. When that picture is complete, one feels joy, and the natural instinct is to make one want to sing out. Many of the those great songs begin with 'אז' - 'then'- a temporal phrase linking past to present, as it can be understood in either tense. It is also parallel with the 7 + 1 notes in the musical scale or octave. (א = 1 and ז = 7; the first and last note in the octave are identical, so it's really a septave. Except...it isn't.)

Interestingly, of all the creature, humans are the only ones who do not appear to have their own unique song in Perek Shira.

Let us begin to understand this on a deeper level, as we move ever closer towards the beginning of Perek Shira itself, by hearing what the frog begins to say...