Introduction
We stand at the end of the first song in Shir HaShirim, at the point where the dialogue between the Beloved and the Maiden - between the Holy One, Blessed be He, and the soul - reaches its climax. Until now, we have seen the soul seeking and longing for Divinity through two paths: through inner contemplation within the soul, and through contemplation of Hashem's providence in the world outside of it. Now the Beloved responds to her, and matters progress toward the union - which is prophecy. Let us note at the outset: we are proceeding according to the Malbim's division of the five songs, and not according to the chapter division, which is a Christian division that the Malbim ignores completely. Therefore, the transition to "Chapter 2" is not a true transition for us - we are still within the allegory of the first song.
"Behold, You Are Beautiful, My Beloved" - Beauty from Both Aspects
הִנָּךְ יָפָה רַעְיָתִי הִנָּךְ יָפָה עֵינַיִךְ יוֹנִים׃ (א, טו) - "Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved; behold, you are beautiful, your eyes are doves." (1:15)
The Holy One, Blessed be He, responds to the soul: You are beautiful from two aspects. "Behold, you are beautiful, my beloved" - in that you are My companion, a part of Me, attached to Me, and clinging to the Divinity present in all of existence outside the soul; this corresponds to the "cluster of henna" mentioned earlier, whose fragrance reaches Me from the vineyards of Ein Gedi. You are beautiful in that you seek Divinity in that which exists outside. "Behold, you are beautiful" a second time - from your own perspective, for the soul possesses an intrinsic beauty as a portion of God from Above, and this corresponds to the "bundle of myrrh."
"Your eyes are doves" - you possess two kinds of eyes: an inner eye, through which you gaze in inner contemplation upon the Divinity engraved upon the soul; and an outer eye, with which you look upon the world and see the hand of Hashem ruling over all of nature. From both of these perspectives, the Holy One, Blessed be He, says: Behold, you are beautiful. Your contemplation of Me, both within the soul and in Hashem's providence in the world, as well as your deeds - are beautiful and good, drawing close to Me and attaining Divinity through these two paths.
"Behold, You Are Handsome, My Beloved, Yea Pleasant" - External Beauty and Internal Pleasantness
הִנְּךָ יָפֶה דוֹדִי אַף נָעִים אַף עַרְשֵׂנוּ רַעֲנָנָה׃ (א, טז) - "Behold, You are handsome, my Beloved, yea pleasant; also our bed is verdant." (1:16)
The soul answers: You too, Master of the Universe, are beautiful in both of these aspects. "Behold, You are handsome, my Beloved" - from the aspect of Divinity outside the soul: when I look, I see how orderly the world is, how well-designed it is, and how every single thing was created according to the design fitting and suitable for it. "Yea pleasant" - from the aspect of Divinity within the soul. Here she is no longer speaking of what is perceived from the outside, but of the pleasantness, sweetness, and fulfillment of the soul's deficiencies that come from clinging to Divinity.
The difference is simple: when a person perceives Divinity from the outside, it is an attainment from afar, in the nature of scent. But when a person feels Hashem in his heart and soul, a pleasantness spreads through him, and he feels the Master of the Universe dwelling within him. "Behold, You are handsome, my Beloved, yea pleasant" - there is also an aspect of pleasantness and sweetness, when I feel my Beloved in all 248 limbs and 365 sinews, through the power of inner contemplation within the soul.
"Also Our Bed Is Verdant" - The Union That Is Prophecy
The Malbim explains: Now the soul wishes to say that the time has come to unite and connect with the Ein Sof. Everything we have seen until now is in the nature of an introduction, and the essence of this introduction is the desire of a perfected soul to connect to the Holy One, Blessed be He. And where does this ultimately lead? To prophecy. Connecting to the Holy One, Blessed be He, is prophecy. However, in order to merit it, the soul itself must seek Divinity - there must be an itaruta de-letata (an awakening from below), and this is everything we have seen: the maiden seeks her Beloved, yearns, and strives to attain Him, both deep within the soul and through what she perceives from without in Hashem's providence.
