The words of Rabbi Akiva—”all Writings are sacred, yet Shir HaShirim is the Holy of Holies”—compel us to approach this Megillah with utmost reverence, as though he were the Kohen Gadol entering the Holy of Holies. As a key to understanding this song, I will employ the contrast between its images of love and those typically found—lehavdil, between the Holy of Holies and the mundane—in Western love stories.
The feminine figure common to Western tales of romance is typically marked by passivity. The prevailing narrative presents a woman awaiting her redemption. After trials and tribulations, she finds rest in the embrace of her beloved, hoping he will bestow upon her the grace of his affection.[1] The female character rarely undergoes personal development throughout the story; rather, she is revealed to the suitor, who must pass through various ordeals to reach his beloved. The plot is one of discovery, in which the active force is the male figure, while the woman’s principal role is to draw attention to her existence, in quiet anticipation of her salvation.
The plot is one of discovery, in which the active force is the male figure, while the woman’s principal role is to draw attention to her existence, in quiet anticipation of her salvation
Shir HaShirim, by contrast, presents an entirely different feminine protagonist. The narrative of Shir HaShirim is not that of the Dod (the lover) redeeming his beloved from distress, but rather the tale of a Ra’ayah (the beloved) who takes initiative. She discovers her own world, her own flourishing, the blossoming of her womanhood, and takes her fate into her own hands.
As our Sages teach, Shir HaShirim reflects the relationship between Hashem and His people. The love story between the Ra’ayah and the Dod mirrors the relationship between Am Yisrael (the Ra’ayah) and HaKadosh Baruch Hu (the Dod). In what follows, I wish to turn the spotlight upon the role of the Ra’ayah in this divine relationship, as it emerges from Shir HaShirim, and through it to cast fresh light on the concepts of Geulah (redemption) and Teshuvah (repentance).
It is we who must return to Him, lifting ourselves from numbness and estrangement, assuming responsibility for our collective and personal well-being, and reawakening His love for us
We do not await our Redeemer to seize us with a mighty hand and impose His presence upon us, thereby dissolving all our troubles. On the contrary, the process of Geulah is one of our own maturation—we, the Ra’ayah, within the context of this eternal love story. We hope to find our place, to merit flourishing and strength beneath the wings of Hashem. Yet, He does not do this on our behalf. It is we who must return to Him, lifting ourselves from numbness and estrangement, assuming responsibility for our collective and personal well-being, and reawakening His love for us.
Three Encounters, Three Weeks
Shir HaShirim describes three meetings between the Ra’ayah and the Dod, through which we discern the Ra’ayah’s personal development. In the first, the Ra’ayah invites the Dod into her garden. In the second, they meet outdoors. In the third, it is the Ra’ayah herself who brings the Dod to their meeting.[2]
In the first instance, not long after their love has begun to blossom, the couple meets in the garden. The Dod voices his frustration over the inaccessibility of his beloved’s inner world: “A locked garden is my sister, my bride; a locked spring, a sealed fountain” (4:12).
The frightened Ra’ayah, enclosed within herself, summons the courage to open her garden. Yet even in this, she turns to the winds to breathe life into her garden’s fragrances: “Awaken, O north wind; and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden, let its spices flow.” She then invites the Dod, yet the invitation is qualified: “Let my beloved come to his garden and eat its choicest fruits” (Shir HaShirim 4:16). The delighted Dod exults: “I have come to my garden, my sister, my bride; I gathered my myrrh with my spices, I ate my honeycomb with my honey, I drank my wine with my milk. Eat, O friends; drink and become intoxicated, O lovers” (5:1).
From this, and from what follows, we learn that the invitation to the garden is a passive one—“Let my beloved come to his garden.” The Ra’ayah herself struggles to admit she desires him. It is a hurried act, born of anxiety, and ending likewise in hesitation. She has not yet learned to acknowledge or embrace her femininity, nor to own her longing for her beloved.
