The verses before us continue the beloved maiden's words to the daughters of Jerusalem, which, according to the Malbim, represents the soul speaking to the bodily faculties. She does not deny the darkness visible upon her, but explains that this is not an intrinsic blackness, but rather the result of her current condition: being housed within a physical body and confined within the framework of time. From here, the song continues to the soul's great plea: to be shown the way to detach from materiality and cleave to the Divine.
אַל־תִּרְאוּנִי שֶׁאֲנִי שְׁחַרְחֹרֶת שֶׁשְּׁזָפַתְנִי הַשָּׁמֶשׁ בְּנֵי אִמִּי נִחֲרוּ־בִי שָׂמֻנִי נֹטֵרָה אֶת־הַכְּרָמִים כַּרְמִי שֶׁלִּי לֹא נָטָרְתִּי׃ - Do not look upon me, that I am swarthy, for the sun has tanned me; my mother's sons were incensed against me, they made me keeper of the vineyards, but my own vineyard I did not keep.
She tells them: Do not think that I am dark by my own nature. The darkness you see upon me stems from two reasons. The first is "for the sun has tanned me." The sun always represents time; whatever is subject to temporal existence is termed "under the sun," as Shlomo HaMelech expresses multiple times: "all that is done under the sun," meaning beneath the cycle of time. And why does the sun specifically represent this? Because in the sun we see the passage of time most clearly: you wake up in the morning and it is in the east, you go to sleep and it is in the west. Every single moment is discernible through it. For this reason, the ancients fashioned sundials - a stick placed in the ground with markings on the earth - and marked the passage of time.
In other words, says the soul: I exist under the framework of time, confined within a physical body. My intellectual comprehensions are not the comprehensions I had previously, when in a single instant one could grasp the entire Torah.
Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin testified about a man he knew in this world who was a simple person - a shoemaker or carpenter, someone very simple. Once, they had a doubt regarding a complex issue in the laws of shaatnez, a topic about which all the sages of the generation had written and debated. One night, he dreamt of that same man, and in a single moment, the man presented all the sides of the issue and resolved the entire dilemma. He asked him: "From where do you know all of this? After all, you were a simple man here in this world!" The man replied: "It is true, I was a simple man, but know that I supported an avrech, a Torah scholar, through a Yissachar-Zebulun partnership. Because of that, all of his knowledge and all of his Torah were taught to me as well, and everything learned in the World of Truth, I understand and know completely." He asked him: "But you passed away only two days ago!" The man answered: "True, but it happens in a single moment." Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin remarked: "I knew that this is how it is in Heaven, but I did not know it happens so quickly."
Therefore, the beloved maiden, the soul, says: Do not look upon me, that I am swarthy, for the sun has tanned me. Up there, attainments come in a single moment, but here I am situated in physical reality, and comprehension is slow. Progress in avodat Hashem is slow, and the intellect's grasp and realization are gradual. I am limited, bound within matter, inside a physical body that restricts me. Therefore, you do not see the immense spiritual light within me, because it is only potential and not actualized, hidden deep inside me, while the body casts a shadow and conceals it. If the soul wishes to reach spiritual attainments, it requires slow, step-by-step labor - and all this is because I am under the framework of time.
The Malbim explains: The soul has brothers on her father's side and brothers on her mother's side. We mentioned that the soul has "maidens," which are the powers of intellect and wisdom that accompany her - these are her father's sons, for they come from her Father in Heaven. The Holy One, blessed be He, gave the soul the capacity for intellectual comprehension, wisdom, contemplation, and deep analysis, and all of these are her brothers from her father's side. In contrast, she has brothers from her mother's side. The holy Zohar in Parashat Shemot writes: "The soul has a father and a mother, just as the body has a father and a mother." The Father is the Holy One, blessed be He, and the brothers on His side are the intellectual faculties. And who is the mother? The soul's mother is the physical vessel, the body, the place where the soul was planted. For this we thank the Holy One, blessed be He, every day, that He "acts wondrously" - binding body and soul together, uniting the daughter with her mother.