"Eres" means a bed or couch, expressing union. The soul says: Now, when the Ruach HaKodesh overflows in the macrocosm and the Ruach HaKodesh deep within the heart overflows in the microcosm, and they influence and draw towards one another - it is fitting that here there should be "Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth", which represents union, and it is fitting that this connection be "our bed is verdant." "Verdant" (ra'anana) refers to that which is fresh, good, new, and fitting. This is how the soul's connection ought to be in the cleaving of spirit to spirit: the soul seeks and yearns for Hashem, and the Holy One, blessed be He, always desires to grant, bestow, and give - and this is the time for Him to bestow His influence upon me.
"The beams of our houses are cedars" - The Beit HaMikdash as the Middle Point
קֹרוֹת בָּתֵּינוּ אֲרָזִים רַהִיטֵנוּ בְּרוֹתִים׃ (א, יז) - The beams of our houses are cedars, our rafters are cypresses.
In the allegory, we explained that the maiden fled from Solomon's palace and reached her husband in the forests, uniting with him there - yet they have no house. And what serves as their house? "The beams of our houses are cedars" - the cedar trees in the forest are the beams of our house. And what will ward off the dripping rain? "Our rafters are cypresses" - there are tall trees with broad boughs beneath which we can shelter and lodge, and the falling rain will not strike us but will be deflected to the sides.
And in the inner meaning (the nimshal), we are already dealing with union and yichud - the connection of Solomon's soul in prophecy with the Holy One, blessed be He. This cleaving resembles the cleaving that existed in the Beit HaMikdash. King Solomon himself marvelled: "Behold, heaven and the highest heaven cannot contain You", so how is it possible that the Holy One, blessed be He, would rest His presence in a house of cedar beams, contracting His Shechinah into such a place? Rather, when the Holy One, blessed be He, wished to rest His Shechinah among Israel, an infinite reality could not dwell within an earthly, physical reality without an intermediary.
And precisely so in the reality of the soul. What is the soul? An infinite divine reality capable of infinite perception. And what did the Holy One, blessed be He, do with it? He enclosed it within a physical, material body, a lump of dust. Thus we find a parallel, discussed by many of the early sages, Rabbeinu Bachya and others: man, who contains a soul within, corresponds to the Beit HaMikdash, which is a physical structure containing its soul - the spiritual element, which is the Holy One, blessed be He. Just as the Holy One, blessed be He, as it were leaves the boundless realm to dwell in a limited space, so the soul left the boundless Holy One, blessed be He, to dwell in a limited space - inside the body.
Two Extremes Meet in the Middle
The Malbim adds a very intriguing point: It is known that when two distant parties wish to meet, they say to one another, "Let us meet in the middle", for if one were to travel all the way to the other, the distance would be too great. So it is here: On the one hand is man, a living, breathing, sentient, complex organism who requires processed and complex foods; on the other hand is plant life, which is not as complex as the human body - "it drinks water from the rain of heaven", nourished by simple elements, drawing directly from the earth as it is, without processing or preparation. Man by his nature has an inclination toward evil; he is deeply tied to physicality and possesses movement, standing, as it were, at the peak of physical complexity. Plant life is far less physical in this sense - it has neither movement nor desire.
Thus, when seeking to connect with the Holy One, blessed be He, the middle path is through the realm of plant life. This is "beams of cedar" - essentially the Beit HaMikdash, where the Holy One, blessed be He, rested His Shechinah. Two distant extremes connect at the middle point. And just as the Torah, regarding the Mishkan, chooses to describe the encounter between us and the Holy One, blessed be He, through cedar beams, so Solomon describes here the union of the soul with the Holy One, blessed be He.
"Our rafters are cypresses" - The Conduits of Divine Flow
Because the beams of our houses are cedars and we have crafted a house of cedar in which the Shechinah may dwell, through this we have "our rafters" (rehitenu). "Rehitenu" shares a root with rehatim, watering troughs through which water flows, expressing the sublime spiritual abundance, in the aspect of "and flowing streams from Lebanon", descending and pouring forth from the Holy One, blessed be He, to bestow blessing. This is also the origin of the term mazal: the flow descending from the Ein Sof, trickling down (nozel) and influencing the lower worlds. This is why the stars and constellations are called mazalot, for they are the vessels through which the Holy One, blessed be He, channels influence downward. Only the mistaken believe they possess independent power, whereas believers know that "Ein mazal l'Yisrael" (Israel is not subject to planetary influence) - we have mastery even over the conduits leading to the mazal, and we connect directly to the Holy One, blessed be He. Yet in the practical order of creation, influences descend through these channels.
