Introduction: What Was Seen in the Vision
After the Holy One, blessed be He, gave the soul of Shlomo the signs by which to recognize Him and attain apprehension of His Godliness - "Go out in the footsteps of the flock... by the tents of the shepherds" - the soul merits the visions of prophecy, and the Holy One, blessed be He, speaks with it in a night vision. From here onward, Scripture describes the matters that occurred in that vision: what was spoken in that revelation wherein Shlomo's soul cleaves to her Beloved, to the Holy One, blessed be He.
"To a Mare in Pharaoh's Chariots" - When the Body Harnesses the Soul
לְסֻסָתִי בְּרִכְבֵי פַרְעֹה דִּמִּיתִיךְ רַעְיָתִי׃ (א,ט) - To a mare in Pharaoh's chariots I have compared you, my beloved.
In the mashal, we explained: when the shepherd meets the beloved as she flees to him from the king's palace, he says to her, "I see jewelry on you that Shlomo gave you, as though you attached yourself to him instead of to me." So it is in the nimshal. When the soul goes out and cleaves to her Beloved, Who is the Holy One, blessed be He, the Holy One, blessed be He, says to her: "I see that you have accepted jewelry from the physical body."
The bodily forces are called "Pharaoh's chariots," because the chariot of the body emerges, as it were, from Egypt - from the realm of licentiousness, from the imaginative and appetitive faculties. Egypt is the "nakedness of the land," symbolizing the entire concept of physical corporeality. There is an allusion in its name: Mitzrayim (Egypt) - meitzar yam (the straits or boundary of the sea). And the sea, as the Maharal explains, is pure, unformed matter. There is matter that possesses form: a cup is physical matter, but it was shaped into a round vessel and given the form of a cup. But water is matter without any form at all; no form was ever given to it. Therefore, the peak of physical formlessness is expressed in water, and Mitzrayim is meitzar yam - the confinement of raw matter.
With this, the Holy One, blessed be He, says to her: "I see that Pharaoh's chariots have overpowered you; the forces of the body and the forces of materiality have prevailed over you, the soul." These are the forces that reign within Shlomo's body, and Shlomo's chariot is driven by these material forces. Consequently, Shlomo married many foreign wives, who in the nimshal symbolize lust, jealousy, honor, the pursuit of wealth, and the love of licentiousness - and Pharaoh's daughter symbolizes licentiousness itself.
In simple terms: the body succeeded in pulling the soul and harnessing it to its chariots. Instead of the soul harnessing the body and leading it along toward spirituality, an inverted situation arose - the body harnesses the soul to its own chariots, causing it to cater to its lusts, desires, and pleasures. "To a mare in Pharaoh's chariots" - I see that you are like a mare harnessed to Pharaoh's chariots, pulling Pharaoh's chariots instead of driving the Divine Chariot.
Nevertheless, He adds and says: "To my mare" - despite all this, you remain My mare. You are destined to make My will prevail within Pharaoh's chariots, to establish My will over the body and overcome the pull of materiality.
"Your Cheeks Are Comely with Rows" - The Adornments of the Body
נָאווּ לְחָיַיִךְ בַּתֹּרִים צַוָּארֵךְ בַּחֲרוּזִים׃ (א,י) - Your cheeks are comely with rows, your neck with strings of beads.
Because you were harnessed to Shlomo's chariot - like the beloved who lived in the king's palace - you became adorned with all sorts of ornaments used to decorate the king's steeds. In the nimshal: the soul joined with the body, and through this union it became bound to physical, earthly pursuits, seeking physical pleasures. Regarding this, He says to her: "I see ornaments upon you that are used to adorn the king's horses - rows of ornaments on your cheeks and strings of pearls on your neck - which you did not have when you were beneath the Throne of Glory. Your attachment to the body has not done you well; it has bound you to materiality."
