Common Gallinule : The Need to Sing
This is a Common Gallinule. As I watched him he started to vocalize. It seemed so insistent, so integral somehow, that it really took me aback. There are all kinds of explanations for birds’ calls. Ornithologists have documented territorial staking, mate attraction, and alarms among other reasons. I’m sure those are all true, but I wonder if maybe there’s more. What if, so simply, they just can’t help it? Maybe they just feel an overriding compulsion to share their song with the world? I realize that no(t many) ornithologists would accept my theory. I also realize ornithologists don’t know everything about birds. Maybe this sense of expression is inherently rooted in the bird? Who can say for certain….
In Temple times, each part of the sacrificial services was performed by a different priest. Talmud relates how originally, the honor of clearing ashes from the altar was awarded to the priest… who won a footrace sprinting up the ramp. And this footrace was ultimately replaced by a lottery amongst the priests because… during one of the races, one priest pushed another to the ground and broke his leg! What?!? Put aside for the moment questions of historical accuracy or dubious motivations. Instead, charitably, empathize with such a compulsion to perform the service. Feel what it must have been like to be so filled, so consumed, with a desire to officiate and to render honor to God and the community.
Intellectually I acknowledge the gallinule is behaving instinctually, and the overly-competitive priests are perhaps a symbolic tale. On another level, though, both depictions are very resonant. I sympathize with the all-consuming desire to express one’s self in a self-defining way. What if I weren’t able to offer these photos and drashot? What if a painter weren’t allowed to paint? A writer to write? Or a lover to love? Humans have a Divinely-rooted need to express themselves, to manifest their essences. It is an aspect of being made in the likeness of our Creator. The question of what defines each of us - are we singers like the Gallinule? officiants like the priests? - is one that merits much consideration.