Estonia Sings to the Well

 

This post is an update from April 23, 2010. Bible links are from biblegateway.com. 

When the Israelites marched out of Egypt into the desert, they were unaccustomed to desert living, so of course they were terrified and angry when in the first month of their escape, they arrived at a location called Kadesh in the Negev. The wells they expected to find there did not materialize and the whole community thought they might die a slow and horrible death without water. They did what people do--they forgot all the miracles of the past and griped that Moses brought them there to die. God commanded Moses to speak to a rock, and the rock would bring forth water, but instead of speaking, a very annoyed Moses struck it twice in anger. As a result, both Moses and Aaron were banned from entering the Promised Land. (Numbers 20:2-13)

So the Israelites trudged on from Kadesh and came to another dry place, but this time they didn't panic. The leaders got busy and dug a well right where they were at the time. When the water didn't appear, they started singing. "Spring up, O well! Sing about it, about the well that the princes dug, that the nobles of the people sank--the nobles with scepters and staffs." Whereas they named the previous site "Meribah", signifying "rebellion," they just named this site "Beer," meaning "well." (Numbers 21:16-18)

Do the Israelites seem superstitious? Why would they have the nobles and princes of the people dig a well, which apparently wasn't fully effective, and then sing to it to release the ground water into the well? Who could possibly believe that such an approach could be effective? Yet God had spoken, and the positive energy that resulted from their song enabled another miracle to take place. My guess is, the nobles and princes were the ones who roused their clans into rebellion. It was they who had to turn the tide by obeying the word of God through Moses. They had to take positive action. The Israelites couldn't afford a bunch of elitist whiners as leaders.

Never say never. Yesterday my husband and I watched a beautiful documentary about the fall of the Soviet Union. (Today you can learn more about this marvelous event at singingrevolution.com) It began with a song! The Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian people were all caught between incursions of the Germans during the war and the Russians afterward. Their occupation seemed endless, and the men and women who disappeared numbered in the thousands. Some were sent to German concentration camps, or to Siberia, while others were just shot. Life under the Soviets was that of repression and ridiculous propaganda. First, there was the original attempt to kill off the leadership and intelligentsia, then to crush and destroy the language and culture. The one Estonian tradition that did not die was the annual song fest where thousands of Estonians would gather to sing. Some of the songs were patriotic. They seemed to have an almost magical ability to fan the flames of hunger for national identity and freedom. I recall many of these events taking place in the 80's, but I never put them together in context. I had no idea the brave and amazing bid for independence that was made by these non-violent people, who had no weapons, no jets, no bombs, no terrorist philosophy, and no political clout. Only their courage, their inspiring festival, AND an amazing unity amongst themselves.

Their situation was complicated by a plan as old as ancient Assyria in the 8th century BC. Move the native people out and replace them with your own. Then claim that those people need the protection of their own government. A further excuse for continued occupation and/or expansion of national borders.

"The Singing Revolution shares how, between 1987 and 1991, hundreds of thousands of Estonians gathered publicly to sing forbidden patriotic songs and share protest speeches, risking their lives to proclaim their desire for independence. While violence and bloodshed was the unfortunate end result in other occupied nations of the USSR, the revolutionary songs of the Estonians achored their struggle for freedom, which was ultimately accomplished without the loss of a single life." singingrevolution.com/about/

Rent (or buy or stream) the video and watch it! But ladies, have a box of kleenex nearby. We sent our soldiers to Vietnam with guns, planes and chemical weapons because we feared that if Vietnam fell there would be a domino effect which would sweep all of Southeast Asia into the communist net. In the case of Estonia, the dominoes fell the other way without a shot being fired. With the moderate and progressive leader Mikael Gorbachav playing a key role, the Soviet Union fell in a very short time. Nation after nation declared independence, including Russia itself.

Please don't tell me that the Old Testament stories are just silly legends. Estonia sang to the well of Freedom, and God gave them water.

You can learn more about the history of Estonia here.

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