Indeed, the experience proves overwhelming. She recoils inward, and when the Dod knocks at her door on the following night, she remains asleep, though her heart is awake. He pleads ardently: “Open to me, my sister, my companion, my dove, my perfect one!” (5:2), but she cannot bring herself to rise and let him in, leaving him alone in the night.
[W]hereas in three other moments she adjures the daughters of Yerushalayim not to awaken love before its time, now, in her desperation, she pleads with them to do precisely that
When her spirit revives and she gathers her strength to open the door—“I rose to open for my beloved”—it is too late: “My beloved had turned and gone. My soul failed when he spoke. I sought him, but did not find him; I called him, but he gave no answer” (5:6). She roams the streets, distraught. The city’s watchmen, mistaking her grief for madness or licentiousness,[3] strike her. And whereas in three other moments she adjures the daughters of Yerushalayim not to awaken love before its time, now, in her desperation, she pleads with them to do precisely that: “I adjure you, O daughters of Yerushalayim, if you find my beloved, what will you tell him? That I am lovesick!” (5:8)
Following this sense of loss, the Ra’ayah begins to awaken to her own femininity and longing. Her garden comes to life. She tells the daughters of Yerushalayim: “My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the beds of spice…” and she adds: “I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine — he who grazes among the lilies” (6:1–2). The Dod, after having been rejected, tentatively returns to inquire whether something within her has changed: “I went down to the walnut grove, to see the blossoms of the valley, to see whether the vine had budded, whether the pomegranates had blossomed” (6:11).
The Ra’ayah is no longer closed off in fear. She no longer trembles before her own femininity or the Dod’s desire
The second meeting is fundamentally different. The Ra’ayah is no longer closed off in fear. She no longer trembles before her own femininity or the Dod’s desire. She now responds to his pursuit and even takes initiative. She declares: “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is upon me” (7:11), and immediately turns to him with an invitation: “Come, my beloved, let us go out to the field, let us lodge in the villages. Let us rise early to the vineyards; let us see whether the vine has blossomed, whether the flower has opened, whether the pomegranates have budded” (7:12–13).
Her wish to descend with him to the fields and vineyards—to see whether the vine has flowered and the pomegranates have bloomed—clearly echoes the once-locked garden. The garden that the Dod had longed to explore, she now offers openly. She hopes they will find it fertile and flourishing, and concludes: “There I will give you my love” (7:13). She no longer waits for his entreaties. No longer does she announce that he has come to his garden. On the contrary, she gives him her love. In other words, she brings her own desire into the fields.[4]
Indeed, this is what unfolds: “The mandrakes yield fragrance, and at our doors are all kinds of precious fruits, new and old—which I have stored up for you, my beloved” (7:14). The spring is in full bloom. The fruits of love, the duda’im,[5] give off their scent, and all the other delights of the orchard lie ready. “Come and see, my beloved, what I have saved for you.” Once awakened, the Ra’ayah’s desire is not easily extinguished. It grows with intensity. She seeks him everywhere, in the city streets and the home of her youth: “O that you were as my brother, who nursed at my mother’s breast! I would find you in the street, I would kiss you—and none would scorn me. I would lead you, bring you to my mother’s house, you would teach me; I would give you spiced wine to drink, the nectar of my pomegranates” (8:1–2).
And yet, she still senses that the time has not yet come for love to reach its fullness. Thus, once more, she turns to the daughters of Yerushalayim and reproaches them: “I adjure you, O daughters of Yerushalayim: Why should you arouse or awaken love before it desires?” (8:4). Twice before (2:7; 3:5) she had said the same: “Do not awaken or arouse love until it desires.” And now again she wonders how they could allow her love to be stirred before its time.
But at the third and final encounter, the Ra’ayah neither closes her garden nor hesitates before the Dod. This time, she herself stirs his desire: “Who is this rising from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?” She then says: “Under the apple tree I awakened you; there your mother conceived you, there she who bore you was in labor” (8:5). She brings her beloved to the tree of his birth, the cradle of his childhood, there to awaken his love.
