Honey From the Rock

I did a lot of crying this week, and then Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon passed away. Dr. Reagon was a scholar, singer, composer, organizer, and activist. Her songs and voice were an integral part of the 1960s struggle for civil rights and liberation. Along the way, Dr. Reagon founded The Freedom Singers and Sweet Honey In The Rock.   

Several times a day I stop and realize that I am singing to myself. The possibilities of what I’m singing these days tend to be a rotation of that one niggun that is always stuck in my head, a jingle from Daniel Tiger, “Let it Go” from Frozen, or the chorus of Ella’s Song. 

The chorus of Ella’s Song is particularly catchy:
We who believe in freedom cannot rest
We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes 

There are times when I walk around the neighborhood singing these lines to myself. Sometimes interspersed with other justice anthems, but always returning to this chorus. Sometimes I include the verses or what I remember of them, but often it’s just these lines over and over again. They are a statement of purpose, and the act of singing them is an embodied recommitment to the work they demand. 

There is, perhaps unsurprisingly, a religious undertone, more or less explicit song by song, in the work of Sweet Honey In The Rock. Dr. Reagon was the child of a Baptist minister and the music reflects the place of the Black church in the freedom struggle. 

We see a reference to “honey in the rock” in Psalm 81:

14      If only My people would listen to Me,

           if Israel would follow My paths,

15      then would I subdue their enemies at once,

          strike their foes again and again.”

16      Those who hate GOD shall cower;

           their doom shall be eternal.

17      [God] fed Israel the finest wheat;

         “I sated you with honey from the rock.”

Being fed honey from the rock is a sign of covenant and relationship, or perhaps a reward for return. While the language of “enemies” and punishment does not resonate with me, the language of Gd’s paths immediately connects me to Torah, whose  “paths are paths of peace. (Prov 3:18)”

Rashi connects this honey in the rock to Moses’s retelling of the Exodus story in  Parashat Haazinu, in which we read that Gd found the Israelites in the desert, took them out and “ וַיֵּנִקֵ֤הֽוּ דְבַשׁ֙ מִסֶּ֔לַע וְשֶׁ֖מֶן מֵחַלְמִ֥ישׁ צֽוּר / nursed them with honey from a boulder. (Deut 32:13, trans. Everett Fox).” 

On Sotah 11b, we learn a midrash in the name of Rabbi Avira, who describes how the Israelite women and Gd would collaborate to coax the Israelite men into having sex. The women would become impregnated, return to the fields to give birth, and then leave their children in the field to be cared for by Gd. Every time I read this midrash I am struck anew by the radical, subversive acts of these righteous women. I am equally struck as the text describes how Gd would provide midwives and nursemaids for the newborns, nourishing them from oil and honey from the rock.  

וְהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא שׁוֹלֵחַ מִשְּׁמֵי מָרוֹם מִי שֶׁמְּנַקֵּיר וּמְשַׁפֵּיר אוֹתָן, כְּחַיָּה זוֹ שֶׁמְּשַׁפֶּרֶת אֶת הַוָּלָד, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וּמוֹלְדוֹתַיִךְ בְּיוֹם הוּלֶּדֶת אוֹתָךְ לֹא כרַּת שׁרֵּךְ וּבְמַיִם לֹא רֻחַצְתְּ לְמִשְׁעִי וְגוֹ׳״. וּמְלַקֵּט לָהֶן שְׁנֵי עִגּוּלִין, אֶחָד שֶׁל שֶׁמֶן וְאֶחָד שֶׁל דְּבַשׁ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ״וַיֵּנִקֵהוּ דְבַשׁ מִסֶּלַע וְשֶׁמֶן וְגוֹ׳״.

And the Holy Blessed One would send from the heavens above one who would clean and prepare the newborns, just as a midwife prepares the newborn, as it is stated: “And as for your birth, on the day you were born, your navel was not cut nor were you washed with water for cleansing; you were not salted at all, nor swaddled at all” (Ezekiel 16:4). And then, the angel would gather for them two round stones. One of the stones flowed with oil and one of the stones flowed with honey, as it is stated: “And He would suckle them with honey from a crag and oil from a flinty rock” (Deuteronomy 32:13).

It is these same children, a different midrash teaches, that recognize Gd as they cross the sea and shout “זֶה אֵלִי וְאַנְוֵהוּ / This is my Gd and I will praise them (Exodus 15:2).”

The honey in the rock is a source of nourishment for Israelite children in a time of systemic oppression, a symbol of divine and human resistance. It is a call to paths of freedom and peace. 

Sweet Honey In The Rock and their music continue to flow through the world; the music they brought to the Southern Freedom Struggle continues to uplift and connect people in the freedom struggle today. The necessity of this struggle is on display daily and has certainly been on display this week. I felt it in my body and in my tears. Only an afternoon of listening to Sweet Honey In The Rock, the Revival Resistance Choir, and others, could regulate my nervous system. 

Just as the Torah described as “sweet as honey” nourishes me in my own work to build a world in which all people can thrive, so to the songs of Sweet Honey In The Rock. The Torah connects me to the Jewish tradition, and the songs connect me to the lineage of the southern freedom struggle, shared generously with me by folks who either learned them as they were being written or learned them from those who learned them when they were written.  

Last month I gathered with 700 movement organizers and activists with the goal of unifying behind a strategy to build power and fight fascism. Each morning opened with a cultural touchpoint–remembering ancestors, movement, breathing, and singing together. One morning we sang these words from Sweet Honey In The Rock in a round:  

We are the ones
We are the one
We’ve been waiting for…

Ken yehi ratzon.  May it be so.