The pattern repeats. Israel suffers, God rescues, and Israel sings. Then the singing stops, and the same behavior that caused the original suffering returns. The Holy One watches this cycle with something the midrash describes as patient exasperation: "When Israel finds itself in troubles and I deliver them, at that moment they shall sing a song" (Exodus 15:1). Moses and the children of Israel sang at the sea. David sang from his cave. But the singing that follows rescue must be followed by obedience — or it is only music.
Deuteronomy gave Israel a warning in advance: "And it shall be, when you find yourself in great distress and tribulation, this song shall bear witness against you" (Deuteronomy 31:21). The song is not just praise — it is evidence. It testifies to the rescue, to the gratitude, to the commitment. And when the commitment is broken, the song stands in the record as proof that Israel knew better. They had stood at the sea. They had sung. They had seen.
The rabbis were not cynical about this cycle. They were realistic. They taught that the instinct to return to old patterns is precisely what the yetzer hara, the evil inclination, exploits — the moment after rescue is the moment of maximum vulnerability, when the danger is past and the discipline required by crisis relaxes. Israel's history is the story of being repeatedly rescued from the consequences of this lapse. The Psalms of Ascent are, among other things, the songs of people who remember the pattern and are trying, this time, to break it.