Then Moshe Sang
BY MOSHE KATZ 
CEO
ISRAELI KRAV INTERNATIONAL

February 1, 2026, Israel

Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord:

“I will sing to the Lord,
    for he is highly exalted.
Both horse and driver
    he has hurled into the sea. Exodus Chapter 15

אָז יָשִׁיר מֹשֶׁה וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת הַשִּׁירָה הַזֹּאת לַיהֹוָה וַיֹּאמְרוּ לֵאמֹר, אָשִׁירָה לַיהֹוָה כִּי גָאֹה גָּאָה סוּס וְרֹכְבוֹ רָמָה בַיָּם.

Rabbi Asher the Cohen spoke, "The Song of the Sea" Shirt Ha Yam (Hebrew) where Moshe and the Children of Israel sing to God and offer praise for their miraculous delivery from certain death at the hands of the Egyptian army, begins with a long-debated and strange grammatical opening. This unusual grammatical tense has been the subject of debates among rabbis, linguists and scholars for centuries. The Hebrew reads, Az Yashir, and then Moshe Shall sing, but the text is referring to the past, as in...Yesterday, then Moshe shall sing, where if it refers to the past it should be "Then he sang", and if it reads "Then he shall sing", it should be referring to the future. Thus the use the future, but taken place in the past, is confusing and enigmatic. 

First, what is the text about? It is about how the great and powerful army of Pharoah of Egypt came to destroy the people of Israel but ultimately God showed himself to be a "Man of War", and all of the Egyptian chariots and horses ended up drowning in the sea. 

Rabbi Asher quoted ancient Hasidic sources that explained this strange use of language. The nation of Israel had gone through very difficult and challenging times. The forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, were promised great things by God; land, wealth, prestige, "to be a great nation", and yet none of this came to pass. Instead, all we had was slavery instead of freedom, degradation instead of glory, and living as despised foreigners in the land of other nation rather than the independent kingdom we were promised. The promise was not fulfilled, and it was natural to doubt the God that had made such empty promises. 

But then, when this miraculous moment arrived that the entire Egyptian army was tossed into the sea, and the Hebrews emerged safely on the other side, having walked on dry land through the sea, suddenly in retrospect it all made sense. Suddenly Moshe and the Children of Israel realized that all the suffering, all the setbacks, all the back breaking labor and humiliation, were all part of a great master plan. In order to become a great nation, they had first had to endure slavery, exile, foreign domination. This is not really a setback but part of the process of becoming great. A building process.

Thus, speaking about the past, the text reads, and then (in the past), when Moshe and Israel saw this great redemption, Then, they shall sing, in a future tense, then they shall sing because now it all makes sense. They can see the full picture. And then, once the picture and the plan become clear, at that moment they shall sing. It is speaking of events of the past but in the future, as then, once they understood, they shall sing. 

And this Rabbi Asher pointed out, is our own very lives, for the Bible is not stories of the past but lessons for the present. The reason these stories have been preserved for thousands of years is not for historians to study ancient history and piece together events and dates, but for us to reflect on our own lives and understand. Sometimes we go through hard times, and we become bitter and angry. But then we realize this was all designed to build us up and make us the people we are. We can look at a generation that had it too easy, a life of peaches and cream, and what became of them? Well, we see, a mixed-up confused group who can't tell right from wrong, up from down, dark from light. We look at the generations that had to work hard, suffer deprivation, fight wars, and we see people that appreciate every little thing and can survive hard times. For my grandfather in Hungary, dipping his toes in the river for just a moment was a great pleasure. Sadly he could not appreciate it for long as the pebbles from the Gentile children hit his head with the shouts of Zhid, Zhid, get the Jew! He was a man who never complained about hardships, served in World War Two, and served mankind for his entire life, lived on a meager salary, yet always gave to others, always with a smile and a twinkle in his eye, an appreciation for life. No bitterness despite years of hardship.

And I immediately saw the Krav Maga application here. At first you see the Fighting Stance, and then the Ginga step, and then the IKI Universal Block, and each step makes your head go...hmm, not so sure about all this. New participants, often masters from other styles, will express doubt, even challenge me. And I know, it is all different from what they are used to. But then, after a short period of training, if they are open-minded, there will come that moment, And THEN they shall sing, because then all the pieces will come together and it will all make sense. Each step, each technique that may have seemed strange at first, was part of a whole system, a holistic system that makes perfect sense, each move is fully integrated with the other moves. This is not a random collection of techniques from other styles, there is One Thread that runs through everything. But you only see this when you have all the pieces, the gun defense, the knife attack defenses, the knife threat defenses, the Universal Block, the Ginga, the Fighting Stance, the Combatives, and then you shall sing...

The Bible is relevant to our daily lives, and to our Krav Maga training. So we study, and we train! 

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Moshe Katz, 7th dan Black Belt, Israeli Krav Maga. Certified by Wingate Institute. Member Black Belt Hall of fame, USA and Europe.

Understand the Israeli Fighting Mentality - Israel a Nation of Warriors by Moshe Katz

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