Rabbi Akiva said, “…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! (Mishnah Yadayim 3:5)
Introduction
One of the ways we seek holiness is through communion with God through the
study of Holy Writ, but that that idea is easier to toss around glibly than actually to define.
The Song of Songs is the context in which our greatest commentators and thinkers expressed
themselves the most directly in that regard. The question at the heart of our discussion is:
Can a biblical text be physical and spiritual, openly erotic and about the love of God, all at
the same time? In this essay, we explore the wide range of opinions found in classical
rabbinic commentary, modern Jewish Thought, and contemporary academic scholarship.
These scholars provide critical means of building bridges between the realms of the loving
relationships between God and humankind, and the loving relationships between people.
The Song of Songs contains some of the most tender expressions of love and
intimacy in the Bible. On its literal level, the Song expresses the mutual love of a man and a
woman. From ancient times, traditional interpreters have almost universally agreed that there
is an allegorical or symbolic layer of meaning as well. In both traditional rabbinic circles and
contemporary academic circles, some scholars attempt to deny one level of meaning or the
other by insisting that the author cannot possibly have meant both. However, others allow for
the possibility of attributing both layers of meaning to the author. In this essay, we argue that
the dismissal of either layer of meaning does a disservice to the Song and its interpretation.
The blurring in interpretation unlocks the full sacred potential of the Song, which bridges the
love of people and the love of God into its exalted poetry.
From Literal to Allegorical
The allegorical mode of interpretation can be traced as least as far back as the
second and third centuries C.E., and possibly even to the first century C.E. 1 It also is plausible
that the written evidence is long preceded by an oral tradition, possibly going back all the
way to the original composition of the Song. The most prevalent allegorical interpretation in
Jewish tradition (as exemplified by the Targum, and the commentaries by Rabbi Saadiah
Gaon [882–942], Rashi [1040–1105], Rashbam [Rabbi Samuel ben Meir, 1080–1160], and
Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra [1089–1164]) understands the Song as symbolizing the historical
relationship between God and Israel. 2 The ancient Aramaic translation called the Targum was
the first to present a coherent historical narrative based on earlier midrashim. 3 Following
Rabbeinu Baḥya Ibn Pakuda (first half of the eleventh century), Maimonides (1138–1204)
maintained that the Song is an allegory representing the love between God and the righteous
individual. 4 Many allegorical, poetic, philosophical, mystical, and other interpretations of the
Song also have been part of the Jewish landscape over the past two millennia. 5
How did this allegorical interpretation come to be? Many contemporary scholars
maintain that it is superimposed onto what was originally a secular love poem. Representing
this widespread position, James Kugel imagines that the first generation of allegorical
interpreters knew full well that the Song is nothing more than a secular love poem between a
man and a woman. These original Sages fancifully interpreted the Song to reflect the love
between God and Israel, all the time winking at one another. Subsequent generations lost
those winks in translation, and erroneously concluded that this interpretation reflected the
true meaning of the Song. In Kugel’s view, Sages such as Rabbi Akiva simply were “misled”
by the allegorical interpretation. However, contemporary scholars “know” that the Song is
part of a “great ancient Near Eastern tradition of love poetry, with its conventional
descriptions of the lovers’ physical beauty and its frank exaltation of eroticism.” 6 The
religious allegorical interpretation made the book Bible-worthy. However, the original
meaning of the Song is indeed irrelevant for inclusion in the Bible. 7
Gabriel Cohn flatly rejects this explanation: Why would the Sages take a secular
love poem and completely reinterpret it to refer to the love between God and Israel? They did
not need to include the Song in the Bible at all! Evidently, they believed the Song was sacred
from its inception. 8 Gerson Cohen expresses the matter more bluntly:
The rabbis of the first and second century, like the intelligent ancients generally, were as
sensitive to words and the meaning of poetry as we are. How, then, could they have been
duped—or better yet, have deluded themselves and others—into regarding a piece of
erotica as genuine religious literature, as the holy of holies! Should not the requirements
of elementary common sense give us reason for pause and doubt? 9
The assumption that the Song was a secular love poem that early Sages reworked into a
religious allegory to make it Bible-worthy does a disservice both to the Song and to the
Sages. Once we can accept that the Sages always understood the Song as sacred, we can find
layers of sanctification of divine and human love within the Song.
