Introduction: From the Parable to the Allegory
Having examined the parable of Shir HaShirim, we now turn to the nimshal, the allegory. We are in Chapter 1, in the first of the five songs into which Shir HaShirim is divided. Solomon in the parable represents physical power, the affairs of this world, desires, and the body. The maiden is the shepherd's wife, whom Solomon took and confined in his palace, taking her as a wife, while she longs to return and cling to her beloved husband, who is out somewhere with the flock. She remains in constant contact with him, he comes to visit her, and she speaks to him words of affection and longing to be reunited.
The allegory corresponds to the soul. King Solomon's soul was imprisoned within the body, which is the physical dimension expressing earthly existence and this world, while the soul is the spiritual dimension, longing to unite with her Beloved, the Holy One, Blessed be He. Four times Solomon merited divine connection, in which his soul detached from his body and entered into direct contact with the transcendent spiritual realm; the fifth time was the ultimate attachment, when Solomon's soul departed from his body and united with the Infinite (Ein Sof), Blessed be He.
The first attachment occurred when the Holy One, Blessed be He, revealed Himself to Solomon at Gibeon and said to him, "Ask what I shall give you." Solomon asked for a wise and understanding heart, and the Holy One promised him both that and all the other things he had not asked for. This is the first song: the yearning of Solomon's soul to unite with the Holy One, Blessed be He, until that connection was achieved - namely prophecy, in which a complete union was formed between the spiritual soul and her Beloved. Ultimately, this connection was interrupted, as the daughters of Jerusalem - representing the physical faculties of Solomon's body - intervened and drew her back to the body. This pattern repeated itself in Solomon's subsequent prophecies: once again the beloved maiden unites with her Beloved, and once again she is drawn back into the body.
"Let Him Kiss Me with the Kisses of His Mouth" - Two Paths of Perception
שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים אֲשֶׁר לִשְׁלֹמֹה׃ יִשָּׁקֵנִי מִנְּשִׁיקוֹת פִּיהוּ כִּי־טוֹבִים דֹּדֶיךָ מִיָּיִן׃ - The Song of Songs, which is Solomon's. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine.
In the parable, we saw that the maiden reaches out to her beloved, her husband the shepherd standing behind the wall, speaking to him with longing and yearning to leave the palace and return to him. So it is in the allegory: the supreme Beloved is the Holy One, Blessed be He, peering through the lattices from beyond the wall. The wall here represents the physical frame of the body. The body is the wall, serving as a partition and dividing curtain between us and the Holy One, Blessed be He. The Beloved stands beyond the curtain, and the soul seeks to unite with Him, to return to the connection she enjoyed before being bound to the body and physical reality.
The Malbim explains: the soul's perception of the Divine can take two forms. One way is through contemplation, study, and reflection, in which one does not perceive His essence. Through the wondrous signs of immense wisdom in nature, through observing how miraculous His providence is, through contemplating and recognizing that Someone created all the galaxies and worlds down to the microscopic DNA strand - one perceives His greatness, an overwhelming power and divine wisdom beyond measure and description. Yet note: one does not perceive the Reality in His essence, but only through expressions revealed in His world. One has not seen the Holy One, Blessed be He, nor genuinely united with Him; one merely witnesses His power.
In the parable, the Malbim notes, this is called "smelling." To smell means that one has not tasted the object, only caught its scent. From the scent, one can deduce what it is and its character, yet the perfume itself may remain concealed somewhere - one enters and says: I sense a scent here, I smell perfume. Divine perception at this level operates the same way: one does not perceive His essence, as it were (and in truth He has no physical essence), but perceives only through an impression of scent, like one sensing from afar.
We find similarly among the Sages that perception of the Divine is called a "good fragrance," and those enlightened in the fear of Hashem are described as scenting in the fear of Hashem. The Malbim quotes Rabbi Yedayah HaPenini (Rabbi Yedayah Bedersi): "With all my might I will serve my God; I will praise my father's house in the pillar of smoke from the cloud of incense whose scent reaches my nostrils." In other words, I perceive the Holy One, Blessed be He, on the level of scent - not a complete perception, but in the manner of a cloud of incense. Incense (ketoret) is related to the word for bond (kesher), something that binds me to Him through scenting, as it were, the Divine.
Yet there is a much higher way to connect to the Ein Sof, which resembles not a scent, but a kiss. In Lashon HaKodesh, a kiss signifies connection and attachment. We use this expression when two matters border or "kiss" each other, and similarly of physical objects, such as saying that one table kisses another - meaning they are joined and attached. A connection of a kiss is a complete union, not an acquaintance from afar, but true attachment. When we wish to express perfect union with the Holy One, Blessed be He, this defines prophecy, and this is "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth."