According to this, her brothers on her mother's side are the bodily faculties: the power of imagination, the drive of desire, the physical will, and the urge that seeks pleasures. The Gra enumerates seventy bodily faculties, and many of them require extensive study just to explain their nature; in any case, we know that the body possesses many such forces. This is what she means: Do you know why I am swarthy? Because "my mother's sons were incensed against me" - from the language of burning; they scorched me until even my inner essence was blackened. Those coarse forces of the body have blackened my countenance.
The Malbim explains: An action an individual undertakes in order to achieve a purpose is compared in Scripture to planting a vineyard. When one wishes to achieve a specific goal - one plants a vineyard; when the vineyard grows and yields grapes - one has attained the desired goal; and when one treads the grapes and extracts wine from them - one has reached the pinnacle of that goal, the ultimate fulfillment of what was sought. This holds true both in worldly matters and in Torah matters. It is as we find in Yeshayahu: "My beloved had a vineyard on a fruitful hillside. He dug it, cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines... and he hoped it would yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes" - a spiritual planting from which a result is expected, yet the hoped-for result never comes. This can happen in a material sense, and it can happen spiritually.
And this is what she says: "They made me keeper of the vineyards" - they appointed me to guard vineyards that are not mine, but theirs. And who are they? They are "my mother's sons": desires, worldly drives, and physical impulses. "My mother" is the physical body, and "my mother's sons" are the bodily faculties that strive after this world. They made me keeper of the vineyards, meaning that I was drawn after seeking royalty, wealth, desires, and pleasures. And because of that - "my own vineyard I have not kept." And what is the vineyard unique to the soul? Godliness, Torah, the service of Hashem, and fear of Heaven. My own vineyard, which is the mission and purpose for which I was placed here in this world, I did not keep, nor did I invest in it properly.
Therefore, she says to them: Do not gaze at me because I am dark. For the moment I disconnect from the body - first, the sun will not have tanned me; I will no longer be under the framework of time that turns me dark. And second, my mother's sons will not be angry with me, for I will have already departed from the physical body that craves and seeks pleasures. Then, in an instant, "Draw me after You, let us run," and I will be able to attain the level of "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth" - Master of the Universe, I seek to connect and cling to You. Here she addresses the bodily faculties and says: Do not look at me being dark and say, what do you have to do with the Holy One, blessed be He? It is the reality here that made me this way. But the moment I detach, you will immediately see that I am a daughter of God and do not belong here to the material body.
הַגִּידָה לִּי שֶׁאָהֲבָה נַפְשִׁי אֵיכָה תִרְעֶה אֵיכָה תַּרְבִּיץ בַּצׇּהֳרָיִם שַׁלָּמָה אֶהְיֶה כְּעֹטְיָה עַל עֶדְרֵי חֲבֵרֶיךָ׃ - Tell me, you whom my soul loves: Where do you pasture your flock? Where do you rest them at noon? Why should I be like one who veils herself beside the flocks of your companions?
The beloved maiden, who is the soul, turns to the Beloved - to the Holy One, blessed be He, who stands behind her wall, beyond the walls of the physical body, waiting for the maiden to come and unite with Him. Since she cannot unite with Him at present, because the physical faculties, pleasures, and bodily desires imprison her - these being the "chambers of Shlomo" - she pleads: Tell me by what path I may succeed in detaching from the body and connecting to Godliness. What is the path and what is the course through which the soul is capable of disengaging from corporeality and meriting prophecy, spiritual attainments, and Ruach HaKodesh? How can I comprehend the truth of the Creator, blessed be He, while still within a physical body, and perform actions like those the disciples of the prophets used to perform - actions that would habituate me to prophecy and Divine communion?
And this is what she asks: "Where do you pasture, where do you rest them at noon" - where is your place? In the mashal, the maiden turns to her beloved and says to him: I want to know; I want to leave the palace of Shlomo and come to be united with you, to flee from the palace. "Where do you pasture" - where do you tend the sheep; "where do you rest them at noon" - where is the place where the flock is made to lie down, where they rest at midday when it is hot and they cannot bear the sun, resting instead in a shaded place.