The Allegorical Meaning Inheres in the Text
Some scholars maintain that an allegorical meaning of divine love can be
demonstrated from a careful text analysis. In his introduction to the Song, Ibn Ezra observes
that the prophets frequently apply the metaphor of a marriage to the relationship between
God and Israel. Therefore, the allegorical interpretation of the Song as a metaphor of the love
between God and Israel is reasonable within its biblical setting. 10
Gabriel Cohn adds that the emphasis on the Land of Israel seems to have greater
meaning than simply the natural setting of the relationship. Israel seems to be a vehicle for
promoting the relationship. The Song mentions several cities in Israel (1:14; 2:1; 4:1; 6:4;
7:5–6). The lovers also liken one another to places in Israel (4:1 [6:4]; 4:4; 7:6. 4:11). In 5:1,
milk and honey appear together. Cohn lists additional features of the Song that also have no
parallels in other Near Eastern love poetry. 11
Of course, these points hardly create a compelling case for an intended allegorical
reading. After all, the book never reveals an allegorical meaning. This is unlike the prophetic
metaphors of a God-Israel marriage, where the meaning always is made explicit. However,
the above evidence makes allegory a comfortable possibility as part of the author’s original
intent.
The Literal Meaning Is the Intended Meaning and Is Sacred, and the Allegorical
Meaning Is Ascribed to It by Tradition
Another approach is to understand the literal reading of human love as the
primary intent of the book. The symbolic interpretive approach that takes the Song as
being about God and Israel or about God and the religious individual would then belong
to the category of “tradition,” or “midrash” rather than the peshat.
Alon Goshen-Gottstein summarizes the view of those contemporary scholars who
accept the literal reading as the primary intent of the Song. In their reading, the Song
speaks of the sanctity of human love:
The Song celebrates human love for what it is. Scripture would be incomplete if it
did not have in it an expression of an aspect of life so germane to humanity, its
pursuits and its happiness. What could be more natural, beautiful, and even
spiritual, than the inclusion of human conjugal love as a value to be admired,
praised and celebrated? 12
Within this reading, the inclusion of this remarkable book into the Bible is the
strongest vote for the supreme religious value of interpersonal love—especially the love
between a man and a woman—in Jewish tradition. Scholars who would distinguish
between a “secular” human love interpretation and a “religious” God-Israel interpretation
fail to recognize that love and human relationships themselves are essential aspects of
biblical religion. Precisely because both are sacred, tradition could express itself
regarding the nature of the relationship between God and Israel, or between God and the
religious individual, within the descriptions of human love and intimacy.
From this vantage point, the rabbinic concern with the literal reading of the Song
does not stem primarily from its biblically unparalled expressions of physical human love
and sexuality, but rather from the potential to treat those physical expressions as secular
or vulgar:
Our Rabbis taught: One who recites a verse of the Song of Songs and treats it as a
mere ditty and one who recites a verse at the banqueting table unseasonably [that
is, in an inappropriate or secular manner, HA], brings evil upon the world.
Because the Torah girds itself in sackcloth, and stands before the blessed Holy
One and laments in God’s presence, “Sovereign of the Universe! Your children
have made me as a harp upon which they frivolously play.” (Sanhedrin 101a)
Rabbi Akiva says: One who sings the Song of Songs with a tremulous voice at
banquets and treats it as a mere song has no share in the World to Come. (Tosefta
Sanhedrin 12:10)
Of course, there is no way to disprove that there also is an allegorical dimension intended
by the author of the Song.
Human Love Is a Symbol of the Love between God and Israel
A middle approach based on the above evidence is to view the literal element of
human love as essential to the author’s intent, and that the author also intended that
human love serve as a symbol of divine love. Gabriel Cohn maintains that for an
allegory, an interpreter must set each detail into a larger allegorical framework. In
contrast, if the Song is a symbol, then one must interpret every detail of the literal love
poem, and then more generally understand this human love as a symbol of divine love. 13
In this approach, the literal human love is part of the original intent of the Song, as is the
symbolic meaning of the God-Israel relationship.