"Our rafters are cypresses" - the gutters channeling the water, which is the abundance of sublime chessed, are fashioned from cypress wood, whose characteristic is spreading wide. That is to say, the flow of divine bounty passes through the cypress rafters on the roof of the Temple constructed of cedar, serving as conduits to watering troughs, and thereby the spiritual bounty streams onto the earth. In simple terms: an intermediary must be established to access spiritual abundance, for it is impossible to connect directly to the raw divine flow itself. It is like someone trying to plug a lightbulb directly into a power plant - it would burn out immediately along with him. There must be transformers in between, whose function is to step down and channel the current.
And this is the idea of the Sefirot: the Holy One, blessed be He, is above the Sefirot, and He is the light that illuminates within them through a thin ray (kav dak). It is impossible for us to receive the Ein Sof, blessed be He, nor even the thin ray that He shines; therefore, we must have the enclothment of the Sefirot, which are contractions (tzimtzumim) and separating screens, creating a state in which we can receive the divine bounty without being harmed and without being consumed. For "no man can see Me and live" - the moment you see the Holy One, blessed be He, you connect to the Ein Sof, blessed be He, through intense sweetness, longing, and delight, in the words of the holy Or HaChaim, and you are nullified: the body ceases to be, and the soul departs and clings to the Ein Sof. Therefore, our connection with the Holy One, blessed be He, is through an intermediary, through contraction, just as in the Beit HaMikdash: beams of cedar, and above them a roof that keeps out the rain. So too, we need "beams of cedar" - a reality in which Hashem creates a bond with physicality, and "our rafters are cypress" - that the bounty descends measured and channeled, rather than as a torrential downpour washing us away, which we could not properly absorb.
Why Specifically Cedars?
The Malbim adds: Why is this compared to cedars? Because the cedar symbolizes the tallest tree. We represent physicality, and when one wants to see how vegetation elevates dust to great heights, one need only look at the top of a cedar. Here is a tree fifty or a hundred meters high - and what is the leaf at its summit composed of? Of earth. For one remembers that cedar when it was small, twenty centimeters tall; and what did it consume until it reached a height of a hundred meters? Earth, for it is nourished by the soil. Thus, the earth that was down below reached the very top of the cedar. This is the parable: how the soul, placed inside an earthly body - for "you are dust, and to dust you shall return" - rises to the heights of the cedar, to the lofty and towering cedars of Lebanon. In this way, the connection with the Holy One, blessed be He, is made through that intermediary reality, through which the soul can connect in some measure to the Holy One, blessed be He.
"I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys"
אֲנִי חֲבַצֶּלֶת הַשָּׁרוֹן שׁוֹשַׁנַּת הָעֲמָקִים׃ (ב, א) - "I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys" (2:1).
The soul says: I am like the rose of the Sharon and the lily that grows in the valleys. We have already explained the difference between them in the parable: the rose (chavatzelet) is a plant that requires abundant sunlight, which is why it grows in the Sharon plain. When the sun shines, it turns its head toward the sun until sunset, drawn after it, its head turning with it. The lily (shoshanah), by contrast, is a fragrant flower whose nature is that specifically at sunset it emits the scent it absorbed at sunrise, and it thrives precisely in the valleys, beneath the shade, where there is not much sunlight - there it diffuses its fragrance.
And in the nimshal: in the state where I divest myself of my garments and remove myself from the body of Shlomo - which is a physical body bound to earthliness - I go out to the Sharon, to the place of the sun. And who is the sun that illuminates the earth and its inhabitants? The Holy One, blessed be He. I depart from the body and am drawn like a rose to the sun, to the light of Hashem shining upon me, opening my petals to receive and absorb the sunlight, yearning for the light of the Ein Sof, blessed be He. And when the sun shines upon me, the rose opens, and I appear in the fullness of my majesty and splendor.