The Malbim explains: At times Divine governance is direct and providential, and at other times it operates through nature and the constellations. As examined in the study of the Book of Iyov, much of the debate between Iyov and his companions revolves around this axis: whether governance is directly providential, or whether it has been entrusted to the stars and constellations. Make no mistake: even when speaking of stars and constellations, the Holy One, blessed be He, is above all. The word mazal comes from the root nozel (flowing), descending and cascading down to channel influence from the upper realms. A constellation has no independent power of its own; it acts merely as a minister and an agent of the Holy One, blessed be He.
There are two dimensions: general providence (hashgachah kelalit) and individual providence (hashgachah pratit). General providence means that the Holy One, blessed be He, has, so to speak, entrusted His world to the stars and constellations, which continually channel bounty from the Holy One, blessed be He, to sustain the world. Individual providence means that the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself observes the state of each person and what he deserves at every single moment, channeling influence to him accordingly.
The Malbim notes: When the generation is not deserving, the Holy One, blessed be He, guides them through nature and the constellations, through the celestial bodies He established at the beginning of Creation, channeling sustenance to them through these agents. This is not called Hashem "shepherding" us, for pasturing the flock implies close, personal providence, where the shepherd walks alongside his sheep. Rather, this corresponds to "resting them at noon": we are like sheep lying down. We do not receive direct bounty, vitality, and sustenance from the Shepherd, nor do we graze and walk to a place where we feed on fresh grass; rather, we are crouching - surviving on the sustenance already provided, through the fixed influence embedded in the heavenly bodies. There is no creation of fresh sustenance or renewed bounty here.
And why is it called "at noon"? Because the ancients used to depict the stars and constellations, and one of the most prominent among them was the sun - a sun with rounded, swirling rays extending in all directions. It was one of the heavenly bodies deeply believed to exert influence and channel abundance down below, and there were even those who worshipped it in its own right - worshippers of sun-images (chammanim). Thus, one of the greatest influencers among all celestial bodies is the sun. If so, there is an aspect of "cause to rest at noon," where we are in a state of reclining, and the initial abundance continues to flow down and cascade without any renewed bounty. This is unlike a shepherd who shows his flock fresh pasture each time, which represents individual divine providence (hashgachah pratit); rather, through the sun and the other stars and constellations, the Holy One, blessed be He, provides a constant, fixed abundance rather than a constantly renewed one.
Notice another distinction: when the Holy One, blessed be He, watches over us directly, there are no other powers alongside Him - neither stars nor constellations - but the Holy One, blessed be He, in His very essence directs us. Conversely, when the governance operates through stars and constellations, there is, as it were, "a stranger with Him" - there are celestial bodies through which the abundance descends. How precise the words of the verse are: "Where do You graze" - You, the Holy One, blessed be He, grazing us through direct, individual providence; "where do You cause to rest at noon" - through providence channeled via the sun; "beside the flocks of Your companions" - for when it is at noon, it is beside the flocks of Your companions, meaning there are intermediaries joined in: the stars, the constellations, the sun, the moon, and the other heavenly bodies, which are the aspect of "the flocks of Your companions" that channel abundance down here.
The soul yearns to perceive the reality of the Creator through both forms of governance: both through the earthly governance, which is the aspect of "cause to rest at noon" through the stars and constellations, and through the spiritual governance, which is the aspect of "graze," where the Holy One, blessed be He, tends to us Himself. I want to comprehend the Holy One, blessed be He, in both ways, and the higher I can attain, the better.
As for what is said in between - "for why should I be like one who is veiled beside the flocks of your companions?" - as the Malbim explained earlier, this too is a parenthetical thought. Why, Master of the Universe, should I be veiled, wrapped in obscurity? Why should I be covered in the clouds and mist of the corporeal shadows, of the body that blocks and seals me off from spiritual attainment? I want "Draw me, we will run after you"; I want to attach myself to Divinity at the highest level of direct providence from Him, may He be blessed. Master of the Universe, guide me: what is the path to draw near to You, to attain Ruach HaKodesh, prophecy, and communion with the Creator, blessed be He?