Immediate Comprehension Versus Gradual Comprehension
The Malbim explains: when a person is in the state of abstract intellect, he grasps things in their very essence. Where there is no body - there is no time. The entire concept of time is bound to the existence of matter. The Ramban wrote this eight hundred years ago, and it took Einstein seven hundred years to realize it: where there is matter there is time, and where there is no matter there is no time. Therefore, in the supernal spiritual realm, time does not exist.
Today there are atomic clocks that can verify this. Pilots reaching the speed of sound already notice that their clocks slow down. Theoretically, Einstein said, if a spaceship were to reach the speed of light - time would stand still; and this has already been tested with atomic clocks and in nuclear reactor experiments. If it were to exceed the speed of light - an entirely imaginary scenario - time would begin to move backward. Let us hold onto what is agreed: at the speed of light, time is meaningless. Time is bound to matter. Therefore, the Ramban writes that one cannot ask what the Holy One, blessed be He, did a thousand years before the creation of the world - before the world was created there was no time, and if there is no time, it is meaningless to speak of a day, two days, or a thousand. Notice, too, that regarding the 974 generations that preceded the creation of the world, Chazal did not speak in years, but in generations, because this refers to something more internal, not intervals of time.
When the soul is spiritual and untethered to matter, it can grasp concepts in a single moment, needing no gradual process. As mentioned earlier regarding Rav Chaim of Volozhin, the soul is boundless and possesses immense powers, capable of grasping the entire Torah in a single second. This explains why during the nine months a baby is in its mother's womb, an angel teaches it the entire Torah - in ninety years a person cannot manage to learn it all, yet in nine months he can? Rather, in the spiritual realm comprehension is instantaneous, because the limitation of time does not exist there. And when there is no time limit - everything is known in an instant.
But when there is a limitation of time, one must learn slowly and gradually. The Malbim explains: at first, the soul constructs statements from sensory perceptions, and then from these statements it builds assertions of affirmation and negation. For example: "The apple is red," and from this one understands that the apple is not black. In this way, statement is joined to statement, and from statements one builds a concept, from a concept an idea, and from an idea a theory - until reaching comprehension. A person does not become a professor in one day, nor does one become the gadol hador in one day. Everything is acquired through daily toil, diligence, comparing one matter to another, moving from concept to concept, until one succeeds in attaining deep understanding of intellectual truths.
The same is true in Gemara study. A person opens a sugya and faces complete darkness: what is happening here, what is the reasoning, what is the definition? But step by step - a Rashi here, then matters are clarified in Tosafos, then Maharsha; reviewing once, twice, three, and four times, examining the Rishonim, and the picture begins to clarify. How thrilled we would be if all at once the entire sugya, with all its facets, nuances, and difficulties, entered our minds. We would pay a fortune for a flash drive that plugged directly into the brain.
In our day, the situation is even more critical because of the computer: people have grown accustomed to everything happening instantly, and are no longer willing to invest effort. The mind becomes idle - the intellect no longer thinks, for with the click of a key one receives thirty answers. And when someone is told, "Think," the reply is, "I don't have the energy - come on, just tell me, don't give me riddles." In the past, people would think; today, they want to be told. Someone once remarked: in the past, Torah scholars held the Torah in their heads, while today they hold it in the Otzar HaChochmah database - every question answered with the press of a key. Yet they face a problem: Shabbos. Chazal said that an am ha'aretz feels the awe of Shabbos and does not lie on Shabbos; similarly here, when such a person is asked something, he replies, "Wait, I'm without my computer, today is Shabbos," and suddenly it turns out he knows very little. Someone once asked a halachic question, and when answered, protested: "Rabbi, I asked Google, and it told me..." The response was: "I do not know Rabbi Google." A new halachic authority has emerged - "My people consult their wooden idol, and their staff declares to them" (Hoshea 4:12); people consult sticks, plastic, and computers.