To summarize: Either the Song is sacred because it was always intended as an
allegory describing divine love; or it is sacred because it celebrates the sanctity of human
love and tradition sees in that human love a symbol of the love of the divine. Or perhaps
it is a human love poem with built-in symbolism intended by the author to point to the
mutual love between God and Israel or between God and the religious individual.
The Literal Reading as an Essential Aspect of Tradition
Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik asserts that unlike the case with respect to any other
biblical book, the midrashic-allegorical reading has come totally to supplant the literal
meaning of the Song. Not only does the Song contain a layer of divine love, but it is
exclusively about divine love. He maintains that one who adopts the literal reading of the
Song denies the sanctity of the Oral Law, since there is rabbinic consensus that the
symbolic meaning is the sole acceptable one. To bolster his point, he notes that the
halakha codifies that the name Shelomo (the Hebrew version of Solomon) that appears
seven times in the Song is mostly to be taken as a sacred name of God, reading Shelomo
to mean, “The Song to Him whose is the peace (le-Mi sheha-Shalom shelo).” That word
must not be erased in the Song, since it does not refer to the earthly King Solomon, but
rather to God. Thus, halakha itself shows that the literal meaning (King Solomon) is
supplanted by the symbolic meaning (God): 14
Every “Solomon” mentioned in the Song of Songs is sacred… except for this one
verse: My vineyard, which is mine, is before me; you, O Solomon, shalt have the
thousand (Song 8:12)—Solomon for himself [shall have a thousand]…And there
are some who say this also is secular: Behold it is the bed of Solomon (Song 3:7).
(B. Shevuot 35b)
Although Rabbi Soloveitchik is correct that there is near-universal acceptance of an
allegorical meaning within tradition, there is a range of opinion pertaining to the value of
the literal reading of human love. In the introduction to his commentary, Malbim (Meir
Leibush ben Yehiel Michel, 1809–1879) criticizes rabbinic commentaries on the Song
who altogether ignore its literal meaning. While he maintains that there is a symbolic
meaning as well, one first must understand the literal meaning to attain other layers of
meaning:
Most interpretations [of Song of Songs]… are in the realm of allusion and
homiletical interpretation distant from the establishment of the peshat.… Of
course we affirm that divine words have seventy facets and one thousand
dimensions. Nonetheless, the peshat interpretation is the beginning of knowledge;
it is the key to open the gates, before we can enter the sacred inner chambers of
the King.
Most earlier rabbinic commentators find value in the literal reading, while they
simultaneously insist that the Song contains an allegorical level of meaning as well. Elie
Assis surveys classical commentators and determines that their opinions fall into several
larger categories.
1. The Song was initially composed as a human love poem and it was elevated to
the sacred when being edited into a biblical book (Rabbi Joseph Kara
[1050–1125], Rabbi Isaac Arama [1420–1494]).
2. The Song is an allegory in a general sense, but the interpreter must focus on
the details of the human love song (Rashbam, Rabbi Joseph Kara, Rabbi
Isaiah of Trani [c. 1180–c. 1250]).
3. The literal reading is necessary to understand the allegory, and the allegory is
primary (Rashi, Ibn Ezra).
4. Despite what we suppose the simple meaning to be, we must interpret only the
allegory (Rabbi Obadiah Sforno [1470–1550]). 15
Tzvi Yehudah further observes that only in the nineteenth century do we begin to find
rabbis who deny the value of the literal reading of the Song. Prior to that, the Sages and
commentators generally embraced the literal and symbolic meanings of the Song. 16
It should be noted further that although the halakha rules that most references to
the name Shelomo in the Song are sacred because they refer to God, the classical sages
and the later commentators never allowed that ruling to supplant the literal meaning in
their minds. Shelomo also could refer to King Solomon. They still maintained, for
example, that when the opening verse states, “The Song of Songs of Solomon,” this
means that King Solomon authored or played a significant role in the composition of the
book. Despite the halakhic ruling of the Talmud that this reference to “Shelomo” is a
sacred name of God, the word continues to refer to the human king as well. It is difficult
to conclude that the halakhic-symbolic-allegorical meanings of the Song altogether
supplant the literal meaning within tradition.
