We are now at the fifth song of Shir HaShirim, in the allegorical section. The fifth song begins with the verse, "Where has your beloved gone," and continues until "We have a little sister." In the mashal (allegory), it depicts the shepherd's bride finally leaving Solomon's palaces and achieving complete union with her shepherd husband.
And so it is in the nimshal (allegorical meaning): Solomon's soul, which previously would leave his body from time to time to unite with her Husband, the Holy One, blessed be He, forgot Him over the course of time. The Holy One, blessed be He, came and knocked - "The voice of my beloved knocks" - but Solomon's soul was drawn after the foreign wives he had married and followed their deities, until "Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh" - and even though he did not build it himself, ultimately the soul forgot its purpose and no longer merited any prophecy, which is direct communion with the Creator of the universe. The final reunion was left for the time of passing. Therefore, the fifth song, which expresses the bride leaving Solomon's palace to unite with her beloved, represents the departure of the soul from Solomon's body to unite with the Ein Sof, blessed be He - the time of passing and death.
אָנָה הָלַךְ דּוֹדֵךְ הַיָּפָה בַּנָּשִׁים אָנָה פָּנָה דוֹדֵךְ וּנְבַקְשֶׁנּוּ עִמָּךְ׃ - "Where has your beloved gone, O fairest among women? Where has your beloved turned, that we may seek him with you?"
When the time came for Solomon to pass away, the daughters of the body - the "daughters of Jerusalem," representing all the physical forces that had always pulled the soul back from uniting with her Beloved and from meriting prophecy, drawing her toward physical and earthly matters - now also recognize the greatness of the supreme Beloved. They, too, understand where the soul has been drawn all along, why she desires to leave the body, and the depth of her immense yearning to connect to the Divine. And they also realize that this is what is truly required: to seek Hashem and to long for Him.
And when the time of love arrived, when the time came for Solomon's soul to be gathered to her people and return to God Who gave it, all the forces of the body gather around the soul and implore her: We also want to be gathered together with you to the Ein Sof, blessed be He. They ask who her Beloved is and what His greatness is, and she describes to them the lofty stature of the Holy One, blessed be He. Immediately, the bodily forces envy the soul and desire to connect to the Ein Sof as well.
The Malbim asks: What is the difference between "Where has your beloved gone (halach)" and "Where has your beloved turned (panah)"? He explains, as we saw earlier, that there are two aspects to attaining perception of Divinity. One can perceive Divinity through prophecy and divine inspiration (Ruach HaKodesh), in which case there is no need for prolonged searching - Divinity bonds directly with the person. On the other hand, one can attain Divine understanding through deep study, philosophical inquiry, and contemplation of intellective concepts, until through this process one achieves refinement and beholds the Divine presence through the intellect, rather than through the direct spiritual bestowal of prophecy.
And what is the difference between them? Along the path of human intellect, one can go astray. After all, several sages entered the Pardes, and we saw that it led to great spiritual pitfalls. In contrast, when one merits prophecy, it is a direct Divine flow, and that settles the matter: one joins the company of prophets, Ruach HaKodesh rests upon him, and there is no room for error. Thus, the superior path is to perceive Divinity through prophecy; however, not everyone merits this, and therefore one must sometimes pursue it through study and philosophical investigation.
In light of this, we can understand their question: "Where has your beloved gone" - where has He gone, so that we may reach Him directly through the power of prophecy? But it is very possible that this option will not be available to us, and only the path of intellectual inquiry will remain; regarding this they say, "Where has your beloved turned" - in which direction did He turn? For there is no guarantee that I will find Him, and He may have turned in a direction where He will be difficult to find. Along the path of intellectual inquiry, a person might think he is entering the Pardes, but Heaven forbid, he emerges in the wrong direction, potentially leading even to heresy. This is "Where has your beloved turned" - perhaps He cannot be reached through prophecy, but only through intellectual study, in which case it may be a turn we fail to recognize in time, straying, God forbid, from the proper path in seeking Divinity.
דּוֹדִי יָרַד לְגַנּוֹ לַעֲרֻגוֹת הַבֹּשֶׂם לִרְעוֹת בַּגַּנִּים וְלִלְקֹט שׁוֹשַׁנִּים׃ - "My Beloved has gone down to His garden, to the beds of spices, to graze in the gardens and to gather lilies."