We thus witness the full arc of the Ra’ayah’s journey: from the shy, hesitant girl at the beginning of the song, confused and fearful before her own femininity, to the powerful woman at its end
We thus witness the full arc of the Ra’ayah’s journey: from the shy, hesitant girl at the beginning of the song, confused and fearful before her own femininity, to the powerful woman at its end: a Ra’ayah conscious of her desire, unafraid to kindle the desire of her Dod.
Three times (2:7; 3:5; 8:4) she adjures the daughters of Yerushalayim: “Do not awaken or arouse love until it desires.” Each time, she feels love is coming too soon, before she is ready to meet it. Only once, when she feared the Dod would never return, does she implore them to awaken it. Three times—and no more. For after the third, she turns to her Dod and demands: “Place me like a seal upon your heart, like a seal upon your arm—for love is as fierce as death, passion as harsh as the grave; its flames are flames of fire, a mighty blaze of Hashem” (8:6). And she declares that love, once awakened, cannot be quenched: “Many waters cannot extinguish love; rivers cannot sweep it away. If a man were to offer all the wealth of his house for love—he would be utterly scorned” (8:7).
At the song’s opening, it is the Dod who leads the lovers’ game, calling the Ra’ayah to emerge from hiding: “Arise, my beloved, my fair one, and come away. My dove in the clefts of the rock, in the hiding places of the cliff—let me see your face” (2:13–14). So, too, in the final verse, the Ra’ayah takes the lead, directing the lovers’ game and calling to her Dod: “Flee, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young stag upon the mountains of spices” (8:14).
Three Vineyards
At the very beginning of Shir HaShirim, we encounter—almost in passing—the Ra’ayah’s vineyard. She expresses her frustration that the sons of her mother have forced her to guard their vineyards, to the point that her skin has darkened under the harshness of the sun, while her own vineyard she has been unable to tend: “Do not gaze upon me because I am dark, because the sun has scorched me. My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards—but my own vineyard I did not keep” (1:6). The Ra’ayah finds herself trampled underfoot by her brothers, devoting her life to a cause not her own, while her own inner world lies untended and neglected.
[O]ver time and under her beloved’s protection, the Ra’ayah has found the courage to cast off her brothers’ burdens, to claim her independence, to cease darkening herself in the sun tending their fields
As the love between the Ra’ayah and her Dod deepens, and the seasons turn, we encounter another vineyard: “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes, that ruin the vineyards, for our vineyards are in blossom” (2:15). This time, we are no longer speaking of the vineyards of her brothers, but of “our vineyards” — the shared vineyard of the Ra’ayah and her Dod. Implicit here is that, over time and under her beloved’s protection, the Ra’ayah has found the courage to cast off her brothers’ burdens, to claim her independence, to cease darkening herself in the sun tending their fields. She begins to guard her own vineyard, protecting it from the foxes that ruin the vines. And behold!—the vines are already in blossom.
This point is worthy of careful note. She does not say “my vineyard is in blossom”, but “our vineyards” — she includes the Dod in ownership and responsibility. She is not yet confident enough to believe she is tending her vineyard entirely on her own. It remains a shared enterprise, held in the safety of his partnership.
By the song’s end, however, the Ra’ayah boldly proclaims that the vineyard is hers. Moreover, it has yielded fruit of greater worth than even the finest vineyard of King Shlomo: “Shlomo had a vineyard at Ba’al Hamon; he gave the vineyard to caretakers—each would bring for its fruit a thousand silver coins. My vineyard, which belongs to me, is before me; the thousand are for you, Shlomo, and two hundred for the keepers of its fruit” (8:11–12). While Shlomo’s best vineyard at Ba’al Hamon[6] produced a harvest worth a thousand silver pieces, her vineyard has borne fruit worth twelve hundred. Not only does she no longer darken in the sun guarding her brothers’ vineyard, but she no longer even needs to tend her own: she is able to hire well-paid guardians.
Now, she is no longer hesitant or unsure. She dares to refer to the vineyard as “my vineyard”. She is no longer entangled with her brothers’ vineyard, nor even with “our vineyard”, shared with the Dod. It is hers alone.
