Q:
Please explain to me what the Gemara means when it says that Dovid Hamelech, when he was nursing from his mother, he said shira?
A:
The Gemara in Brachos (10a) says that Dovid ינק משדי אמו – when he suckled at his mother’s breasts, ונסתכל בדדיה – and he looked at his mother’s nipples, ואמר שירה – he said song.
It means later when he looked back, he became excited at the wonders that he saw there. He saw chochmah and chessed there and he said, ברכי נפשי את ה’ ואל תשכחי כל גמוליו – Do not forget all of His kindliness that Hakadosh Baruch Hu bestowed on me.
Now the Gemara asks, מאי כל גמוליו – what’s the kindliness that’s mentioned here?
Now the fact is that we don’t have to look for any especial kindness more than the fact that the mother’s milk is the very best diet for babies. It’s unequaled. And there are miracles without end in the mother’s milk. The mere fact that there’s milk is a miracle. Where does it come from? That’s a puzzle that they’re not able to answer. And they say there’s only one source. And that’s the bloodstream. That’s the only supply that can cause milk to come. But to change blood into milk, that’s a gigantic task. Du Ponte, with all the chemists in the world wouldn’t undertake such a job.
But not only milk. Before the milk comes out, the first few days a little yellow-colored liquid comes forth called the colostrum. And the purpose of the colostrum is to clean out the little baby’s intestines, his passages. The colostrum is an antiseptic, a germicide that helps the little baby’s immune system. And it’s like getting a bottle of vitamins, full of nutrients.
Now, that’s only the beginning. If we would speak about milk, it would be miracles and miracles, and we would have to stay up all night like speaking about the miracles of Yetzias Mitzrayim! Until the morning would come – and it wouldn’t be finished.
But the Gemara says that Dovid was talking about a simple example; something that anybody could see. And he gives an example. What’s the chessed, the gemulav, the kindliness that was apparent in the mother’s breasts? אמר רבי אבהו שעשה לה דדים במקום בינה – Hakadosh Baruch Hu put the mother’s breasts, human breasts, in the place of understanding; it means over the heart. What does that mean?
You know, when a little bear has to suck from a mother’s breasts, it’s too close to the organs of excretion. And sometimes if the little bear doesn’t watch out, it gets caught in the rain. But what can it do? It needs parnassah. It can’t be choosy. But Hakadosh Baruch Hu bestowed dignity on mankind and he put the breasts in such a position in the most dignified position possible. And therefore, from the heart the breasts produce the fountain of nourishment, and the child lies in its mother’s arms and gazes up in its mother’s eyes as it takes in nourishment.
And that’s the most beautiful thing in a relationship of a suckling child. As he lies confidently in his mother’s arms and looks up trustingly in her eyes, and he suckles that nourishing stream, it’s dignity and it’s love, it’s eye to eye contact.
You know, that’s one of the greatness of human beings. They have eye to eye contact. An animal doesn’t have eye to eye contact with its mother. They don’t look in the eyes. Animals don’t look each other in the eyes — they look other places. But a human being, a child, a baby looks in its mother’s eyes, and that means soul contact because eyes are the windows of the soul. So as the child is drawing nourishment from the mother, he is in soul contact with his mother. And that’s called gemulav, that’s a great gift that Hakadosh Baruch Hu bestowed on mankind.
December 1977