In the final analysis, it is impossible to ascertain where original authorial intent
ends and where added meaning begins. As Rabbi Saadiah Gaon says in the introduction
to his commentary, “Know, my brother, that you will find great differences in
interpretation of the Song of Songs. The Song of Songs is likened to locks whose keys
have been lost.” However, it is precisely this uncertainty that unlocks the potential of
connecting human love and divine love.
Building Bridges
The blurring of the boundaries in the layers of interpretation of the Song is
singularly valuable. Without knowing the precise primary intent of the author of the
Song, several contemporary religious thinkers exploit the potential literal and allegorical
layers of interpretation to speak about the Song’s contribution to religious experience.
Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik and his student Rabbi Shalom Carmy bridge the two
allegorical readings of God-Israel and God-religious individual. Rabbi Yuval Cherlow
bridges the literal and allegorical readings.
Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik
As discussed above, Rashi champions the position that the Song should be read
allegorically as a continuous narrative of the historical relationship between God and Israel.
Maimonides espouses a different reading, that the Song should be read allegorically as reflecting
the intimate relationship between God and the religious individual. Rashi’s reading pertains to
the collective, particularistic relationship between God and Israel. Maimonides’ reading, in
contrast, pertains to every religious individual, a universalistic perspective.
Despite these significant differences, Rabbi Soloveitchik considers the approaches of
Rashi and Maimonides to be compatible. The lovers’ quest for one another in the Song
symbolizes the human quest for God and for God’s revelation to humans. All people long to
transcend their natural state and find God and meaning. Additionally, Israel uniquely receives
divine revelation through the Torah. God longs for a relationship with each individual, and also
for a relationship with a unique nation. At the same time, the lovers in the Song constantly
pursue and long for one another, but never consummate the sexual relationship in the Song itself.
Similarly, God never is revealed fully to people, and people retreat from God at the moment of a
potential encounter. The two readings of Rashi and Maimonides thus are two aspects of this
relationship. The Song speaks to the entire world, and simultaneously in a unique manner also to
Israel. 17
Rabbi Shalom Carmy 18
Many Jews customarily recite the Song on Friday night prior to the evening prayers. The
ordinary Jew’s reading of the Song has little to do with the elitist reading of Rashi. Most people
reciting the Song are not likely to attempt a systematic allegorical reading of the historical
relationship between God and Israel.
Rabbi Carmy notes that an adequate reading of the Song cannot ignore ordinary readers
even as it also addresses erudite theologians. The ordinary worshipper can relate more to
Maimonides’ concept of the man in the Song as God, and the woman as the religious individual
who senses God’s closeness. The Song gives far more expression to the woman than to the man,
so that one can find therein one’s religious voice seeking God. 19
Rabbi Carmy explains that people never can fully connect to God, just as the desired
rendezvous of the lovers in the Song never explicitly occurs. The God we seek is the God who
corresponds to our needs and desires, our loves and our fears. Yet God also is wholly other,
expressed most poignantly through revelation to humanity, and makes demands that do not
correspond to our perceived needs. In the context of revelation, people must obey; but obedience
necessarily leads to estrangement, since it is not a freedom-seeking person’s natural way. God
therefore is both approachable and completely apart. Rabbi Soloveitchik’s reading that combines
the approaches of Rashi and Maimonides thereby bridges the gap between the ordinary Friday
evening worshipper, engaged in an intimate personal spiritual encounter with God, and the elite
theologian and philosopher, who encounters God through revelation.
Rabbi Yuval Cherlow 20
Rabbi Yuval Cherlow builds important bridges between the literal and allegorical
layers of meaning in the Song. In Rabbi Cherlow’s interpretation of the Song’s literal
layer, the man—whom he identifies as a king—and the woman—whom who he identifies
as a peasant who tends vineyards—must learn each other’s language and overcome the
staggering gulf between them. Similarly, there is an infinite gulf between God and
people, leading to inherent religious challenges.