The root of the matter is that at our core, this is how we are: the soul absorbs everything and knows everything in an instant. What limits us is the body, which places us within the constraints of time and creates a condition in which wisdom is acquired slowly, layer upon layer, drawing analogies from one case to another and through logical deduction, until we succeed in comprehending things in their essence.
"Your Neck with Strings of Beads" - Stringing Concepts Together
The neck represents the place from which the voice emerges; if someone asks where the voice comes from, we immediately point to the neck. And what is the difference between speech and voice? Speech is external - it must emerge through the articulation points of the mouth and lips, shaped by the teeth and lips, the letters BUMAF (the labials), the letters ZASSHRATZ (the sibilants and dentals). The voice, by contrast, is the very emission of air from the throat before it touches the lips - and therefore it expresses something more internal.
From here there is an allusion to the soul's method of intellectual inquiry and contemplation. Why is it called charuzim (strings of beads)? Because such is the path of intellectual acquisition: you string one thing to another. You learn one matter, add another to it, another piece of knowledge from here, another elaboration from there, another point of deep study - slowly you proceed, stringing them together, until you possess complete wisdom and full comprehension. It turns out, then, that your condition is "Your cheeks are comely with rows" and also "Your neck with strings of beads," and all of this stems from the soul's connection to the physical body. The body creates the limitation whereby grasping the Divine cannot occur in an instant, but rather through seeing something and needing to analyze it - this is "Your cheeks are comely with rows"; and through comprehending slowly, one thing after another, until achieving wholeness - this is "Your neck with strings of beads."
"Rows of Gold" Versus "Points of Silver"
תּוֹרֵי זָהָב נַעֲשֶׂה לָּךְ עִם נְקֻדּוֹת הַכָּסֶף׃ (א,יא) - Rows of gold we will make for you, with points of silver. (1:11)
The Holy One, blessed be He, continues and says to the soul: When you were in the dwelling place of the primordial God, beneath the Throne of Glory, before you were attached to the chariots of Shlomo - you had only points of silver. That is to say, neither quantity nor quality pertained to the soul's spiritual comprehension. For a geometric point occupies no space whatsoever; if you ask what the size of a point is, they will tell you that it has no size - it is an infinitesimal dot, a mere point. Kabbalah speaks similarly of the letter yud, which is an indivisible point. And because it occupies no space, it is also indivisible; for an infinitesimal point cannot be divided - if you divide it, you now have two such points. Thus, the point represents something non-quantitative, indivisible, to which quantities do not apply.
This is the very opposite of the rows and the strings of beads in the previous verse. The rows represent what we perceive through the senses, observing and taking in image after image, joining one thing to another until speech is produced. The strings of beads represent the sequential logical deductions, where we string one idea to another until we reach a reasoned conclusion. "Your cheeks are lovely with rows" requires an existence that contains space, and "your neck with strings of beads" requires an existence that contains time - for "after that I reflected further" implies time.
According to this, one can understand what He is arguing to her: Silver is white, and whiteness is the absence of color. White is the simple, undifferentiated color, what we might call clear or transparent; when counting primary colors, white is not counted, since it is an absence of color. The redness of gold, by contrast, depicts distinct color. The verse comes to say: Now you perceive things in the manner of "rows of gold" - something categorized by quantity and quality, possessing color and defined form. What was originally for you "points of silver" - an indivisible point that grasps everything in a single instant, without the passage of time and without occupying space - has now become "rows of gold," a vivid color, where you must delve, exert yourself, and attain understanding with great effort. And all of this is because you were inside the body of Shlomo, inside physical reality, and physical reality pulled you downward.