Yet when the glory of Hashem departs from me, the rose's petals close and contract, no longer receiving the sunlight and no longer shining properly. This is what happens to me when I move away from the Holy One, blessed be He, for as we have already explained, this connection is not continuous: the soul departs into prophecy and then returns to reattach to the body, for had it been severed permanently, the body would have died. Therefore, she continues: "A lily of the valleys." The lily does not depend on the sun; its strength is precisely at night, and as the evening shadows lengthen, it gives off its fragrance.
The meaning of this is: when the soul returns to the body, after receiving immense treasures while detached from it during prophecy, it channels inward to the physical components the spirituality it received - the expanded portion of Godliness from above within it, the Divine insights - infusing the limbs and the interior of the body.
What Is the True Purpose of Prophecy?
Here we must recall what we discussed previously: there were 1,200,000 prophets in Israel, twice the number of those who left Egypt, yet we know of only forty-eight prophets. Where are all the rest? The answer reveals a common misconception. Ask an ordinary person what a prophet's role is, and he will tell you: to tell the people what to do. That is a complete mistake. Hashem does not grant prophecy for that purpose. Since the Holy One, blessed be He, has a direct channel with the prophet, He also conveys messages through him - but that is incidental, not the purpose of prophecy. The purpose of prophecy is to sanctify and elevate a person and to guide him in the service of Hashem, to connect with the Ein Sof, blessed be He. This is what we see in the Baraita of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair: cleanliness, zeal, and so on, up to Ruach HaKodesh. And what comes after that - do you go around telling people their fortunes? Do you want to become a "baba"? That is not the goal. The goal is that you have reached the peak, and at the peak you have connected with the Ein Sof; you have attained a spiritual sanctification wherein the Holy One, blessed be He, guides and directs you.
And how does this benefit a person? Notice - in one's personal conduct. When the soul departs and connects to the Ein Sof and then returns to the body, it returns fertile, holy, and filled with immense spiritual energy; the entire conduct of the body becomes more sanctified, advancing further in the service of Hashem. The prophet is not connected to Divinity at all times, and sometimes he wishes to connect and cannot - "And now bring me a musician," Elisha requests, and when they bring the musician, "the hand of Hashem came upon him." But afterward, when the soul returns to the body, it infuses the body with all the fruits of that labor and all that infinite connection: the holiness, the will, and the yearning to serve the Holy One, blessed be He. And how wonderful is the parable: the rose receives the sunlight all day long, and then it shines, blossoms, and glows; but when the sun recedes, it closes. With me, it is not so - I am also a lily of the valleys, which begins to emit its fragrance specifically at night. Specifically when I return to the body, which represents night, and the Holy One, blessed be He, is no longer shining directly upon me and I return to physical reality - then I am like the lily of the valleys, diffusing its fragrances and insights into the depths of the body.
By the way: the Malbim brings proofs and citations from the Zohar for every single matter. We bypass these here, as that would require delving into the language of the Zohar and explaining it, and the Malbim's general explanation suffices for our purpose. This is noted simply so that anyone who wishes can look inside and see that for everything he says, he has traditions rooted in explicit statements in the Zohar.
"As a Rose Among the Thorns" - A Warning Upon Returning to the Body
כְּשׁוֹשַׁנָּה בֵּין הַחוֹחִים כֵּן רַעְיָתִי בֵּין הַבָּנוֹת׃ (ב, ב) - "As a rose among the thorns, so is My beloved among the daughters." (2:2)
The Beloved on High responds to the soul: Among the daughters of Jerusalem - which allegorically represent the forces of the physical body and carcass - you are like a rose growing on a branch full of thorns. Anyone who has seen a rose knows that its stem is full of thorns, and if it does not raise and lift its head upward, the thorns on its stem will pierce it.