Over the course of the Song, the woman must learn the world of the king and its
language rather than attempting to impose her world onto her lover. So too Israel must
learn God’s language in the Torah to develop a proper religious relationship with God.
The king also must learn the language and concerns of his beloved, and by addressing
them he gives her the opportunity to develop the relationship further.
Rabbi Cherlow maintains that the Song teaches that the key to developing one’s
love of God is through an understanding of human love. As cited in the Mishnah, Rabbi
Akiva declares that the Song is the most sacred of all biblical works, calling it the Holy
of Holies, which was in its day the most sacred inner sanctum of the Temple in Jerusalem
(M. Yadayim 3:5). He considers “love your neighbor as yourself” to be the central axiom
of the Torah (Sifra Kedoshim 4:12). Rabbi Akiva teaches that the love of God is not what
leads to the love of people; rather, the love of people ultimately leads to the love of God.
The planes of interpersonal love and the love that may exist between God and Israel or
the religious individual intersect in the most sacred of dialogic spaces, the relational
equivalent of the ancient Holy of Holies. 21
Conclusion
Our inability to define the boundaries between the author’s intended meaning and later
layers of interpretation is one of the Song’s most exciting features. The dynamic possibilities,
coupled with the efforts of ancient and contemporary thinkers, offer fertile ground to explore the
love of people and the love of God. There are three commandments to love in the Torah: One’s
neighbor (Lev. 19:18), the stranger (Lev. 19:34), and God (Deut. 6:5). The Song and its
interpretations develop and invigorate these three loves. Both forms of love require a leap of
faith from the uncertain, and that leap and endless pursuit creates the dynamic and ever-burning
love depicted by the Song.
In his essay on the Song of Songs, “U-vikkashtem Mi-sham,” Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik
discusses a central pillar of the Torah, which elevates the physical aspects of humanity to a life
of holiness. In the summary words of Rabbi Reuven Ziegler:
Judaism does not view the natural, biological aspect of the human being with disdain or
despair. Therefore, the revelatory commands do not come to deny and repress man’s
physical existence. Judaism instead declares that the body’s instinctual biological drives
must be refined, redeemed, and sanctified, but not extirpated. Through the imposition of
the mitzvot that make demands of the body, those drives are stamped with “direction and
purposefulness.” The Torah thus allows man to experience pleasure, even as it prevents
him from being enslaved to desire and from indulging in pleasure to excess. 22
This approach appears apt to explain the dynamism in the literal-metaphorical relationship of the
Song. The Song speaks to the sanctity of human love, and intimates the love of the divine. Like
the Torah, what sanctifies the Song is not “only” its divine aspect, but also the elevation of
human love to the realm of the sacred.
The strands of rabbinic analysis warn that the literal reading of the Song is susceptible to
secularization and vulgarization, just like human love and intimacy today. And also just like
today the connection between love and religion can be viewed with excessive cynicism. Some
would separate between human love which is “secular,” and a relationship with God which is
“religious”; but biblical tradition repudiates this view and considers human love and
interpersonal relationships to be essential and sacred aspects of the service of God.
The language of love in the Song of Songs has a unique potential to speak to the heart of
many contemporary Jews. One midrash suggests that King Solomon made the Torah accessible in a
manner that nobody had done since the Torah was revealed:
He listened and tested the soundness (izzein v’ḥikkeir) of many maxims (Kohelet
12:9)—[this means that] he made handles (oznayim, a word similar to izzein) to the
Torah…. Rabbi Yosei said: Imagine a big basket full of produce without any handle, so
that it could not be lifted, until one clever man came and made handles to it, and then it
began to be carried by the handles. So until Solomon arose, no one could properly
understand the words of the Torah, but when Solomon arose, all began to comprehend the
Torah. (Shir Ha-shirim Rabbah 1:8)
Precisely through the language of human love that most people can understand, the Song enables
people to approach God and revelation.
The Song sanctifies and exalts human love, and it infuses with intense passion the love
between God and Israel and the love between God and every religious individual. Jewish
tradition understood the potential religious pitfalls that could result from the inclusion of the
Song into the Bible, but concluded that it was well worth those risks to promote a singular level
of sanctification through the fusion of human and divine love. It remains to the readers of the
Song to take that leap of faith.
