BHBE Shir HaShirim Pesach 5780

R. Berekhiah in the name of R. Judah b. R. Ilai: “It is written, ‘And Moses led Israel onward from the Red Sea’” (Ex. 15:22): “He led them on from the . . . sea. “They said to them, ‘Moses, our lord, where are you leading us?’ “He said to them, ‘To Elim, from Elim to Alush, from Alush to Marah, from Marah to Rephidim, from Rephidim to Sinai.’ “They said to him, ‘Indeed, wherever you go and lead us, we are with you.’ “The matter is comparable to the case of one who went and married a woman from a village. He said to her, ‘Arise and come with me.’ “She said to him, ‘From here to where?’ “He said to her, ‘From here to Tiberias, from Tiberias to the Tannery to the Upper Market, from the Upper Market to the Lower Market.’ “She said to him, ‘Wherever you go and take me, I shall go with you...” Said R. Yose b. R. Iqa, “And lo, a verse of Scripture itself proclaims the same point: ‘Draw me, after you let us make haste.’”

(5) ... All sacred scriptures render the hands impure. The Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes render the hands impure. Rabbi Yehudah says: The Song of Songs renders the hands impure, but there is a dispute regarding Ecclesiastes. Rabbi Yose says: Ecclesiastes does not render the hands impure, and there is a dispute regarding The Song of Songs. Rabbi Shimon says: Ecclesiastes is among the [relative] leniencies of Beit Shammai, and the [relative] stringencies of Beit Hillel. Rabbi Shimon ben Azzai said, "I have a recieved tradition from the mouths of seventy-two elders, on the day they inducted Rabbi Elazar ben Azaria into his seat [as head] at the Academy, that The Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes render the hands impure." Rabbi Akiva said, "Mercy forbid! No one in Israel ever disputed that The Song of Songs renders the hands impure, since nothing in the entire world is worthy but for that day on which The Song of Songs was given to Israel; for all the Scriptures are holy, but The Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies! And if they did dispute, there was only a dispute regarding Ecclesiastes." Rabbi Yochanan ben Yehoshua, the son of Rabbi Akiva's father-in-law, said, "In accordance with words of Ben Azzai, thus did they dispute, and thus did they conclude."

(8) Behold, it is clearly indicated in the Torah and in the Prophets that the Holy One, blessed is He! is Incorporeal for it is said: "That the Lord, He is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath" (Deut. 4.39); a corporeal being is incapable of being in two places simultaneously; and it is also said: "For ye saw no manner of form" (Ibid.–15); and it is moreover said: "To whom will ye liken me, that I should be equal?" (Isa. 40,25); had He been corporeal He would be like other bodies.

(9) If so, wherefore is it written in the Torah, "And there was under his feet" (Ex. 24,10), "Written with the finger of God" (Ex. 31,18), "The hand of the Lord" (Ex. 9,3), "The eyes of the Lord" (Deut. 11, 12), "The ears of the Lord" (Num. 11,18) and more like expressions? All such terminology is in accordance with the conception of sons of man who cannot recognize aught but corporeal things, and the words of the Torah is like human speech, but they are all attributes; for example, it is said: "If I whet My glittering sword," (Deut. 32. 41.); Hath He a sword, or doth He slay with a sword? But it is a metaphor, so is all metaphorical. As testimony thereto, one prophet says that he saw the Holy One, blessed is He! "His raiment was as white snow" (Dan. 7,9), and another saw Him "With crimsoned garments from Bozrah" (Isa. 63,1); Moses our Master himself saw Him at the Red Sea "as a hero engaged in battle," (Ex. 15.3) and upon Sinai as "a garbed minister of a congregation (Ex. 19.19.), to say: He hath neither form nor image, but all is a vision of prophecy and a mirage, the absolute truth of the matter no human mind comprehends or is able to fathom it or penetrate it. It is even this what it says in Scripture: "Canst thou find out the deep things of God? Canst thou attain unto the purposes of the Almighty?" (Job. 11,7).

Rabbi Yochanan said, anyone who says words of Torah in public and they are not lovely to their hearers like a bride is lovely at her wedding, it would be better not to have said them. Reish Lakish said, anyone who says words of Torah and they are not lovely to their hearers like a bride is lovely to her husband at her wedding, it would be better not to have said them.

May my beloved come to his garden, the Torah teaches us derech eretz, that a groom should not go to the chuppah until the bride gives him permission, because it says, may my beloved come to his garden.

Sixty are the queens, Rabbi Chiya of Tziporen and Rabbi Levi interpret this as about the nations of the world...

God said one thing, I heard two. (Psalms 62:12). One text brings forth multiple meanings (Sanhedrin 34a). And in the end of things a text does not leave its context and meaning (pshuto umashmao), and even though the prophets spoke their words as a parable (dugma), it is necessary to explain the parable according to its nature and order, just as the texts are ordered one after the other. And I have seen for this book many aggadic interpretations. There are those who explain all this book in one midrash, and there are those scattered among various midrashim, and there are those that interpret individual texts and to not fit the language of the text and the order of the texts. And I said in my heart that to seize the meaning of the text to set the explanations in order, and I will make each midrash of our sages fit in its proper place.

And I say that King Solomon saw with the holy spirit that in the future the children of Israel will be exiled, exile after exile, destruction after destruction, and will mourn in this exile over their earlier honour and will remember the earlier love that they were a treasure above all other people (Exodus 19.5). They will say: I will go and I will return to my first husband, for it was better for me then than now (Hosea 2.9) And they will remember his kindness, and their betrayal that they betrayed (Lev. 26.40), and the goodness that He promised to give in the end of days.

And this book is based, by the holy spirit, in the metaphor of a woman bound in living widowhood (2 Sam. 20.3), longing for her husband, leaning on her beloved, remembering the love of her youth for him and admitting her sins. Her beloved is also suffering with her in her pain (Isaiah 63.9), and remembers the love of her youth and the beauty of her beauty, and the rightness of her deeds, that with them he was connected with her in a powerful love, so that she might know that he is not causing her suffering from his heart (Eicha 3.33) and her exile is not exile (Isaiah 50.1), for she is still his wife and he her husband (Hosea 2.4) and he will return to her.