אִם־לֹא תֵדְעִי לָךְ הַיָּפָה בַּנָּשִׁים צְאִי־לָךְ בְּעִקְבֵי הַצֹּאן וּרְעִי אֶת־גְּדִיֹּתַיִךְ עַל מִשְׁכְּנוֹת הָרֹעִים׃ - If you do not know, O fairest among women, go out in the footsteps of the flock, and graze your young goats by the dwellings of the shepherds.
In the mashal (allegory), the shepherd says to his beloved who is held in Solomon's palace: If you do not know the way to come and reunite with me, I will give you signs - go out in the footsteps of the flock and graze your young goats by the shepherds' tents, and you will know exactly where to find me.
In the nimshal (meaning), this is the response of the Holy One, blessed be He, the supreme Shepherd, to the soul, explaining how she can emerge and break free from the body to unite with Him. And uniting with the Holy One, blessed be He, in her current physical existence means meriting prophecy. The Holy One, blessed be He, tells her: In order for you to flee King Solomon's court - meaning the body - and leave behind the yetzer, desires, and material concerns, so as to perceive Me through spiritual matters and by delving into divine concepts, you need two things. First, you must know My place: where I can be found and how I can be attained - that is, what is the path through which one connects to the Ein Sof (the Infinite), blessed be He. We have already seen in Sefer HaKuzari that everyone thinks they have a way, and every nation and religion is certain that it possesses the secret of how to attain Divinity. Second, you have obstacles and hindrances - Solomon's legions, which represent the bodily forces: passions, base desires, materialism, and the yetzer hara, which disrupt your yearning to perceive Me and prevent you from attaining Divinity. Therefore, the Beloved tells the soul: I will guide you on the path to attaining Divinity.
The Malbim explains: Comprehending the Holy One, blessed be He, in His essential Being is impossible - bodily perceptions cannot grasp Him, and no thought can apprehend Him at all. Grasping the Shepherd of the world in His essence is simply not within reach. However, one can comprehend the Shepherd through the actions and state of the flock. When I observe the flock, I can discern through them the nature of the Shepherd. Just as one can sometimes look at a child and know what kind of parents he has: when you see a child who is always neat, clean, well-groomed, with polished shoes, you know he has devoted parents; and if the reverse, then the reverse. Sometimes parents invest in other areas, perhaps in spiritual matters rather than material ones; this is merely an example and an analogy.
The Holy One, blessed be He, says: Comprehending Me in My essence is impossible, but comprehending through Hashem's governance is indeed possible - through the flock guided by Him. Through the flock, we come to recognize the Shepherd. If I see the great compassion with which the Holy One, blessed be He, conducts His world, I know that the Shepherd is compassionate; and if I see how much good the Holy One, blessed be He, bestows upon His world, I know that the Shepherd is absolute perfection of goodness. This is "go out in the footsteps of the flock": contemplate the flock, and through the flock you will be able to comprehend the infinite wisdom and goodness of the Creator, blessed be He.
On the other hand, there are obstacles: the forces of the physical body, materiality, and the yetzer hara, which prevent a person from connecting to intellectual concepts and contemplating spiritual matters. The yetzer constantly injects material concerns, always telling him what he needs, instilling in his heart desires and cravings that obstruct and distance him from apprehending the Divine. The Holy One, blessed be He, says to her: If you wish to know how to overcome the legions of Solomon, the legions of the yetzer, I advise you - "and pasture your kids."
The bodily faculties are the kids, and the person as a whole is in the aspect of a shepherd - the one to whom this flock has been entrusted, namely the passions, desires, cravings, and physicality, in order to manage them. And who is the manager? The nefesh, the soul. He says to her: You must be the shepherd, guiding the vital forces within you - that is, the desires, passions, and attraction to all the pleasures of this world. Just as the Holy One, blessed be He, is the ultimate Shepherd guiding His world, which is His flock, so too do you have a flock of your own - your desires, physicality, and appetites.
"Beside the dwellings of the shepherds" - the soul has other shepherds: the imaginative faculty, the stirring faculty, the appetitive faculty. Yet all of them must be subordinate to the supreme Shepherd. And how are they subordinated? The soul is the lower shepherd, meant to manage them and guide them toward an infinite connection with the Holy One, blessed be He. This is what He tells her: you must graze your kids beside the dwellings of the shepherds, meaning that all these shepherds must be under the watch of the supreme guiding Shepherd, the Holy One, blessed be He. You must direct all of them toward the service of Hashem, and that is the path leading to attachment to the Infinite, to prophecy, and to uniting with Me - so the Beloved says to the maiden.
