My Heart is Awake

Dear friends,

I have been spending the summer studying the bible's greatest erotic love poem, Shir Hashirim, The Song of Songs, and it's awakened something in my soul. Long ago, Rabbi Akiva said that while all of the bible is holy, the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies. The rabbis who followed him over the generations agree, but the symbolism they see in the text has a way of replacing the obvious sex references with less racy concepts. The general consensus is that it describes the love story between the Jewish people and God. Not a very steamy take. 

I'm studying the commentary of the Malbim, a 19th century Ashkenazi rabbi, who has a different take. He sees in it the tumultuous love story between a single neshama, or soul, and the divine. I've been spending my mornings and nights exploring the ways in which the soul falls asleep, wakes up, searches for love, rises above the constrictions of the self, the mind, the body and the infinite atoms of reality pulling it away from divinity. 

"אני ישנה וליבי ער," "I'm asleep but my heart is awake," as the Neshamah proclaims, suddenly looks like a deeply true statement. 

I hope to study some of this marvelous poetry with you later this summer. In the meantime, I want to share with you a beautiful project on Shir Hashirim, and a beautiful piece of writing about it. Brooklyn musician, prayer leader, inspiring spirit, Basya Schechter just released an album of songs from Shir Hashirim. Daphna plays and sings on it as well, and the fabulous story that Basya tells as an intro to the album lays out the true, wild beauty of Shir Hashirim better than I could. I hope you enjoy it!

Shabbat shalom,

Rabbi Misha