Seventh day of Pessah

MIRIAM, THE PROPHETESS, AARON'S SISTER, TOOK A TIMBREL IN HER HAND, AND ALL THE WOMEN CAME OUT AFTER HER WITH TIMBRELS AND WITH DANCES. AND MIRIAM CALLED OUT TO THEM, SING TO THE LORD, FOR VERY EXALTED IS HE; A HORSE AND ITS RIDER HE CAST INTO THE SEA

 

Miriam, the prophetess... took When did she prophesy? When she was [known only as] "Aaron's sister," before Moses was born, she said, "My mother is destined to bear a son" [who will save Israel], (as is found in Sotah 12b, 13a). Another explanation: [It is written] Aaron's sister since he [Aaron] risked his life for her when she was afflicted with zara'at; [thus] she is called by his name.

(Rashi Shemot 15:20, Judaica Press translation)

 

And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took etc. The sister of Aaron and not the sister of Moses! - R. Amram said in the name of Rav, and according to others it was R. Nahman who said in the name of Rav: It teaches that she prophesied while she yet was the sister of Aaron only and said: "My mother will bear a son who will be the savior of Israel." When Moses was born, the whole house was filled with light; and her father arose and kissed her upon her head, saying "My daughter, your prophecy has been fulfilled"; but when they cast him into the river, her father arose and smacked her upon her head, saying: "Where, now, is your prophecy!" That is what is written: And his sister stood afar off to know what would be done to him (Shemot 2) - what would be the fate of her prophecy.

(Sotah 13a, Soncino translation)

 

Miriam, the prophetess... took - The Sages already said that Israel left Egypt thanks to the merit of pious women, for the women of that generation were more meritorious than the men, as it is written, My sister, my bride, is a locked garden. You must conclude that there were also women prophets at that time...

And Miriam called out to them - They said that it all happened thanks to their merit, and so they especially sang, because they had a part in the miracle.

(Malbim ad loc)

 

The Song of Songs - Concerning Shlomo

Benjamin Segal

The Song of Songs, read this day in many congregations, is arguably the greatest love poem ever written. We here address only one element thereof, and certainly not the most important.

By way of introduction, however, we must clarify basic understandings. While the Song may be profitably applied to love between man and God, it must first be appreciated on the level of direct meaning, the love of a man and a maid. In this essay, we shall concentrate on that level. The poem, written about Solomon (not by him), evidently derives from early second Temple times. It reflects the story of a young couple who constantly struggle against environment, including family, to be together.

Our concern here is a type of love which the lovers reject. Our understanding of their commitments has much to do with our understanding of that which they do not desire.

Throughout the Song, there is great concentration on what Buber called the leitwort - a term which guides the text. To quote Buber - "...a word or a root which is repeated within a text in a meaningful pattern... The variations... often intensify the dynamic effect of the repetition... The variation patterns interrelate to create a growing movement as it were. One viewing the text as a whole can sense waves moving to and fro between them." In describing the rejected view of love, the poet repeats a three-letter combination found in a number of terms: sh-l-m, as found in Solomon (Shlomoh), Jerusalem (Yerushalayim), Shulammite (see 7:1) and shalom (peace). Together, the terms appear eighteen times (equal to the uses of '-h-v "love"), and "Solomon" and the "Girls of Jerusalem," are each repeated seven times (a particularly meaningful number of repetitions in Biblical literature).

The tension is clearest in the final chapter: Solomon had a vineyard in Ba'al Hamon... My very own vineyard is before me (8:11) one of the lovers declares, the thousand is yours, O Solomon.. This implies competition, and rejection. Many have noted the less-than-subtle reference here to Solomon's one thousand wives (700 chief wives, 300 concubines - I Kings 11:3). Indeed by chapter eight "vineyard" represents the love relationship itself. The poem seems to reject Solomon's multiplicity of relationships, preferring the one.

This model of rejection also befits the "Girls of Jerusalem," occasionally partners in dialogue with the woman, sometimes a standard of beauty, and often a potential bother. Three times the woman adjures them to non-intervention (2:7; 3:5; 8:4).