And what is He hinting to her with this? You are now returning to the body. You are an exalted spiritual force, you are a rose - but the body is thorns, and the thorns are liable to pierce the holy rose and ruin its beauty and holiness. Therefore, even upon your return to the body, you must be like a rose among the thorns, lifting your head upward, not re-entangling yourself with the body and its pleasures and desires, but remaining elevated and raised above them. Take care: you received holiness, you received the sweet fragrance, and you are going to emit it into the body - and this is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you can spread the good fragrance and channel holy influences into the body from what you received from Above; on the other hand, Heaven forbid, the body can pull you down, its thorns can pierce you, and you might deteriorate as a result of returning to material, physical reality. Therefore, "As a rose among the thorns, so is My beloved among the daughters" - I ask that you hold firm and lift your head, and not reach a state where the body drags you down into dust and physical coarseness.
"As an Apple Tree Among the Trees of the Forest" - The Two Types of Providence
כְּתַפּוּחַ בַּעֲצֵי הַיַּעַר כֵּן דּוֹדִי בֵּין הַבָּנִים בְּצִלּוֹ חִמַּדְתִּי וְיָשַׁבְתִּי וּפִרְיוֹ מָתוֹק לְחִכִּי׃ (ב, ג) - "As an apple tree among the trees of the forest, so is my Beloved among the sons. In His shade I delighted and sat, and His fruit was sweet to my palate." (2:3)
The soul answers: The Holy One, blessed be He, is, as it were, the soul of all the worlds. Hashem guides the worlds, moves them, and animates them, just as the soul animates the body. The body is a piece of matter, and all the worlds are likewise a physical reality, while the force that moves them and the living spirit within them is the Holy One, blessed be He, the Name Havayah - the active power in all the worlds.
Yet despite all this, there is a reality in which "my Beloved is among the sons." What are the "sons"? Those celestial bodies through which abundance flows down and influences all the worlds: the heavenly servants, the sun, the moon, and the stars, as well as the angels through whom the Holy One, blessed be He, governs His world and brings abundance down to the lower realms - this is the natural order through which He directs creation. Thus, there is "my Beloved" and there are "the sons," which is why the Malbim explains that there are two forms of divine providence here.
There is overt providence (hashgachah geluyah) and there is hidden providence (hashgachah mesuteret). Overt providence - hailstones falling from the sky, "Sun, stand still at Gibeon," the splitting of the Red Sea with Israel crossing the sea on dry land. In contrast, there is hidden providence: Megillat Esther, which, true to its name, is a scroll of concealment (hester). There was no supernatural miracle there, and all the providence operated within nature. One who reflects upon it is astounded to see the "chain of coincidences" that led to the tremendous miracle. Outwardly, everything appeared natural: the king gets angry and executes his wife, consequently another woman enters the palace, consequently Haman becomes jealous, and then she invites him to a banquet - the entire story seems like an unfolding of events driven by royal palace intrigue. But one who looks closely sees that everything was orchestrated through hidden providence, a providence wrapped in nature.
"There Is No Artist Like Our God"
Rav Yaakov Galinsky once asked Rav Dessler: It is written, "There is no rock (tzur) like our God," and Chazal expounded, "There is no artist (tzayar) like our God," for the Holy One, blessed be He, forms a shape within a shape. He said to him: I do not understand. When I praise a human being, I add compliments; yet when I come to praise the Holy One, blessed be He, Who created the entire universe, what do I say? "He is an expert artist, there is no artist like Him"? An artist?! In doing so, you have diminished Him! Not only have you failed to offer adequate praise, but you have actually belittled Him!
Rav Dessler replied: Let me explain it to you. Once, there was an art competition in France. The king announced that whichever painter depicted a fruit basket in the most natural, authentic, and magnificent manner would win a prize. On the appointed day, each artist brought his painting, over which he had labored, toiled, and sweated for months. They were astounding paintings, and making a choice was exceedingly difficult. Then, the king noticed a bee fly in and land upon a particular painting, crawling across it, drawn to it. The king declared: This is the winning painting. Why? If the artist succeeded in instilling so much realism into the painting that a bee mistakenly thought it was a real flower and real fruit, it is certainly the closest thing to reality.
