Shabbat Gathering: Rescuing the erotic in The Song of Songs.
Dear Chevra, as is our custom, we will gather tonight at 5.45p ct to welcome Shabbat. Rabbi Laurie is unable to attend. These are the coordinates:
Zoom
Meeting ID: 963 5113 1550
Password: 1989
Phone: +1 312 626 6799
(To unsubscribe from the newsletter, click the link at the very bottom of this email.)
Here we go.
Wait! Before we start, Rabbi Rena Blumenthal gets a special shout out in this week’s newsletter. Jess and I took her class, For Love is Fierce as Death: Reading Song of Songs, and some of what I present below can be attributed to what I’ve learned in her class. My other sources are The Song of Songs translated by Ariel Bloch (highly recommended), and articles from theTorah.com.
The Song of Songs is a unique book in Tanakh. On the one hand, it’s a beautiful erotic poem. On the other hand, the rabbis in Talmud read it as an allegory about the relationship between Hashem and Israel, or Hashem and us individuals. The allegorical interpretation of the poem has cast a long shadow over the frankly erotic poem that's on the surface. Translators and interpreters have typically imposed the allegorical over the erotic so that what we read is “cleaned up” from the original. I think it might be time to rescue the erotic content.
How did it end up in Tanakh anyway?
No matter how hard we look, it’s hard to understand how Song of Songs ended up in Tanakh. The text doesn’t fit in with other poetry in Tanakh (Psalms / Tehillin). Like Esther, it doesn’t even mention Hashem. And, even if the rabbis imposed the allegory on Song of Songs before it was included in Tanakh, there’s still the plain meaning of the text that makes a first impression on the reader. There’s no way around it. As for me, I’m glad Song of Songs was included. I think it makes Tanakh more human.
A drinking song?
As early as Rabbi Akiva (50 CE - 135) we find out that the public celebrated the erotic content of the Song of Songs. It was being sung in taverns much to the delight of the patrons and much to the dismay of Rabbi Akiva. Famously, Rabbi Akiva declared that anyone disrespecting the Song of Songs would be denied entry to the hereafter. Rabbi Akiva also described Song of Songs as the most important book in Tanakh. So, at once, we understand that the Song of Songs was being celebrated by the public as a great, bawdy, raucous poem and that the highest levels of the rabbinic hierarchy wanted to “clean up” the poem’s reputation and impress the allegorical interpretation so that the erotic content would, essentially, be buried. This idea has continued to the present day in translations and interpretations of the Song of Songs.
Booooo, hisssss, pornographic sex.
And this is a shame because in this day and age, we are overloaded with sexual materials that are pornographic, misogynistic, or simply in poor taste. For many, sex is a recreational activity devoid of passion and love. It based on lust instead of a transcendent experience that moves us closer to the Divine.
Look, I’m as big a fan of allegory as anybody. I was an English Lit. major and have kept my nose in far too many books for far too long reading far too deeply. I think allegory is a great thing to have (and I found some academic success finding it, understanding it, and explaining it) but the text is the text and this text is a poem about young passion, making love under the boughs on a Spring night, and an exploration of a variety of physical pleasures all ascending to the spiritual.
Finding the right puzzle piece.
I’ve written about this general topic before in The Forward, so I’m not going to repeat myself here. Besides, this is a family newsletter. (I’m looking at you, Abraham and Sam!) But I will summarize the Kabbalistic view of creation and tikkun olam: Hashem created the world by breaking the perfect wholeness into pieces. Our mission, tikkun olam, is to repair the world by taking the broken pieces and putting them back together with the goal of completing the puzzle Hashem left us. This applies to ecology, political systems, economic order, and relationships.
When it comes to relationships, one of the most important is with our beshert, a human puzzle piece that matches with ours. If / When we find that person, it is a cause for celebration, just as the lovers in Song of Songs celebrate. These two “puzzle pieces” fit together spiritually, emotionally, and physically. That’s what makes them our beshert.
Making love is a mitzvah.
According to Torah, it is a mitzvah to make love, and it is a double mitzvah to make love on Shabbat. These are two things I think the rabbis got especially right. And I think it’s important for us to reclaim sex from the recreational and elevate it into the transcendent. Hashem wants us to be supremely happy, and there are precious few moments of transcendent joy in our lives. Let’s do our part to create these divine moments and put that ecstatic energy out into the world. Let’s raise our voices and sing the Song of Songs, in a respectful way.
And may it be for all of us a blessing.
See you tonight!
All my love,
brian.