In the midst of these words, the perfected soul senses that the Supreme Beloved, the Holy One, blessed be He, is now descending from heaven, from His holy abode, to gather her to Himself. She then says to the physical forces: Behold, now "my Beloved has gone down to His garden." Notice - not to the entire garden, but specifically "to His garden." The entire garden represents all the physical forces of the body, yet He does not descend to the entire garden, but only "to the beds of spices."
And what is the garden bed that wafts fragrance? That is the divine soul. We have seen the teaching, "From where is it derived that a garden bed can hold five kinds of seeds?" - which is a parable for the soul that possesses five faculties. David uttered five times, "Bless the Lord, O my soul," corresponding to the Holy One, blessed be He, and corresponding to the soul. Thus, the soul is in the aspect of a garden bed containing five growths, five kinds of seeds, corresponding to the five levels of the soul: Nefesh, Ruach, Neshamah, Chayah, and Yechidah. And we have already discussed several times that the soul is called a garden bed because what you sow is what you reap: if a person cultivates within it spiritual, godly matters, that is what he will reap; and if he sows within his soul matters of vanity and chasing after wind, he will reap accordingly.
"My Beloved has gone down to His garden, to the beds of spices" - to the soul part, and not to the body and the physical faculties. And afterward, "to graze in the gardens" - here it already refers to the body. Notice the shift: at first "went down to His garden" in the singular, referring to the soul, and afterward "to graze in the gardens" in the plural, referring to the body. And what is the reason? Because when a person passes away, what happens to the body? It undergoes purification, and the process of its purification is its decomposition. Through this, there is the possibility to return again in a gilgul (reincarnation), for as long as the body has not decomposed, the soul cannot be fully detached. Therefore, a purification of the body is also required. Thus, the primary descent is to the soul, to elevate it to Him, but alongside this He comes "to graze in the gardens" - the Holy One, blessed be He, also tends to the body and its growths, for through death they gradually become purified and return to the primary elements, and from there it is possible for the soul to descend once again and be created anew in a new body. It turns out that the body also experiences a measure of purification through the departure of the soul.
"And to gather lilies" - by contrast, there are lilies that do not return. The lilies remain with the Holy One, blessed be He, and do not return in a gilgul. And how wonderful this is, for this verse is always cited at eulogies, and not without reason, as Chazal interpret it as referring to the passing of the righteous. The lilies allude to the supernal lily; these are the righteous who guard the supernal lily, the righteous servants of Hashem. The Holy One, blessed be He, "grazes in the gardens" to tend to the soul that will descend again in reincarnation to be further purified, but the lilies He gathers to Himself. The lilies do not return here anymore, for they are already rectified and purified; these are the righteous who ascend directly to the domain of the Master of the Universe.
אֲנִי לְדוֹדִי וְדוֹדִי לִי הָרֹעֶה בַּשּׁוֹשַׁנִּים׃ - "I am my Beloved's and my Beloved is mine, He Who grazes among the lilies."
Now the bride unites with the Supreme Beloved - an aspect of death by a kiss - and she says, "I am my Beloved's." When she enters this attachment with immense longing for God, the Holy One, blessed be He, the Supreme Shepherd, brings her lilies. And what are these lilies? They are what a person sowed here during his lifetime. "He Who grazes among the lilies" - all the good deeds a person performed are laid out before him at the time of passing. The pure angels created from his charity, his acts of lovingkindness, and his good deeds come to greet him. My Beloved is the One Who grazes among the lilies: the Holy One, blessed be He, is like a shepherd who brings before me all those legions of angels created from my good deeds, the lilies of the righteous acts that I performed.
יָפָה אַתְּ רַעְיָתִי כְּתִרְצָה נָאוָה כִּירוּשָׁלָ͏ִם אֲיֻמָּה כַּנִּדְגָּלוֹת׃ - "You are beautiful, my love, as Tirzah, comely as Jerusalem, imposing as bannered hosts."