At the outset of this essay, we asked: Can a biblical text be physical and spiritual, openly
erotic and about the love of God, all at the same time? By blurring the boundaries between
human and divine love, the Song and its interpretations provide a strikingly positive, and sacred,
answer.
Notes
1 Based on intertextual references between the Song of Songs, 4 Ezra, and Revelation, Jonathan
Kaplan argues that the first allegorical interpretations of the Song of Songs can be traced to the
close of the first century CE. See his “The Song of Songs from the Bible to the Mishnah,”
Hebrew Union College Annual 81 (2010), pp. 43–66.
2 This was not the only midrashic understanding, however. In the summary words of David M.
Carr (with minor transliteration changes): “While we see the male fairly consistently linked to
God, we find the female of the Song of Songs related to the house of study (B. Eruvin 21b, Bava
Batra 7b), an individual sage (T. Ḥagigah 2:3), Moses (Mekhilta, Beshallaḥ, Shirah §9), Joshua
the son of Nun (Sifrei D’varim §305 and parallels), local court (B. Sanhedrin 36b, Yevamot
101a, Kiddushin 49b and Sanhedrin 24a; cf. also B. Pesaḥim 87a), or the community of Israel as
a whole (M Taanit 4:8; T. Sotah 9:8; B. Shabbat 88, Yoma 75a, Sukkot 49b, Eruvin 21b, Taanit
4a; Mekhilta Beshallaḥ Shirah §3).” See his “The Song of Songs as a Microcosm of the
Canonization and Decanonization Process,” in Canonization and Decanonization, eds. A. van
der Kooij and K. van der Toorn (Leiden: Brill, 1998), pp. 175–176.
3 See Philip S. Alexander, “Tradition and Originality in the Targum of the Song of Songs,” in
The Aramaic Bible: Targums in Their Historical Context, ed. D. R. G. Beattie and M. J.
McNamara (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), pp. 318–339; Isaac B. Gottlieb, “The Jewish Allegory
of Love: Change and Constancy,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 2 (1992), pp. 1–17.
For a more detailed analysis of Targum’s reading, see Esther M. Menn, “Targum of the Song of
Songs and the Dynamics of Historical Allegory,” in The Interpretation of Scripture in Early
Judaism and Christianity: Studies in Language and Tradition, ed. Craig A. Evans (Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), pp. 423–445.
4 See M.T. Hilkhot Teshuvah 10:3; Guide of the Perplexed 3:51. And see also Yosef Murciano,
“Maimonides and the Interpretation of the Song of Songs” (Hebrew), in Teshurah L’Amos: A
Collection of Studies in Biblical Interpretation Presented in Honor of Amos Hakham, eds. Moshe
BarAsher et al. (Alon Shevut: Tevunot, 2007), pp. 85–108; James A. Diamond, Maimonides and
the Shaping of the Jewish Canon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), pp. 26–68).
For an analysis of medieval philosophical readings of the Song of Songs, and how Malbim (Meir
Leibush ben Yehiel Michel, 1809–1879) and Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik (in U-vikkashtem Mi-
sham) adopted variations of that approach, see Shalom Rosenberg, “Philosophical Interpretations
of the Song of Songs: Preliminary Observations” (Hebrew), Tarbiz 59 (1990), pp. 133–151.
5 For a survey, see Michael Fishbane, Song of Songs (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society,
2015), pp. 245–310.
6 For critique of this widely-held scholarly position, see Hector Patmore, “‘The Plain and Literal
Sense’: On Contemporary Assumptions about the Song of Songs,” Vetus Testamentum 56
(2006), pp. 239–250.
7 James L. Kugel, How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now (New York: Free
Press, 2007), pp. 514–518. For criticism of the cynical excesses of Kugel’s book, see Yitzchak
Blau, “Reading Morality Out of the Bible,” Bekhol Derakhakha Daehu 29 (2014), pp. 7–13.
8 Gabriel H. Cohn, Textual Tapestries: Explorations of the Five Megillot (Jerusalem: Maggid,
2016), p. 7.
