The Bird’s Nest

A nest for the bird
Between the trees,
And in the nest
Three little eggs.

And in each egg
Hush, do not wake
There sleeps
A tiny fledgling.

קֵן לַצִּפּוֹר
בֵּין הָעֵצִים,
וּבַקֵּן לָהּ
שָׁלֹשׁ בֵּיצִים.

וּבְכָל-בֵּיצָה
– הַס, פֶּן תָּעִיר –
יָשֵׁן לוֹ
אֶפְרוֹחַ זָעִיר.

This children's song is one of the most popular songs sung to babies and toddlers in Israel. Every daycare or preschool, you step into plays it often, and teachers use it to sing children to sleep. Growing up, it was one of the first songs I recall being sung to me, and when I became a mother I found myself singing it to my children as well.

This Hebrew song, originally a poem, was written in 1891 by an eighteen-year-old Jewish man from a small village in Ukraine. He was a young man who would later become Israel’s National Poet, and one of the most important literary figures in Jewish history during the 19th and 20th centuries — Hayim Nahman Bialik (1873-1934).

Bialik wrote many children’s songs, all of which are still endlessly sung to children today. But Bialik scholars speak of hidden layers, radical messaging, and multiple hidden meanings in his songs.

Bialik had a tough childhood to say the least. He was born into poverty. His father operated a small local pub and tended to the village’s drunk. Following the expulsion of the Jews from the village and their forced immigration to the nearby city of Zitomir, his father unexpectedly died, leaving Bialik’s mother with no means to care for their three children. Reluctantly, Bilalik’s mother entrusted his grandfather to care for him. His grandfather was a strict Torah scholar who neglected Hayim, subjecting him to constant abuse by the older children in the family.

Hayim was bright and talented. He was accepted to the most important Yeshiva in Lithuania, the Volozhin Yeshiva, led by Rabbi Naftali Zvi Yehuda Berlin, also known as the Natziv. But soon, Bilalik’s imaginative, artistic, and rebellious spirit attracted him to secular writings, philosophy, and poetry. Gradually he left the Jewish Orthodox world behind.

Some scholars view the Bird’s Nest as an expression of longing for a protected childhood that Bialik never had. This may be true, but a few details in the song suggest otherwise.

Our Torah portion this week, Ki Tetze, contains the following commandment:
 

כִּ֣י יִקָּרֵ֣א קַן־צִפּ֣וֹר ׀ לְפָנֶ֡יךָ בַּדֶּ֜רֶךְ בְּכׇל־עֵ֣ץ ׀ א֣וֹ עַל־הָאָ֗רֶץ אֶפְרֹחִים֙ א֣וֹ בֵיצִ֔ים וְהָאֵ֤ם רֹבֶ֙צֶת֙ עַל־הָֽאֶפְרֹחִ֔ים א֖וֹ עַל־הַבֵּיצִ֑ים לֹא־תִקַּ֥ח הָאֵ֖ם עַל־הַבָּנִֽים׃

שַׁלֵּ֤חַ תְּשַׁלַּח֙ אֶת־הָאֵ֔ם וְאֶת־הַבָּנִ֖ים תִּֽקַּֽח־לָ֑ךְ לְמַ֙עַן֙ יִ֣יטַב לָ֔ךְ וְהַאֲרַכְתָּ֖ יָמִֽים׃ {ס}         

“If, along the road, you chance upon a bird’s nest, in any tree or on the ground, with fledglings or eggs and the mother is sitting over the fledglings or on the eggs, do not take the mother together with her young. Let the mother go, and take only the young, in order that you may fare well and have a long life.”

This commandment instructs us to be compassionate toward the mother bird whose eggs we are about to take for ourselves. It informs us that we need to encourage the mother bird to fly away so that she does not witness her eggs being taken. The commandment ends with a reward — a promise for wellbeing and long life. There is only one other commandment in the Torah that promises this reward, which is, to honor your mother and father.

A famous story from the Jerusalem Talmud in Masechet Chagigah, tells the story of Acher (the other), who was a Torah scholar and teacher called Elisha Ben Abuya.

One day, Elisha witnessed the following heart-wrenching incident: A father saw a bird’s nest and asked his son to go and fulfill the mitzvah for the bird’s nest; to make the mother bird fly away. The son climbed the tree to do so, but on the way down he was bitten by a snake and died.

The child simultaneously fulfilled not one, but both Torah commandments, that would reward him with wellbeing and a long life, yet he died immediately after fulfilling them. 

Witnessing this incident caused Elisha Ben Abuya to leave the Jewish religion and belief in the Jewish God behind.

When considering how to interpret Bialik’s Bird’s Nest poem, an immediate question comes to mind: Why is the name of the poem “Ken Tzipor” — a bird's nest, and not “Ken LaTzipor” — a nest for the bird, as it states in the first line? One answer may be that this is a reference to our portion’s commandment, which describes the nest as  “Ken Tzipor.”

Bialik was obviously very familiar with this biblical text, and in his own way may have found Elisha Ben Abuya’s sentiment in himself.

Dr. Harel Primack, in an article which was published in Ha’aretz newspaper in 2022, suggests that Bialik, in his poem, rebels against the Jewish religion by commanding the opposite of the Torah.

The Torah instructs us to make the mother bird fly away which is usually done by making a lot of noise. However, Bialik’s poem says, one should be very quiet, “hush” to not awaken, in other words, to not make the mother fly away. 

I tend to agree with Primack’s assessment, based on what is perhaps one of the most famous Israeli children’s poems written by Bialik.
If you go to any playground in Israel and see parents with their kids enjoying a seesaw, you’ll hear them singing it:

Up and down, up and down,
Down and up, up and down!
What is up above?
What is down below? –
Just you and I,
You and I;
The two of us balanced
On the scales
Between the earth
And the sky.

ךנַד, נֵד, נַד, נֵד
רֵד, עֲלֵה, עֲלֵה וָרֵד!
מַה לְמַעְלָה?
מַה לְמַטָּה? –
רַק אֲנִי,
אֲנִי וָאָתָּה;
שְׁנֵינוּ שְׁקוּלִים
בַּמֹּאזְנַיִם
בֵּין הָאָרֶץ
לַשָּׁמַיִם.

 What is up above? What is down below? Just you and I, You and I.