The Malbim explains: Based on what was previously explained, the first song is grounded in the first revelation Solomon experienced at Gibeon. There, the Holy One, blessed be He, appeared to him in a night vision and said, "Ask what I shall give you." And what does King Solomon request? An understanding heart to judge, to discern between good and evil. And it is stated there, "And the matter was pleasing in the eyes of Hashem, that Solomon had asked for this thing." The Malbim asks: Why was this so pleasing to Hashem? He answers: Because Solomon asked for this in his dream, and as is well known, the consent and thought that arise in the heart during a dream are not an act of conscious intellect and free choice.
This matter has been elaborated upon at length in previous discussions on the topic of dreams, and is also noted in the work Mishnat HaChalomot. Why can dreams, which stem from the musings of the heart, nevertheless signal something to us and convey a message? Rav Tzadok HaKohen of Lublin and others explain that when a person is in a rational state, the intellect filters everything passing through him: whether to speak or remain silent, whether to act or refrain, even whether to dwell on a thought or dismiss it - the intellect decides. In sleep, however, a person is like a ship without a captain. In an unsteered ship, one can see with absolute clarity the direction of the wind, for it drifts entirely with the wind and the waves, without a captain to steer against them. So too is man in his sleep - a ship without a captain - and one sees precisely where the inner wind blows.
Therefore, Rav Tzadok HaKohen explains: if someone sees himself in a dream doing terrible, shameful deeds, acts violating modesty, things he would never dream of doing while awake, or sees himself striking another person, and then tells himself, "No, it was just a dream, a mistake" - Rav Tzadok says: your waking life is a dream, and your dream is reality. That is who you truly are. The only reason you do not act this way in life is because of inhibitions, social restraints, or embarrassment; you did not strike anyone perhaps because you feared being struck back - but a latent violence resides within you, as evidenced by its surfacing in the dream. And one cannot fake a dream: in dreams, a person sees his true essence without embellishment, stripped of the filters that regulate behavior, viewing himself exactly as he is.
This is why people often experience certain recurring dreams. For instance, a dream that many women recount: Shabbat is arriving, and they have not finished preparing. Almost every woman will describe having had such a dream. What does this express? A deep inner anxiety and concern lest she fail to finish preparations for Shabbat. Such a dream is positive, for it reflects what truly preoccupies her and fills her thoughts. Others recount dreaming that they overslept and missed the time for Kriat Shema, dreaming the entire scenario, only to wake up and realize they arose at sunrise and all is well. Yet in the dream, one dreamed of oversleeping and missing Shema - and this too is a positive dream, for it shows that missing Kriat Shema is what genuinely troubles him in life. Thus, a dream reveals a person for better or worse, entirely unvarnished.
It follows, then, that if Solomon in his dream says to the Holy One, blessed be He: Master of the Universe, I wish to know judgment, I want an understanding heart to judge - meaning to attain deep insights into justice, wisdom, and intellectual concepts - this proves it was innate to Solomon, his very inner essence. And whence did this derive? Undeniably from the fact that his soul sought this during his waking life. This was the longing of his soul, and it became so ingrained as an inner desire that even within a dream, this was what his soul longed for. He succeeded in completely transforming the aspirations of his soul, such that even in a dream his soul yearned to apprehend the Divine - and this was the greatness of Solomon.
Therefore, the Malbim explains: even before the upcoming verses describe the union of the maiden with her Beloved - which represents Solomon's soul detaching from the body and uniting with the Holy One, blessed be He, in prophetic visions - the text first describes how this soul engaged in inner work during waking life: an aspiration to connect to Hashem and a desire to apprehend the Divine. Only after this intense longing and attraction did the dream arrive, where the soul expresses this as second nature, as an axiom. For had it not been so, he surely would have requested and craved other things in his dream.