9 Gerson D. Cohen, “The Song of Songs and the Jewish Religious Mentality,” in The Canon and
Masorah of the Hebrew Bible: An Introductory Reader, ed. Sid Z. Leiman (New York: Ktav,
1974), p. 263. See also Mark Giszczak, “The Canonical Status of Song of Songs in m. Yadayim
3:5,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 41:2 (2016), pp. 205–220.
10 These include: Isaiah 50:1; 54:4–7; 62:4–5; Jeremiah 2:1–2; 3:1; Ezekiel 16:7–8; Hosea 1–3.
11 Gabriel H. Cohn, Textual Tapestries, pp. 11–12.
12 Alon Goshen-Gottstein, “Thinking of/With Scripture: Struggling for the Religious Significance
of the Song of Songs,” Journal of Scriptural Reasoning 3:2 (2003), at
http://jsr.shanti.virginia.edu/back-issues/vol-3-no-2-august-2003-healing-words-the-song-of-
songs-and-the-path-of-love/thinking-ofwith-scripture-struggling-for-the-religious-significance-
of-the-song-of-songs/. Accessed July 11, 2017.
13 Gabriel H. Cohn, Textual Tapestries, pp. 22–23.
14 Joseph Soloveitchik, “U-vikkashtem Mi-sham,” in Ish Ha-halakhah: Galui V’nistar,
(Jerusalem: Histadrut, 1992), pp. 119–120.
15 Elie Assis, Ahavat Olam Ahavtikh: Keriah Hadashah BeShir HaShirim (Hebrew) (Tel-Aviv:
Yediot Aharonot-Hemed, 2009), pp. 211–231.
16 Tzvi Yehudah, “The Song of Songs: The Sanctity of the Megillah and Its Exegesis”
(Hebrew), in Sinai: Jubilee Volume, ed. Yitzhak Rafael (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav
Kook, 1987), pp. 471–486.
17 “U-vikkashtem Mi-sham,” pp. 119–120. For discussions of this essay by Rabbi Soloveitchik,
see especially Shalom Carmy, “On Cleaving as Identification: Rabbi Soloveitchik’s Account of
Devekut in U-Vikkashtem Mi-Sham,” Tradition 41:2 (Summer 2008), pp. 100–112; and see also
Reuven Ziegler, Majesty and Humility: The Thought of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik (Jerusalem-
New York: Urim-OU Press, 2012), pp. 344–389.
18 The section on Rabbi Carmy is adapted from my article, “The Literary-Theological Study of
Tanakh,” published as an afterword to Moshe Sokolow’s Tanakh: An Owner’s Manual:
Authorship, Canonization, Masoretic Text, Exegesis, Modern Scholarship and Pedagogy
(Brooklyn, NY: Ktav, 2015), pp. 192–207. My essay draws from Rabbi Carmy’s article, “Perfect
Harmony,” First Things (December, 2010), at
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/12/perfect-harmony. Accessed July 11, 2017.
19 Of the 117 verses in the Song of Songs, some 61 are spoken by the woman, and only 33 by the
man. She initiates their encounters more frequently than he, and she gets the last word in all but
two dialogues. The woman takes to the streets alone at night to search for her beloved (3:1–4;
5:6–7), and even the secondary characters marvel at her unusual behavior (cf. Yair Zakovitch,
Mikra LeYisrael: Song of Songs [Hebrew] [Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1992], pp. 11–14).
20 Yuval Cherlow, Aharekha Narutzah: Peirush al Shir Ha-Shirim Be-Tosefet Mavo U-Perek
Siyyum al Mashmaut Shir Ha-Shirim Le-Yameinu (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Miskal-Yediot Aharonot
and Hemed Books, 2003).
21 For further discussion of his work, see my review essay, “Rabbi Yuval Cherlow’s
Interpretation of the Song of Songs: Its Critical Role in Contemporary Religious Experience,” in
my Vision from the Prophet and Counsel from the Elders: A Survey of Nevi’im and Ketuvim
(New York: OU Press, 2013), pp. 258–271.
22 Reuven Ziegler, Majesty and Humility, p. 377. See further discussion of this theme in Rabbi
Soloveitchik’s thought in Ziegler, pp. 72-78.