Musical Healing

So it came about whenever the [evil] spirit from God came to Saul, David would take the harp and play it with his hand; and Saul would be refreshed/re-expanded and be well, and the evil spirit would depart from him.

Three things restore a person’s mind - [good] sounds, [good] sights, and [good] smells . . .

They returned from Egypt, and the children of Jacob went to Canaan, in joy and gladness, to Jacob, their father. They came to the border of the land, saying to each other, “What should we do with this matter, before our father? If we come to him suddenly, and recount what happened, he will be so shocked that he won’t be able to bear hearing [more] from us.”

So they kept traveling until close to their homes and found Serach bat Asher, who was coming out to greet them. This young woman was exceptionally wise, and she knew how to play a harp. They called to her, and she came and kissed them. They took her with them, gave her a harp, and said, “Please go to our father, sit before him, play this harp, and speak these words to him . . .”

They directed her to go to their home, take her harp, and hurry back to them, to come and sit before Jacob. The harp was lovely as she played and said, with soothing speech, “Beloved Joseph is alive, ruling over the whole of Egypt. He did not die!”

She continued to play, saying these things; Jacob [was able to] hear her words, a sweetness for him. He heard her words again, then a third time, and joy entered his heart due to the gratifying nature of her words. The spirit of G-d came upon him, and he knew all her words were true. Jacob blessed Serach with these words [of his own], “My daughter, death will never rule over you, eternally, for you have revitalized my spirit.”

And so you find that in the moment that David came to dig the foundations of the Beit HaMikdash he dug down fifteen hundred cubits and didn’t find the tehom (abyss), but in the end, he found a single clay vessel and wanted to throw it. It said to him, “You can’t [throw me].”

David said, “Why not?”

It said, “I’m here to hold down the Tehom.”

David said, “And since when have you been here?”

It said, “From the moment that the Compassionate One’s voice was heard at Sinai proclaiming, ‘I am YHVH your G-d,’ the land trembled and sank and I was put here to restrain the tehom.”

Even so, David didn’t listen to it. When he threw it up, the tehom started rising and threatened to flood the world . . .

So David started to sing songs—the Shir HaMa’alot, a song for one hundred stairs—and for each song he sang, the Tehom receded back to its original position...

It’s good for a person to accustom himself to reviving himself with a nigun, because Nigun is a powerful and mighty tool, and it has the great strength to awaken a person and point his heart towards the Blessed Name. And even one who doesn’t know how to play music [or sing out loud] can sing to himself and through that revive himself. For the “lift” of a nigun cannot be measured.

[Rebbe Nachman of Breslov]