The Song of Songs of All Humanity

What is the Song of Songs all about? Can this ancient erotic poem help us heal from all this hurting and find love within each other’s trust again, across so many wounded borders?

Today, just another Friday in mid February, on the eve of the Sabbath, as we are reading through the Song of Songs, Shir HaShirim on our Below the Bible Belt journey, I find consolation and inspiration in this well worn song, and I want to share a story and a beautiful teaching about this poem with you - with hopes that it helps you as well to find some footing, and to sing this song of longing, love and hope.

When my father was quite elderly and not able to walk the 15 minutes to his familiar Polish style synagogue in Jerusalem he started going to a little synagogue right next door that was a North African community with tunes and customs sometimes quite different from what he knew and what we grew up with. But he liked it, and they liked him and it worked. One friday afternoon, just as the sun was setting into shabbat, on one of my visits,I walked him, slowly, to the synagogue, we got there early, just as other congregants took their seats and nodded at each other, and welcomed us. And then they started chanting the Song of Songs - all 8 chapters, as is the custom in some, mostly Sefardic congregations. Each chapter was assigned to one of the congregants, and each man chanted in a particular sing-song when it was their turn. They were teenagers and elders, the local grocer and a retired judge, a teenage boy and a soldier home on leave, each one chanting the mystical erotic words about breasts and kisses, lovemaking and longing and there was something totally surreal and strange and weird and wonderful about it.

They were, on some strange and subconscious level, crossdressing - mouthing the words in first person feminine, Hebrew poetry about women and men in lust and love in a synagogue setting that skipped the plain meaning and immediately heard these words as allusions to divine and human love. And yet - here were men chanting about their breasts and beauty.

This tradition to chant or sing these words as the congregation gatherers each friday to welcome the Sabbath Queen come from the Jewish mystical traditions in the 16th Century - newcomers in classical jewish terms but already quite ingrained. Was the original intention not just to bring in shabbat with words of love but also to let these men feel what’s it’s like to love like a woman? To get beyond the laws of who we are and lean into love with a sense of solidarity with more than just ourselves?

Perhaps I’m reading way too much into it but there’s something to say about this experience of letting the luscious sexy words of the song of songs be chanted weekly in public, seeping into the tired, wounded souls and minds of people after yet another long week of work and life, eager for the rest and food and comfort of shabbat. Eager for love.

There is a dimension of expensed consciousness in this biblical poem and an invitation to each one of us, however we approach this sabbath, and however hurting our hearts these days, this day - to expand our empathy and to keep practicing what it is like to fear less and love more, in whatever way we can.

So what’s this song of songs about? Rabbi Abraham Isaac Ha’Cohen Kook, who lived in the holy land before it became the state of Israel, was a mystic and poet who wrote a famous teaching on the song’s real purpose - here’s the essence:

“There are many levels of song. There is one who sings the song of one’s own life, and in oneself finds everything, full spiritual satisfaction.

There is another who sings the song of one’s people. One expands the circle of one’s own individual self, aspiring higher, with a gentle love of one’s entire community. Together they sing her songs, grieved in her afflictions and delighting in her hopes.

There is another who reaches toward more distant realms, goes beyond the boundary of one’s community, the house of Israel, to sing the song of humanity.

Then there is one who rises toward wider horizons, until one links oneself with all existence.

And then there is one who rises with all these songs in one ensemble, and they all join their voices. Together they sing their songs with beauty, each one lends vitality and life to the other.

The song of the self, the song of the people, the song of humanity, the song of the world all merge at all times, in every hour.

It is a simple song, a twofold song, a threefold song, and a fourfold song. It is the Song of Songs of Solomon, whose name means Peace. It is the song of the Highest One in whom is wholeness.”

I’ll be in Atlanta this Shabbat, to welcome the Sabbath Queen and to attend the festive screening of the Sabbath Queen film at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival during the wknd. Tonight, I’ll sing a few verses from the song of songs to add my voice to the chorus of humans who choose love over hate, hope over hurt, collective care over tribal trauma, repair over despair, and peace over rage, again and again. I hope you sing along, and let’s create more peace, together.

Thank you for joining me below the bible belt. Next week - we wrap the song of songs and welcome Ruth.

Shabbat Shalom.

May healing grow and peace prevail, for all and every one of us.