Feed the birds - Midrash

For the halacha portion of this shiur, see: Feed the birds - Halacha

As Rabbis begin to justify and then permit what their predecessors criticized, elaborate explanations and justifications are constructed. Regarding the custom of feeding birds on Shabbos Shira we are told that:

• The birds are fed as a way of thanking them for accompanying our ancestors when they sang the Song of the Sea (Aruch Hashulchan)
• Birds fly in the air, and so does song. So on the shabbos of singing we honor birds (Likutei Shoshanim)
• The birds undermined the men who tried to undermine God by putting out maan on Shabbos, a day when God said ma'an wouldn't fall. The birds defeated the plot by eating what the underminers had scattered around, so we thank them every year on Shabbos Shira (Rav Menachem Mendel of Rimnov)
• Feeding the birds reminds us the God feeds us. He scattered ma'an for us, so we scatter food for the birds. Or something like that. (Ohr P'nei Moshe)

What seems obvious here is that no halachic process was employed to create this custom. Pleasant as it is to pretend otherwise, the Rabbis never gather around the wisdom table to address the needs and failings of new generations by inventing new customs. What they do is look at the things people are already doing and create rationales. Thus we are told that upshurin, a straight lifting of the Muslim Aqeeqah ceremony (video below: note the balloons and bearded father.) is really and truly derived from the law against taking fruit from a tree for the first three years.

Sometimes (see Hasidut, history of) the Rabbis also took things that have already been justified and explained and authorized by their predecessors and revitalized them by introducing new, more appealing reasons. Thus we are told that the Arbah Minim, which were first explained (Vayikrah Rabba 30) as symbols of Jewish unity (ie all types of Jews join together to worship God), or symbols of individual unity (ie we use all of our organs and strengths to worship God) are really magical, spiritual antenna that channel divine energy into the world.

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