Shir HaShirim does not portray a story of passive romance, in which a helpless girl is discovered and sheltered by her lover
Thus, Shir HaShirim does not portray a story of passive romance, in which a helpless girl is discovered and sheltered by her lover. Rather, it traces a process of maturation, a journey from confused and timid love toward one that desires and asserts itself,[7] a journey in which the woman finds her own place through the love story. She finds her own vineyard.
The story does not end with the Ra’ayah reclining forever beneath the wings of her Dod, waiting and hoping for him to bestow his grace and occasionally awaken her desire. On the contrary, she learns how to stir his love and longing, and how to meet it. She departs from his embrace repeatedly to tend her vineyard and bring forth worthy fruit. In this process of love and self-discovery, the Ra’ayah gains the ability to take responsibility for her life and her prosperity, including her economic flourishing.
“We Have a Little Sister”
Shir HaShirim also speaks of the Ra’ayah’s physiological development: over the course of the narrative, she transforms from a girl into a woman. Numerous verses liken her bodily maturation to the blossoming of the vine and the blooming of the field trees, such as: “I went down to the walnut grove, to see the budding of the valley, to see whether the vine had blossomed, whether the pomegranates had bloomed” (6:11). Likewise, “Come, my beloved, let us go out to the field, let us lodge in the villages. Let us rise early to the vineyards, let us see whether the vine has blossomed, whether the blossoms have opened, whether the pomegranates have budded” (7:12–13).
Yet, near the end of the song, we find a curious passage, seemingly disconnected from the rest: “We have a little sister, and she has no breasts. What shall we do for our sister on the day she is spoken for? If she is a wall, we will build upon her a tower of silver; but if she is a door, we will enclose her with a panel of cedar. I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers—then I was in his eyes as one who finds peace” (8:8–10). Who are the speakers here? Who is the little sister? And who responds with the words, “I am a wall”?
Earlier in the song, the Ra’ayah laments the behavior of her brothers—the sons of her mother: “My mother’s sons were angry with me; they made me keeper of the vineyards” (1:6). It is reasonable to assume that these same maternal brothers—those who once scorned her capabilities,[8] her independence, and her beauty, compelling her to tend their vineyards instead of her own—are now the ones who, with such ‘noble’ concern, express anxiety over her future marriage prospects. “We have a little sister, and she has no breasts”—our sister is late in her development. “What shall we do for our sister on the day she is spoken for?” Who, indeed, will wish to marry her? Their supposed concern for their sister is thus not as magnanimous as it seems, for its root lies in disdain.
Their proposed solution: “If she is a wall, we will build upon her a tower of silver; but if she is a door, we will enclose her with a panel of cedar.” That is, let us adorn her with garments, perfumes, and silver trinkets to mask the lack of bodily maturity, so that no one might notice. They use two metaphors to describe their sister: a wall and a door. And it appears they speak in descending order of hope: if, surprisingly, she proves to be a wall, we will build… but if, as we fear, she is merely a door, then we shall barricade her. Not only do the brothers belittle her physical development, but they also underestimate her beauty and strength.[9]
[S]uddenly and decisively, their ‘little’ sister discovers within herself her love, her vineyard’s flourishing, and her bodily maturity
But suddenly and decisively, their ‘little’ sister discovers within herself her love, her vineyard’s flourishing, and her bodily maturity. And here is her response to their words: “I am a wall.” I am not a door, as you imagined me. I am strong and noble as a wall. “And my breasts are like towers.” They have developed fully—they are no longer lacking. “Then I was in his eyes as one who finds peace.” That is, even though I compare myself to a wall—in strength, in dignity, in guardedness—and my breasts to towers, both images evoking fortitude and even militancy, nevertheless, in the eyes of my Dod (whom you do not know) I appeared as “one who finds peace.”
In a few, well-placed words, she tells her brothers two things at once: First, that she does not require their disingenuous concern about her marriage; she has found her love on her own. And second, that her Dod, far from being put off by her strength, far from finding her flourishing or maturity threatening, sees in them the very embodiment of Shalom—peace.