Who are these Girls of Jerusalem? Their history is reflected only in 3:10, which indicates that Solomon's litter was inlaid with love by them. The words contain multiple levels of meaning, including the feelings of those doing the work ("lovingly wrought by..."), pictures of love-making engraved in the litter (So Jezebel decorated Ahab's chariot - Sanhedrin 39b), and possibly acts of love performed therein. The Girls, then, seem to be "experts" in matters of love, even on a "mass" basis. Such an understanding befits the Girls' presumed expertise in beauty (1:5f.) and helps explain the woman's fear of having them too near her lover. These are city girls, girls of a thousand loves, women of the court, possibly the same "maids" (6:8) grouped with the queens and concubines. Their efforts at intervention are constantly rejected. Verses 8:4,5 focus on the contrast. The Girls are adjured for a final time not to intervene, while in the very next verse the woman exults that she has successfully done what she told them not to do - she has roused her lover.

The dance of the Shulammite (6:11-7:9) further elucidates the implication of sh-l-m. Many commentaries have mistakenly equated the Shulammite with the beloved. The poet makes no such contention, and in fact indicates the opposite. In a vision, while semi-conscious, the male lover sees a dancing woman, a twirling figure. The body description is the reverse of all previous ones: beginning from the feet up, the description begins by using totally new terms, departing from previous style. Even the locale is totally different - all takes place amid the chariots of the nobility (6:12).

As the Shulammite dances, an onlooking crowd expresses its appreciation, its words eventually blending into those of the lover. Slowly, he begins to recall and use terms associated in the past with his beloved's body. Eventually, the identification with his beloved takes over, as all new terms are abandoned, and he finally recites a staccato list of descriptions used before. When he recalls her palate, symbol of the central kiss (see 1:2), she interrupts him, declaring their joint loyalty with a cry of joy (7:11) as she realizes that her lover's desires are specifically directed at her.

This, then, is a sexual fantasy, and certainly there is no better title for this vision than Shulammite, girl of the root sh-l-m. Once again we have a potentially competitive model, one based heavily on raw sex appeal, and a model that is, in the final analysis, rejected.

But is the model rejected? It is patently absurd to claim that the Song of Songs is either puritanical or prudish. Few works of literature have so successfully celebrated the rapture of physical love. Even the Shulammite is incorporated into the beloved!

Nevertheless, the world of sh-l-m is rejected in the Song of Songs. To understand, one must differentiate, as the Song does, between the type of relationship represented by sh-l-m on the one hand, and by the two lovers, on the other. The world of sh-l-m is a world of multiplicity of sexual relationships, of sex divorced from emotional love, devotion and/or commitment. It is a world of sex dances and a thousand "loves." The love ethos of the two lovers is other. They clearly prefer their own single relationship. All multiple numbers, from the doubling dance of the Shulammite to 60 to 80 to 1,000 to 10,000 are rejected in the Song. "One" is emphasized and praised.

The Song, then, while celebrating a sexual relationship, grants it full worth only in context, one which clearly is exclusive: My very own vineyard is before me. The thousand is yours, O Solomon.

Indeed, the previously cited allusion to Solomon's thousand wives in all probability inspired the poet in the choice of this symbol. There, in I Kings 11, it is stated that Solomon's wives led his heart astray (toward idolatry) in Jerusalem, and that Solomon's heart was not "completely" (shalem - fully devoted) with God. The author of Kings offers a daring pun - Solomon, Shlomoh, in Jerusalem, Yerushalayim, was not shalem, not complete. This is an example of antiphrasis, a rhetorical device using a word in a sense opposite to its proper meaning. (For a similar pun on Moses' name, see Numbers 14:44.) The poet of Song of Songs adopted that pun as an underlying theme.

Lest the internal repetition and the final rejection of Solomon not suffice to clarify matters for the reader, the poet took the precaution of articulating the guide-word for all to see. This, the poet declared, is the Song of Songs asher lishlomo, concerning Solomon (1:1), or, if one would prefer, concerning the world of sh-l-m. The poet's message is that this world is incomplete. At the end of the Song, that final rejection is followed only by the lovers' intention to be together in physical embrace.

In the understanding of both love relationships - human and divine - there are myriad lines of contemplation left by the Song, among them the necessity to reject societal approaches if one wishes to find true love, the failure of the establishment to set the right standards, the struggle implied to achieve true loyalty (whether monogamy or monotheism), and our own occasional backsliding and confusion as to what we desire. Not the least of the lessons is that what is labeled "complete" may be woefully not so.