The Malbim explains: There is a verse that says, "Give Your judgments to the king" (Tehillim 72:1), and another that says, "For judgment belongs to God" (Devarim 1:17). The meaning of this is that legislators - the thinkers who sat and sought to formulate laws, societal norms, and systems of governance - arrived at the conclusion that there must exist an overarching, primary, and foundational standard of justice, a plumb line by which all conventions and specific details are evaluated.
To illustrate: an example of a foundational law is "You shall not steal." It is fascinating that no society in the world sanctifies theft and proclaims, "Steal; under our law, you must steal." There is no such society. In other words, there is a foundational law, basic common sense, a first principle intuitive to all: theft is fundamentally wrong. No society commands, "Commit adultery," and no society decrees, "Murder." Certainly, there are extremist societies that proclaim that whoever deviates must be beheaded, acting with monstrous brutality. Murderousness exists. But for a society to legislate: "There is no law against murder, and anyone may kill whomever he pleases" - no such society exists.
This means that there are foundational axioms universally agreed upon by all. And what is this universally accepted moral foundation, this plumb line and supreme law? Regarding this, it is said: "For judgment belongs to God." These core, fundamental principles were received directly from Hashem. What constitutes basic human morality - even without delving into subtleties, such as being careful not to cause another person emotional distress, about which some might wonder, "What is wrong with that?" - is "You shall not steal," "You shall not murder," and "You shall not commit adultery." These are the bedrock foundations. It is clear to all that judgment belongs to God, and this truth is imprinted within us as an innate moral sense shared by all of humanity. The Holy One, blessed be He, is the Supreme Lawgiver; He engraved human intellect, and therefore He is the source and root of all justice, and everything originates from Him.
Therefore, King Shlomo asks and entreats the Holy One, blessed be He: "Give Your judgments to the king." Master of the Universe, after all, true justice, righteousness, and integrity can be received only from You, as it is universally acknowledged that the foundations of law originate from Hashem, may He be blessed. For had humanity merely evolved from amoebas, everyone might have possessed a completely different logic, an entirely different intellect and mindset - and yet, no society in the world ever legislated "Murder" into law. Why? Because we all stem from a single Source, we all come from the same Divine governance, and "judgment belongs to God." The Holy One, blessed be He, engraved in human souls the understanding that to murder, steal, commit adultery, and the like are contrary to the Divine will, and this awareness exists deep within every person.
It emerges, then, that in order to grasp the Divine will in its completeness - the Divine law - one must connect to the Divine. The examples mentioned here are only the most elementary; to understand all its branches - what the Divine will and Divine law truly encompass - one must connect directly to Godliness. Therefore, Shlomo seeks, demands, and aspires to attain this union with the Divine, in order to apprehend Hashem's justice and His governance. He seeks this not merely in the realm of what everyone understands - do not steal, do not murder, do not commit adultery - but in the subtler, deeper dimensions, to know His justice, blessed be He, for the foundation of everything that exists in the world is His judgment.
The soul explains to the bodily faculties that its darkness is not inherent to it: "For the sun has tanned me" - its placement within the framework of time and within a physical body that obscures its inner light; "my mother's sons were incensed against me" - the bodily powers, the offspring of its mother which is the physical frame, scorched its countenance and appointed it to guard their vineyards of lusts and pleasures, until "my own vineyard I did not guard" - it failed to guard the vineyard of Torah and Godliness. From this state, the soul pleads: "Tell me" - make known to me the path to connect with You, both in the aspect of "where You graze" which is individual Divine providence, and in the aspect of "where You rest Your flock at noon" which is the governance through the celestial spheres, and why should I be "like one wrapped" in the veils of the material body. The Beloved's response encompasses two things: "Go out in the footsteps of the flock" - His essence cannot be grasped, yet through the guiding of the flock one comes to know the Shepherd; and "graze your kid goats by the dwellings of the shepherds" - the soul is the lower shepherd, and it must guide all the faculties of the body and subjugate them to the Supreme Shepherd. All of this is rooted in the soul-aspiration of King Shlomo, who in his waking state sought the apprehension of Godliness to such a degree that even in the dream at Gibeon he asked for "an understanding heart to discern judgment" - for "judgment belongs to God," and only through attachment to the Divine can it be attained in all its subtle depths.