Why specifically "the kisses of his mouth"? Because a mouth-to-mouth kiss represents the cleaving of spirit to spirit, as stated in the holy Zohar: a person has a spirit, and the one opposite has a spirit, and the kiss is the uniting of spirit with spirit. When we speak of death by a kiss, it is the same concept: the Spirit of the Holy One, Blessed be He, unites with the spirit of the person and draws it to Himself. Thus, this represents the highest attachment and union.
Therefore, the beloved says: I do not want to apprehend the Holy One, blessed be He, merely as a scent - like someone who perceives and smells from afar. I want a kiss, connection, true devekut, which is the level of prophecy. And note carefully: within prophecy there are various levels. There is the prophecy of Moshe Rabbeinu, and there are lower levels, and even among the later prophets Chazal explain that there are multiple levels of prophecy. That is why it says "kisses" in the plural - because there are various levels of kisses, and I am asking for the kisses of the highest levels.
"For Your Love Is Better Than Wine" - Strange Fire and Holy Fire
The beloved turns to the Dodi, to the Holy One, blessed be He, and says: Master of the Universe, I want to connect to You; I want prophecy. I want to detach from the body, for in prophecy the soul detaches from the body, leaves the palace of Shlomo - which is the body - and connects to spirituality and to the Holy One, blessed be He. "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth" - to cling to Hashem in complete and absolute devekut.
And what is the meaning of "for your love is better than wine"? The Malbim explains: Wine also elevates the faculties of the soul. When a person is despondent, wine lifts his spirit, he feels happier, his natural warmth increases - "wine gladdens the heart of man." But the great drawback of wine is that it is a strange fire. Although it warms a person, this warmth comes from below to above; it begins from the body and rises to the soul, and its end result is cooling. What happens to a person after he warms up from drinking wine? He becomes cold. So it is with the soul: after the wine makes him cheerful, he becomes depressed, looking only to sleep, and even when he wakes up he feels heaviness and exhaustion - because this is a foreign warmth, a strange fire, an elevation that is only temporary.
In contrast, when the soul is elevated by a higher spiritual force, it comes from above to below. It is not like before, where the body drinks and elevates the soul from below to above; rather, it begins from the Holy One, blessed be He: a transcendent spiritual influence that forms a bond with the soul, elevating it, sanctifying it, and creating the connection of prophecy - an absolute union with spirituality. And then, in the words of the Malbim, "the pillars of the body shudder and submit beneath the sanctity of the soul."
When drinking wine, the pillars of the body shudder as well: suddenly you see a person fall and collapse, unaware of what is happening to him, what was sealed opens and what was open closes. Outwardly it seems identical - yet this is a strange fire and that is a holy fire. When the Holy One, blessed be He, connected with a person, the prophet would lie upon the ground, trembling and unaware of what was happening around him; this is why they would call a prophet "the madman," because it appeared like a seizure, an epileptic fit. But with wine it comes from without, a strange fire, whereas here I ask, "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine" - Your love is better to me than wine, because with wine the elevation is external and physical, whereas Your love is spiritual, from Above, lifting the soul to the Holy One, blessed be He, in the realm of prophecy.
"For the Scent of Your Good Oils" - Perception from Afar
לְרֵיחַ שְׁמָנֶיךָ טוֹבִים שֶׁמֶן תּוּרַק שְׁמֶךָ עַל־כֵּן עֲלָמוֹת אֲהֵבוּךָ׃ - For the scent of your good oils, your name is oil poured forth; therefore maidens love you.
Now she explains why she specifically requests the kisses, the spiritual wine that gladdens the soul and spirit. We explained that the daughters of Jerusalem represent the physical bodily powers, the body, desires, and physicality, whereas the maidens (alamot) represent the faculties of the soul - man's intellect, the capacity for contemplation and wisdom. She says: "For the scent of your good oils" - I have already grasped the scent of your good oils, meaning perception from afar, and that itself is the reason I long for something higher, for a kiss and an embrace, which are the level of prophecy. The scent only encourages and draws me to attain complete attachment.
The Malbim explains: Oil indicates the divine bounty poured out, as it were, from Above down toward the physical world. Oil represents light, for oil is used to kindle light, and oil also represents Torah, for Torah is light. Thus she is saying: The light of the Holy One, blessed be He, expressed in the oil that kindles the light - the wondrous scent of this wondrous light - I have already sensed. Therefore, I seek to connect to something higher, to an absolute kiss, which is the level of prophecy.
And what is "your name is oil poured forth"? It means: I cannot comprehend His Name, blessed be He. As we learned in Nefesh HaChaim, the Holy One, blessed be He, in His very Essence has no name, for every name is a limiting factor - when I state a name, I have already defined, and it is impossible to define the Holy One, blessed be He. Therefore, when we wish to refer to Him beyond the realm of the Sefirot, we say "the Ein Sof, blessed be He," and even this is not a precise definition, for there is not even a beginning, as we have already elaborated. The Holy One, blessed be He, in His Essence has no name.