This leads to one further verse, one of the most complex in the Song: Then (i.e., once before) I appeared in his eyes as (if I were) one who leads to shalom (8:10). In the text, the levels are so many that we cannot possibly cover them here. The Hebrew, a play on the well known phrase "find favor in one's eyes," implies a false impression in the past, while the use of "shalom" of the three letter negative root, is also in itself the greatest of positive words. Co-existent meanings range from a recollection of the Shulammite dance (its origin in her, his first reactions, or his later identification of the vision with her), a recollection of their first complete moments together which were not followed by a solution to all their difficulties, the problematic order of appeal - first physical but ultimately partial, et al. No prose can do justice to the multi-leveled, intertwining poetry.

For us, then there is one further lesson. Shalom - peace - is not a prose term but a poetic one (like many value concepts). Forever positive, it can briefly mislead or be misrepresented. The use of the term does not guarantee the essence of what is described. We search and seek that which is shalem, complete, that which is shalom, peace. Certainly there is no greater paean to insistent search than the Song of Songs, and no greater assurance of ultimate success. Still we are cautioned that values, often best expressed in poetry, are open to misrepresentation and false appearance. We must pursue, and we must be cognizant of our failings. With the help of the One whose name is Peace, we can pray for the day when peace will be achieved - a real peace, universally appreciated.

Rabbi Benjamin Segal is director of the upcoming (Sukkot) learning festival "Gateways," in Jerusalem. His commentary on the Song of Songs will be published toward the end of the secular year.

 

The Song of Songs - Holy of Holies

R. Akiva said: The whole world is not worth the day that the Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the Scriptures are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies.

R. Elazar ben Azariya said: To what can it be compared? To a king who brought a se'a of wheat to the baker and told him: "Make such and such a quantity of fine flour from it, such and such of bran flour (second-rate flour), such and such of coarse bran, and sift for me from it one measure of excellent, beautiful, flour. So too the Scriptures are holy and the Song of Songs the Holy of Holies. Se how the Holy One blessed be He praises Israel in it: You are beautiful my beloved, you are beautiful, you are beautiful in your deeds, you are beautiful in your ancestors' deeds, you are beautiful at home, you are beautiful in the field. "At home" - with the mezuzah, and you shall write them on the door posts of your house (Devarim 6). "In the field" - with the [agricultural gifts of] terumot and the tithes, the gleanings, forgotten sheaves, and corner of the field. You are beautiful - at home, you are beautiful - on the roof, for it says, When you build a new house make a railing for your roof (Devarim 22). You are beautiful in this world and you are beautiful in the World to come, You are beautiful my beloved

(Tanhuma (Warsaw edition) Tetzaveh 5)

 

What is the love of God that is befitting? It is love of the Eternal with a great and exceeding love, so strong that one's soul shall be knit up with the love of God, and one should be continually enraptured by it, like a love-sick individual, whose mind is at no time free from his passion for a particular woman, the thought of her filling his heart at all times, when sitting down or rising up, when he is eating or drinking. Even more intense should be the love of God in the hearts of those who love Him. And this love should continually possess them, even as He commanded us in the phrase, with all your heart and with all your soul (Devarim 6:5). This, Solomon allegorically expressed in the sentence, for I am sick with love (Song of Songs 2:5). The entire Song of Songs is indeed an allegory descriptive of this love.

(RaMBaM Hilkhot Teshuva 10:3, Hyamson translation)

 

He gives great salvation to His king, and He performs kindness to His anointed; to David and to his seed, forevermore.

(II Samuel, 22 - from the haftara for the Seventh Day of Passover)

 

He gives great salvation to His king. When the holy One blessed be He performs kindness for David, heaven and earth rejoice, for it says, He gives great salvation to His king, and what is written afterwards? The heavens tell of God's glory. Similarly, when the Holy One blessed be He prepares David's throne, all rejoice, for it is said, I shall establish you seed forever, and what is written afterwards? And the heavens shall make your wonders known, O Lord. One verse has magdil [He gives great] and the other says migdol [There are two variants of the same verse in Scripture]. R. Yudan says: [What is magdil?] That the salvation of this nation does not arrive all at once, but rather increases and increases. What is migdol? That He makes King Messiah like a great tower [migdal], for is says, The name of the Lord is a tower of strength; the righteous runs to enter it and is raised up.

(Yalkut Shimoni II Samuel 164)

 

 

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