Tucked away on the top shelf in our closet is a box filled with writings. There are 5 journals from high school through college, assorted poems, and musings from over the years, a few drawings, and a couple of envelopes stuffed with letters sent by Steve from the summer before we got married. I was at home having knee surgery and he was working at camp. The only way to describe them is to call them what they are: love letters.
I haven’t opened the box except perhaps when we moved a little over 2 years ago for a cursory glance through writings that span over 50 years. Perhaps someday my kids or grandkids will wonder what my life was like. They can open it and get a pretty good idea of who I was, what I did, what was important to me, and, thanks to the love letters, how their father or grandfather felt about me when we weren’t together. We were definitely in love–still are.
Yesterday was the Intermediate Shabbat for Pesach. It’s the Sabbath that falls, as the name implies, in the middle of the week of Passover. Interestingly enough, the traditional reading for that Sabbath is from the Song of Songs, Shir Hashirim, a love poem usually attributed to Solomon. It is an intensely descriptive and personal poem about two lovers. Also included is a chorus referred to as “the daughters of Jerusalem.” As the poet professed her love, the chorus alternately encourages their love and sometimes urges restraint. Some synagogues read the entire book, all 8 chapters, as part of the service. Others read, as we did, an excerpt from chapters 1 and 2. Still other congregations prefer to sprinkle selected verses as individual but connected poems throughout the service.
The poem is written from the perspective of the woman, first imagining her lover and speaking of him in the third person. Over the course of the verses and chapters, her dream becomes intense and she addresses him as if he were present. In some of the verses, the two are very close, hugging, kissing, and holding each other, while at other times, they are hidden from one another.
As I said, it is an intensely personal poem that seems somewhat of a misfit in biblical writings. The famed medieval scholar Rashi joins most other commentators in stating that the book is more than a transcript of the love between a man and a woman. Rather it is understood that the book is really an allegory for the relationship between God and Israel. Rashi wrote an introduction to Shir Hashirim in which he described the distance between the lovers as the effects of Jewish exile and the dream of being reunited once again through God’s gracious redemption.
Maimonides wrote about Shir Hashirim in this way:
“What is the appropriate love of God? It is that you should love God so powerfully that your soul is bound up with the love of God and is constantly captured by it, as if one were sick with lovesickness, as when your consciousness is not freed from the love of your beloved but you think of your beloved at all time: when you lie down and when you rise up, when you are eating and when you are drinking. The love of God should be even more than this in the hearts of Godlovers; it should be present constantly, as we are commanded: ‘You shall love Adonai, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul.’ This is what Solomon expressed metaphorically, saying ‘For I am sick with love.’ The entire Song of Songs is an allegorical description of this love.”1
The entire book of Shir Hashirim is meant to compare the ups and downs of a romantic relationship to the ups and downs of the relationship between Israel and God. Over the centuries, Israel has been unfaithful starting immediately after the giving of the Torah when they turned to a golden idol rather than lean on the one who had very recently rescued them from slavery. Israel has lost and found God again and again. The poem provides an allegory that points to the spiritual fulfillment we find in relationship with God through its powerful portrayal of the physical love between two lovers.
In Shir Hashirim 8:1, we find a different relationship that points to two brothers. “O, that you were like my brother, who sucked my mother’s breasts! I would find you outside, I would kiss you, and they would not despise me.” This verse points back to the two golden cherubs perched atop of the Ark of the Covenant as described in Exodus 25:20 where it says, “The cherubim shall have their wings spread upwards, shielding the ark cover with their wings, with their faces each one to his brother.”
It is said that when the Jewish people were in close relationship with God, following His precepts and laws, the cherubim could be seen with their wings wrapped around each other in love. When the Jewish people were separated from God through disobedience, the cherubim would literally turn their backs on one another.
The verse in Shir Hashirim where the brothers find each other outside and kiss, rightly points out that when we are farthest away from God, we fervently wish to be back in relationship with Him. We desire that our connection be as natural and comfortable as with a sibling. And when we are completely “on the outs” with the Almighty, that’s when we seek Him outside the steadiness of our relationship with Him. That’s when you kiss God.
The baseline of Judaic belief is not about a place in heaven, but about a relationship that is created and cultivated in this world. It’s not really a laundry list of dos and don’ts. Those 613 mitzvot aren’t about being perfect or securing a place by His side in the afterlife. Rather they are to be our response to the love we have for God, the One with whom we desire to be closely and eternally connected.
Over the nearly 50 years that Steve and I have been married, there have not always been pleasant times. We have not always seen eye-to-eye. We’ve had our fights, shouted things we likely regretted, even been unable to bear being in one another’s presence. However, what was always there was the knowledge that we loved and were loved by the other. The fact that we fought on occasion is perhaps proof of how much we cared about where we were. In every instance, when we were “on the outs,” one or the other came with apologies and professions of love. There was a kiss even when we were outside the perfect relationship we wanted.
When we are outside the parameters of a dedicated relationship, when we are caught up in the dreariness of every day–the soul-crushing job, the mortgage, regrets about yesterday, and worries for tomorrow–we are kissing God. That’s what Shir Hashirim says. “I would find you outside, I would kiss you.” It’s that moment in the day when your head drops and you pray for strength to keep going. It’s when you pray to God that you be able to hold your temper or be a little more patient that you have jumped out of the present, and given God a kiss. It’s not the most pious or spiritual ones who have this kind of relationship, the ones who stand in shul with their tallits over their heads, swaying and reciting all their prayers in Hebrew. It’s you, shuffling through your Siddur, looking for the words in the margin that might touch your heart. It’s you, suddenly struck by the words of the rabbi or a feeling that grabs your heart and won’t let go. That’s the one who finds God outside and kisses Him.
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1Maimonides, “For I am Sick with Love”, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Teshuvah 10:13
I Am My Father's Daughter 