"While the King Is at His Table" - The Soul's Reply
עַד שֶׁהַמֶּלֶךְ בִּמְסִבּוֹ נִרְדִּי נָתַן רֵיחוֹ׃ (א,יב) - While the king was at his table, my spikenard gave off its fragrance. (1:12)
The soul replies to the Holy One, blessed be He: Know that I have separated myself from matter. Although I appear attached to Shlomo, seemingly still bound to physical existence, nonetheless, "while the king was at his table" - while the bodily faculties sit at their banquets and pleasures, delighting in meat and wine and indulging in worldly pleasures - "my spikenard gave off its fragrance": I smelled the scent of spikenard, the spiritual fragrance of the incense offering. "My spikenard" refers to the Holy One, blessed be He, for, as it were, the scent reaches me from Him, blessed be He. I am not joined to the physical body, nor do I enjoy and savor its delicacies; rather, the One who gave off His fragrance is my Beloved. The spirituality that emanates from Him, blessed be He, penetrates deep into the body, whereupon the soul disdains physicality and yearns for the spiritual.
"A Bundle of Myrrh" - Recognizing Godliness from within the Soul
צְרוֹר הַמֹּר דּוֹדִי לִי בֵּין שָׁדַי יָלִין׃ (א,יג) - A bundle of myrrh is my Beloved to me; between my breasts he lodges. (1:13)
Here she explains her words in greater depth: The sweet scent and the spirituality drawn down from the Holy One, blessed be He, I perceive from two perspectives. The first perspective is from the Godliness within the soul itself. The soul is a Godly soul, a portion of God from Above; if we ask whether its source is in the body or in Godliness, without doubt it is a spiritual portion of His very essence, blessed be He. Consequently, all divine matters are naturally engraved within it.
There is an expression frequently found in the early sages: "The part resembles the whole." When a part is separated from the whole, the part resembles the whole. Take a piece from the corner of a table and move it away, and you can easily discover where it belongs - you see what it is made of, and you know it is not a piece of a stone slab from outside. So too, with a limb severed from a person, one can recognize where it belongs. And if the soul is a portion of God from Above, then the part resembles the whole, and it resembles, as it were, the Holy One, blessed be He.
And what does this mean? When one wants to know what Hashem's will is, what the purpose of the creation of the soul and the body is, and how to attain Godliness, there are two paths. The first is to look inward into the soul. The soul's source is in Godliness, and therefore it knows the path to attain Godliness. This is the conscience within us. Where does a person get a conscience that tells him, "You did something immoral"? How does the soul know what is moral and what is immoral? These feelings are etched into the soul, for it is a portion of God from Above, and the matters that descend and emanate from the God above are engraved upon it.
We once mentioned: a small child talks to the Master of the Universe - "My God, I wanted You to know." A six-year-old child speaks with his Creator in total simplicity. And what happens to him at age fifteen? The murky physical matter comes in, conceals, and pulls him toward desires and material pursuits. The things that were once self-evident - that there is a Creator of the world and that one can speak with Him - which were crystal clear to him as a child who had not yet been drawn after physical lusts, are no longer completely obvious to him.
From here also stems what we explained in the past, that there are things a person cannot do in front of strangers. The soul senses and knows that there is something to be ashamed of - and these are the very things that Chazal characterize as areas where we are like animals: eating and drinking like an animal, reproducing like an animal. A person does not want to be photographed while eating, nor does he want to be photographed while sleeping - "Wait, let me get organized," and he steps away from his plate. Where does he get this intuition? Even a non-Jew feels this naturally. Rather, the soul is like a tablet upon which spirituality is engraved, because it is part of the whole, a part of the Holy One, blessed be He, and therefore these inner feelings are inherent to it from within itself.
This Divine fragrance, says the Malbim, is, as it were, bound up and concealed within the soul. Therefore the beloved says: "A bundle of myrrh is my Beloved to me" - a sachet that exudes a delightful scent; "it shall lodge between my breasts" - within the chambers of my heart, for between the breasts is the place of the heart. Those spiritual feelings reside within my heart; I feel them on my own, the attraction to spirituality exists deep inside me.