And this is "your name is oil poured forth": You are recognized only through the pouring forth of the oil. When fragrant oil is poured out - like balsam oil - its scent wafts far away, and even those far off sense that something is there. So too Your Name, Master of the Universe, is recognized only through Your pouring forth tremendous wisdom and immense light into the world, and from that Your Name is known. And therefore "maidens love you" - the intellectual faculties serving the soul love You, because through the scent they recognize the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He, and the immense wisdom in the world, and this is the aspect of oil whose good scent reaches our nostrils.
Yet they have still not grasped Your very essence. The maidens love and smell the fragrance of Your good oils, an aspect of "poured-out oil," yet we still yearn to achieve prophecy. For all intellectual perceptions are merely like a fragrance. What I grasp through my intellect - that the world has a Creator, that the Creator of the universe is mighty, His wisdom is immense, and His power is infinite - is all well and good, but it is only an intellectual grasp, and an intellectual grasp is inherently deficient. Why? Because the intellect is still a physical reality, part of the body and the physical form, and anything physical is limited. Spiritual reality is boundless, whereas physical reality is limited - it has mass, quantity, and can be measured.
This explains why, as mentioned before, people who dream for only a brief moment can experience extensive spans of time, because in that state they exist in a spiritual realm where the soul detaches from physical limits. Similarly, the holy Ari, during an afternoon nap lasting just a few minutes, could attain eighty years' worth of Torah wisdom, as he told Rabbi Avraham HaLevi: "Even if I were to teach you for eighty years, I could not begin to convey all that I grasped just now during this afternoon sleep." For spiritual reality is limitless, whereas physical learning requires you to study bit by bit, with insights accumulating gradually because our intellect is bounded. One cannot simply insert a microchip into the brain and instantly acquire the entire Torah. How wonderful that would be, and what a fortune one would pay for such a microchip! But that is not how it works; it comes only through study upon study, foundation upon foundation. Physical matter acts as a veil and a barrier. Therefore, the soul says to the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the Universe, we have only merited the level of fragrance, "the maidens loved You" - but this is not true comprehension; we have not grasped the glory of Hashem as He truly is. I yearn for prophecy.
"Draw me, let us run after you" - The Plea to Transcend the Physical
מָשְׁכֵנִי אַחֲרֶיךָ נָּרוּצָה הֱבִיאַנִי הַמֶּלֶךְ חֲדָרָיו נָגִילָה וְנִשְׂמְחָה בָּךְ נַזְכִּירָה דֹדֶיךָ מִיַּיִן מֵישָׁרִים אֲהֵבוּךָ׃ - "Draw me, let us run after you; the king has brought me into his chambers. Let us exult and rejoice in you; let us recall your love more than wine; sincerely have they loved you."
Once the soul realizes that as long as it remains behind this screen - the physical body - it cannot achieve complete union, it pleads: Take me out of here. "Draw me, let us run after you" - just as in the allegory the maiden pleads with the shepherd, her beloved, to draw her out and rescue her from Solomon's palace, so too in the nimshal, the soul begs the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the Universe, I want to attach myself to You; draw me and take me out of this physical body. The prison of physical matter obstructs my spiritual grasp, and I yearn for prophetic perception, which is attained only when the soul detaches from the shackles of the body. And who are those implied by "let us run" in the plural? Myself and the maidens - the intellectual faculties that assist the soul - all of us will run after the Holy One, blessed be He.
And why does she make this plea? "The king has brought me into his chambers." The king is Solomon, who represents the bodily powers. The king brought me into his inner chambers, meaning he imprisoned me within the physical body, and the body pulls toward desires, physical pleasures, and earthly pursuits. He locked me inside the body, and I cannot break free to comprehend the truth of the Creator, blessed be He, and unite with the Infinite, for I am trapped within physical matter, and the enclosure of matter bars the soul from grasping Godliness.
"The king has brought me into his chambers" also means that he has taken me as his concubine. And if I am a concubine to Solomon, I have been reduced to a mere tool to fulfill his desires. Since his desires are physical and earthly, he exploits me and my faculties - the powers of intellect and wisdom, which are divine gifts - solely to achieve his cravings and passions. The soul feels trapped within the body, used as an instrument for bodily cravings, instead of leading the body, binding itself to the Infinite, uniting with the Holy One, blessed be He, and even rising above the body to attain prophecy. Therefore she cries: "Draw me, let us run after you" - Master of the Universe, I yearn that "we may exult and rejoice in you."