Itaruta de-Letata – Awakening from Below
Shir HaShirim reflects the inner journey of the Ra’ayah, her maturation and empowerment. She begins as a young girl following her beloved through a barren wilderness, clinging to him and expecting that he will solve all her problems. But by the end, she has become a mature woman, one who takes responsibility for her destiny.
Returning to the nimshal—to the people of Israel and their relationship with Hashem—Shir HaShirim portrays the spiritual maturation of the nation. Their original condition is one of a helpless babe, as described in Yechezkel: “I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, and I said to you: ‘In your blood, live!’ and I said to you: ‘In your blood, live!’” (Yechezkel 16:6). The tone of their complaints to Moshe and Hashem reflects their dependency: “Why did you bring us up from Egypt?” (Bamidbar 20:5); “Would that we had died in this wilderness!” (Bamidbar 14:2). Yet, from such humble beginnings they move toward spiritual maturity and wholeness. Toward becoming a people capable of eternal love for their Divine Beloved, a people who can stir Hashem’s love and desire through their own initiative and take full responsibility for their kerem—for their destiny.
If we conceive of Geulah as a passive state, a waiting for salvation that requires no active engagement, then we remain stuck in an adolescent posture, far from redemption
If we conceive of Geulah as a passive state, a waiting for salvation that requires no active engagement,[10] then we remain stuck in an adolescent posture, far from redemption. And before long, we find ourselves, like the Ra’ayah, saying: “They made me keeper of the vineyards—but my own vineyard I did not keep” (1:6). We fall into patterns of dependency, replacing agency with complaint, growth with frustration. Instead of shaping reality in accordance with our aspirations, we forfeit opportunities again and again, becoming vulnerable to exploitation.
If, however, as a people, we desire to progress—to grow, to attain salvation and redemption, in both spiritual and material realms—then we must awaken. We must assume responsibility with strength of spirit, with wisdom, courage, action, and initiative, alongside prayer and hopeful anticipation of a higher awakening from above, one that responds to our itaruta de-letata—our awakening from below.
Only in this way can we escape a perpetual state of exile and dependence, coming into a life of growth and the joy of effort, one that elicits a reciprocal outpouring of goodness from the Beloved. The very act of Am Yisrael rising to repair itself and the world under the sovereignty of Shakai is itself Geulah.
So we find in the Zohar haKadosh (Lech Lecha 88a–b):
Rabbi Yehudah opened: “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is upon me.” This verse has been explained, but note: it is through awakening from below that awakening from above is aroused. For nothing above awakens unless there is first a stirring below. And blessings from above do not descend unless there is something real to receive them. They do not rest upon a void. Come and see what is written: “I am my beloved’s, and his desire is upon me.” First: “I am my beloved’s” — only afterward: “his desire is upon me.” That is, I must first prepare a place for Him, and then He will respond in kind.
Regarding our current situation here in Israel, our contemporary embodiment of Shir HaShirim’s Ra’ayah has come a long way. And yet, we still have a long way to go.
[1] For example: the story of Cinderella, as retold by Charles Perrault in Histoires ou contes du temps passé, also known as Mother Goose Tales (1697). On the theme of passivity in the Cinderella story, see Colette Dowling, The Cinderella Complex: Women’s Hidden Fear of Independence.
[2] A significant part of the interpretive framework offered in this section was shared with me by my dear friend and teacher, Rabbi Yechiel Meir.
[3] The Rashbam explains: “They struck me and wounded me, for they suspected me: ‘You wander at night for lewdness or theft.’”
[4] See below, in the section Three Vineyards, for a further interpretation of the descent to the vineyard.
[5] See Bereishit 30:14; and the commentaries of Ramban and Seforno on the verse.
[6] A name connoting abundant fertility (Ba’al Hamon was also the name of a Phoenician deity associated with fecundity).
[7] Alluding to the phrase that appears in the three adjurations: “until it desires.”
[8] See Rashbam on that verse.
[9] Ibid.
[10] See Shabbat 31a.