And not without reason did she specifically choose the example of "a bundle of myrrh." Myrrh is the well-known, famed perfume - musk - known to this day, with an ancient origin: it is derived from the blood of an animal - some say from a gland on the back of a deer-like animal - and from it an extraordinary fragrance is produced. And here is the allegory: the bundle of myrrh is derived from blood, and its place is with me in the heart, for the heart and the blood express the inner faculties. Early commentators wrote that the purest blood reaches the heart, for if impure blood were to arrive, it could cause heart trouble, Heaven forbid. The choicest blood is in the heart - and likewise, Divine knowledge resides deep within my soul. Therefore, Master of the Universe, even though it appears that I am within the body of Shlomo and distanced from Godliness, deep within the heart, deep within the soul, Divine knowledge is already engraved.
"A Cluster of Henna" - Recognizing Godliness from Creation
אֶשְׁכֹּל הַכֹּפֶר דּוֹדִי לִי בְּכַרְמֵי עֵין גֶּדִי׃ (א,יד) - A cluster of henna is my Beloved to me, in the vineyards of Ein Gedi. (1:14)
Now she adds a second dimension: I sense spirituality not only from what is engraved within the soul, but also from what exists outside the soul. When I look at the world, I see the hand of Hashem. We have already spoken at length about Rav Shach, who, upon looking at a clementine, said that he saw Godliness. Anyone who observes the design of nature, the order of creation, and the beauty that the Holy One, blessed be He, created here - it is clear to him that the world has a Creator.
Yet notice: this is an observation from afar. The previous perspective was deep within the soul, looking at what is engraved within it. But looking at the world is something distant, like a scent that wafts to you from afar. You are not holding it in your hand; it is not the "bundle of myrrh" resting upon my heart "between my breasts," but a fragrance that I perceive from a distance.
"A cluster of henna" [eshkol hakofer] is a cluster that exudes a wonderful fragrance. And why is it called an eshkol? People say "an ish eshkolot" (a polymath), and Chazal expounded: a man in whom everything is found [ish shehakol bo] - this is the origin of the expression. And behold, among many clusters there is one special cluster, the cluster of henna, whose fragrance wafts far and wide and cannot be mistaken: you know that this is the henna cluster and those are mere grape clusters. So too with the Holy One, blessed be He - I sense His fragrance even though there are many clusters, many forces in creation, influences from heavenly bodies and constellations, and I do not get confused: it is clear to me who is the cluster of henna.
"In the vineyards of Ein Gedi" - Ein Gedi is in the wilderness, and this is an allegory for the dwelling place of the Holy One, blessed be He, which is "in the celestial realms [Aravot]," beyond human habitation. There He dwells, and from there He sends His fragrance to us.
Thus, in summary of the beloved's words: I perceive Godliness both from the perception within the soul - the aspect of "it shall lodge between my breasts" - and from the perception from without, from all that I observe and contemplate in the world, for the entire world cries out Godliness. And through both of these aspects, I seek only Godliness, and You need not fear, Master of the Universe, lest I be drawn after Shlomo, after the desires of the body and after the pursuits of physical matter and this world.
In summary:
In these verses, a dialogue unfolds between the Holy One, Blessed is He, and the soul. He confronts her with the charge that the body - "Pharaoh's chariots," the confinement of the sea and of physicality - has harnessed her to its chariots, and that the ornaments upon her, "rows" and "strings of beads," are nothing other than signs of the limitation imposed upon her by the physical: slow comprehension through sensory perception, space, and time, instead of the "studs of silver" of immediate, indivisible apprehension that she once possessed beneath the Throne of Glory. Yet the soul replies that even within the body, she has not lost her purpose: while the bodily faculties are immersed in their banquets, she inhales the fragrance of her nard from Above. She recognizes her Creator from within herself - "A bundle of myrrh... it shall lodge between my breasts," from the Divinity engraved within the soul and conscience - and she recognizes Him from afar as well - "A cluster of henna... in the vineyards of Ein Gedi," through contemplation of the entire creation. From both of these perspectives, she seeks Divinity alone.