As explained in the allegory, gilah (exultation) denotes a sudden joy, an overwhelming burst of happiness that floods a person in an instant; when the Holy One, blessed be He, draws me out toward Him, I will experience such sudden exultation. Simchah (rejoicing), on the other hand, refers to an enduring, continuous joy: once You draw me out, from then on I will have an unending attachment to the Holy One, blessed be He, and the joy will be perpetual. This is the meaning of "let us exult (nagilah) and rejoice (venismechah) in you."
"Let us recall your love more than wine" - spiritual wine, the spiritual delight that brings true joy to the soul, is prophetic perception and connection to the Infinite, beyond which there is no greater bliss. In this state, something happens akin to drinking physical wine: when a person drinks wine, bodily control recedes, he collapses, and the body no longer feels itself. So it is with spiritual wine: when the soul rises above the body, the physical form is neutralized, rendered an inert shell that exerts no influence, while the soul unites with pure spirituality.
"Sincerely have they loved you" (meisharim aheivucha) - here the verse touches more directly on the nimshal. With physical wine, which symbolizes worldly desires, love is not upright and direct (meisharim), but indirect and self-serving. As in the classic example: a fisherman does not truly love fish, for if he loved the fish, he would not club it over the head and eat it; that is not how one treats an object of love. Clearly, his love is not for the fish, but for his own stomach, for what he gains from the fish. The same holds true for all physical pursuits: one who loves money loves it because it allows him to acquire things; one who loves honor loves it because people will listen to him and revere him; one who loves food does not love the food itself, but the pleasant taste on his palate or the sustenance it provides; and one who clings to life does so because life allows him to fulfill his desires and pleasures. In contrast, explains the Malbim, the love of Hashem is upright and sincere (ahavat meisharim) - not an indirect love aimed at an ulterior reward, but love for His very essence, because Hashem is good. This is the meaning of "let us recall your love more than wine": Your love, Master of the Universe, is far greater to me than the love of wine, for love of You is direct and pure - "sincerely have they loved You."
"I am black yet comely" - An Address to the Bodily Faculties
שְׁחוֹרָה אֲנִי וְנָאוָה בְּנוֹת יְרוּשָׁלָ͏ִם כְּאָהֳלֵי קֵדָר כִּירִיעוֹת שְׁלֹמֹה׃ - "I am black yet comely, O daughters of Jerusalem, like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon."
The soul, yearning for this wondrous attachment to the Holy One, blessed be He, for prophecy, sees that the Beloved cannot currently draw her out of the physical body. This is not heaven forbid a limitation, but rather that the Holy One, blessed be He, created man in a reality where body and soul are bound together, and in this reality the soul cannot simply be drawn out and depart from her physical realm whenever she desires. She cannot kiss Him face to face; she cannot leave the king's chambers. She then turns to the bodily faculties, to the daughters of Jerusalem - that is, to the physical body - and says to them: Know that although you see me now, while I am within the body, as dark on the outside, in my essence I am comely. The soul in her essence is pure, radiant, and luminous light. That you see me dark is only because I am imprisoned within the body and standing exposed to the sun, as we will explain later regarding what that sun represents in the allegory. And when I am cleansed of the stains of the body, of physical desires and materiality, you will see how comely I am; you will see my true beauty, and then you will see that the tents of Kedar turn into the curtains of Solomon, pure and untainted.
The Malbim explains that it was not without reason that the soul used the expression "I am dark, yet comely." The color black is a color that does not reflect light, or in more scientific terms - it absorbs light. Thus she says: You do not see my light; my light is not radiated outward. I am dark, like the color black which absorbs light. Yet know that I am comely, a pure and luminous light. Only that which affected me from without has caused me to appear dark, misleading you to think that I am tainted and that I lack that pure, radiant light. From here onward, she explains what brought this upon her, what caused that darkness.
In summary:
The first song is the cry of the soul imprisoned within the body. "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth" - a plea for complete attachment, the level of prophecy, in contrast to "fragrance," which is intellectual apprehension from afar, recognizing the Creator through the wonders of His creation but not His essence. "For your love is better than wine": wine elevates from below to above through a strange fire and ends in coolness, whereas the supreme love descends from above to below and sanctifies the soul. "Because of the fragrance of your good oils, your name is oil poured forth" - His blessed Name is discernible only through the pouring forth of light and wisdom into the world, and the maidens, which are the intellectual faculties, love by virtue of that fragrance alone. From this comes "Draw me after you, let us run": the soul yearns to break free from the "king's chambers," which are the enclosure of matter, toward sudden rejoicing and enduring joy, toward an upright love that is not indirect. Finally, since this is not currently attainable, she turns to the faculties of the body: "I am dark, yet comely" - the darkness is external and absorbs light, but in my essence I am pure light, and when I am cleansed of the stains of materiality, my true beauty will be revealed.