How Israel Brought the Bible to Life at Eurovision

Have you also felt that we are living in biblical times? Wars, miracles, suffering, salvation. The stories, laments, prayers and realities from the pages of Tanach are fused with modern resonance.

Which brings us to Eurovision. Irreverent, certainly. Irrelevant, possibly. Irrevocably modern in music and in values. And yet this year, thanks to Yuval Raphael’s entry for Israel, irrefutably biblical. And it’s not just the verse from Shir HaShirim – although we’ll get to that.

The first song recorded in the Torah is sung after the Children of Israel cross the Reed Sea and watch the Egyptian army drown. Actually, there were two. Moshe and Miriam, two leaders, both sang songs of victory. And while Moshe’s is theologically significant, there is something palpably different – an X-Factor if you will – about Miriam’s entry.

“Miriam the Prophetess…took the tambourine in her hand”

Where did she get a tambourine from? The roots of Miriam’s song stem from her decision to pack one when rushing out of Egypt.

If Moshe’s song represented the immediacy of the transition from despair to victory, Miriam’s song symbolized a deep faith during a time of existential crisis. When she packed the tambourine, it was not clear if she, or the Israelites, would make it out alive.

For eight hours on 7 October, Yuval Raphael was closer to death than life. She pretended to be dead in a pile of murdered Israelis while Hamas terrorists continued their massacre. 19 months later, millions around the world heard her sing about life, light, love and dreams, ending with the words ‘Am Yisrael Chai’. Yuval’s song, like that of Miriam, symbolized the deepest faith at a time of existential crisis. And it was profoundly biblical.

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“And even if you say goodbye, you’ll always be around.” I imagine Yuval speaking to her friends at the Nova Festival, amid an unfolding tragedy, assuring them that they will not be forgotten.

“To lift me up and take me high, keep my feet close to the ground.” I hear the echoes of Yosef’s last request of his brothers: Lift up my bones from Egypt and take them with you on your journey to the Promised Land.

“Are you proud of me tonight? Dreams are coming true.” Now, Yuval is singing in Eurovision. But it’s not a carefree and trivial pop song. Her friends from Nova are standing beside her, just as Moshe carries Yosef’s bones with him as he leaves Egypt. They are not forgotten.

“I choose the light”…just as Moshe exhorted the people to choose life.

“Many waters cannot quench love; neither can the floods drown it.” Quoting Shir HaShirim, but echoing Hamas’ codename for 7 October, Al Aqsa Flood. A declaration to the world that, like all the enemies of the people of Israel, no flood can drown the Jewish people’s love for one another.

“Everyone cries, don’t cry alone”. Is there a more poignant, powerful expression of Jewish pain, solidarity and peoplehood than Yuval Raphael, a survivor who chose to live, singing these words at Eurovision? It is as if she spoke to the heart of every Jew around the world and gave them a deep, sorrowful, and yet hopeful, embrace. And as the sleeves of Yuval’s costume flowed into the Batman symbol, tears of Jews around the world flowed for Shiri, Ariel and Kfir Bibas, and all the victims of 7 October.

“Darkness will fade, all the pain will go by. But we will stay even if you say goodbye. A new day will rise…” These words recall the prophecy of Yechezkel, promising the rebirth of Israel from the valley of death, and the words of the Siddur, that a new light will rise over Zion.

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If Dana International and Netta Barzilai won Europe’s hearts by speaking to universal, modern trends, Yuval Raphael – and Eden Golan last year – won them by channelling age-old Jewish words, emotions and hopes.

“Lord, You brought me up from the grave, preserved me from going down into the pit.” (Tehillim 30:4)

After coming “eyeball to eyeball with the angel of death”, Rabbi Sacks describes the declaration of the State of Israel as being a “momentous affirmation of life”. And in a sea of antisemitic hate, Yuval Raphael rose from the pit to sing a song of life, of Jewish resilience and our eternal peoplehood. And the people of Europe appreciated it, loved it and voted for it.