Rav Dessler added: This is the meaning of "There is no artist (tzayar) like our God." The most expert painter can take an image and give you the impression that it is alive. And the Holy One, blessed be He, created a world where anyone with eyes to see immediately concludes that there is a Creator of the universe, that it is undeniable, that such a thing could not happen on its own - and yet He succeeded in creating such a canvas that gives you the sensation that everything is natural, that this is simply how it came to be. Like the bee walking across the flower, convinced it is real: that this is how it has always been, or perhaps that it evolved over millions of years. What artistry and immense power to paint such a wondrous world and conceal Himself within it, so that no one manages to detect that it is the Master of the Universe! Then the scientist comes along and shows how everything can be measured, quantified, and tested in a laboratory, declaring: A Creator of the world? I have not seen Him. In the laboratory, I tested every scenario with all kinds of materials, and I did not see the Creator. What genius it is to create a world and give people the impression that it formed all on its own! This is "There is no artist like our God."
An Aside: A World of Falsehood, Even in Art
Nowadays, in the era of abstract art, paintings are often just scribbles on a canvas, stained cloth, and one is left trying to figure out what the artist intended. It is an alma deshikra (world of falsehood), visible even in art. There is a story about a studio owner who kept a piece of canvas to wipe his brushes on. One day, a woman with an eye for art visited and marveled: "This is a true masterpiece! The variety, the color combinations, the harmony! How much is it?" He told her: "This is a piece I have been working on for a very long time, and parting with it is not easy for me; notice that it is not yet signed at the bottom, as I haven't finished it." In the end, he received a hefty sum for it. People take scribbles and explain that it is abstract, requiring a connoisseur to comprehend what is happening there.
There was once a serious debate with someone well versed in art. A student in an art program shared this critical view of abstract art with her teacher, a reputed expert in the field. The teacher replied: "This is the absolute truth. I know art from its very core, its entire history, and I tell you that it is an unfathomable alma deshikra. Anyone can take a few pieces of iron and arrange them in some posture, and behold, he is a master sculptor. What is actually there? Merely a metalworker who welded a few bent iron bars. But no, they insist: He is an artist, you just do not understand, you must contemplate what he sought to convey! In the past, when someone painted, you could see he was an artist who could portray something realistically. Today, one scribbles something haphazardly, and others try to explain what was meant."
It is told of Bialik - "may his merit protect us" - that during the cultural "Oneg Shabbat" gatherings held in bohemian circles, people would read poems by Bialik, Ahad Ha'am, and the like. One person read a poem by Bialik and began explaining that the poet surely intended this and that. Bialik said to him: "Really? You don't say! I had no idea that was what I meant." He caught him completely off guard. This is the whole notion of "what the poet intended." A world of falsehood. The emperor has no clothes, but no one has the courage to cry it out. This is noted merely as an aside, an observation that weighs on the mind, rather than the core topic itself.
In Summary:
In these verses, the introduction reaches its climax. The Holy One, blessed be He, attests that the soul is beautiful from both perspectives - from internal contemplation and from observing His governance of the world ("your eyes are doves"). The soul responds that He, too, is beautiful in both ways: "Behold, you are handsome" through the external splendor of creation, and "delightful as well" through the sweetness felt within the soul itself. Having reached this stage, the time of union - prophecy - arrives: "our couch is verdant as well." Yet direct connection with the Infinite (Ein Sof) is impossible, and therefore "the beams of our houses are cedars, our panels are cypresses": there must be an intermediary and a contraction (tzimtzum), like the Beit HaMikdash, which serves as the meeting point where distant realms converge, and like the Sefirot, which allow divine flow to be received without being consumed. Following prophecy, the soul returns to the body: "I am a rose of Sharon" in its attachment to the light, and "a lily of the valleys" as it radiates its fragrance and holiness into the body - provided that it remains "as a lily among the thorns," elevated above physical desires. Finally, "Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest": recognizing both dimensions of Divine Providence, the revealed and the concealed, and perceiving that nature itself is nothing other than the masterpiece of the Master Artist - "There is no artist like our God."