The Supreme Beloved says to the perfected soul, to the sublime Neshamah: You are beautiful in that your deeds have found favor (nirtzu) and your iniquities have been atoned for. "Tirzah" stems from the word ritzui (appeasement, acceptance). In simple terms, one can say that passing away in itself possesses a power of purification, as it is written: "Surely this iniquity shall not be atoned for you until you die." There is a reality in which death itself is an atonement, as Chazal taught that sometimes repentance atones, sometimes afflictions are also required, and sometimes death, with death serving as part of the process of atonement. This is the meaning of "You are beautiful, my love, as Tirzah" - now your deeds have found favor and your iniquities have been atoned for.
"Comely as Jerusalem" - if we come to weigh them, the soul is a single entity, whereas the body consists of many parts. And the Beloved says: You are comely like all of Jerusalem in its entirety. For "the daughters of Jerusalem" represent all the faculties of the body, and the Holy One, blessed be He, says that the soul is far more valuable and precious than all the bodily forces combined, and is equivalent to them all.
"Awesome as an army with banners" (ayumah kanidgalot) - "nidgalot" always denotes banners, a term referring to numerous camps. And what makes you so awe-inspiring, what makes you so wondrous? From the Torah and the deeds that you performed and accomplished, through which banners of many legions come to greet you. They are the ones who stand around you to protect you, standing so that no stranger may approach you. For it is known that when a person passes away, forces of impurity come to frighten the soul and torment it, especially those created from wasted drops that issued from the person, which is why warnings and oaths are issued that they should not follow the deceased's bier. And what protects him is the repentance and good deeds the person performed; they are what shield him from them. This is "awesome as an army with banners": those legions and camps stem from the Torah and good deeds you accomplished, and they stand like an army of holy beings and angels of peace to prevent the forces of impurity from coming near you.
הָסֵבִּי עֵינַיִךְ מִנֶּגְדִּי שֶׁהֵם הִרְהִיבֻנִי שַׂעְרֵךְ כְּעֵדֶר הָעִזִּים שֶׁגָּלְשׁוּ מִן הַגִּלְעָד׃ - Turn your eyes from opposite Me, for they have emboldened Me; your hair is like a flock of goats that trailed down from Mount Gilead.
The Holy One, blessed be He, says to the soul: From now on, turn your eyes. Until now your eyes were gazing from afar, and now turn them. Notice that this is the opposite of what people usually think. We might think that "turn your eyes minnegdi" means that your eyes are facing Me and you should turn them away from Me, meaning avert your gaze. But the Malbim explains the reverse: your eyes are currently "minnegdi," meaning from the place opposite Me; turn them from there toward Me. That is to say: direct your eyes toward Me.
Until now, your eyes were opposite Me and from afar, because the soul of Shlomo was in the chambers of Shlomo, confined within the physical body, casting the eyes of contemplation from afar, since physicality constitutes a barrier and a screen. But now, you can see God face to face, for "no man can see Me and live," and now that you are no longer among the living, the eyes that were opposite Me can gaze directly. Turn them toward Me, and then you can dwell near Me beneath the Throne of Glory.
"For they have emboldened Me" (shehem hirhivuni) - this means they have magnified Me. "Rahav" connotes pride and greatness. And what magnifies the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world? The deeds of the righteous. When human beings perform the will of Hashem and sanctify His Name in the world, His blessed Name is magnified and sanctified in the world through this. The Holy One, blessed be He, says: Your eyes, while still in the body, emboldened and magnified Me; they are what glorified the Name of Heaven in the world.
שִׁנַּיִךְ כְּעֵדֶר הָרְחֵלִים שֶׁעָלוּ מִן הָרַחְצָה שֶׁכֻּלָּם מַתְאִימוֹת וְשַׁכֻּלָה אֵין בָּהֶם׃ כְּפֶלַח הָרִמּוֹן רַקָּתֵךְ מִבַּעַד לְצַמָּתֵךְ׃ - Your teeth are like a flock of ewes that have come up from the washing, all of which are paired and none among them is bereaved. Like a slice of pomegranate is your temple behind your veil.
These verses describe the virtues and rectifications that the soul brought with it, as we saw above. So too with the hair, "your hair is like a flock of goats that trailed down from Mount Gilead," where we saw that hair represents the surplus of the brain, and we already explained above that this comes to describe theoretical and spiritual concepts, and the very essence of the soul.
Yet the Malbim notes: Notice that two things are not mentioned here, and those are "your neck" and "your breasts." And why? Because the neck and breasts represent the appetitive drive and the inclinations of the physical body, and now there are no inclinations, no appetitive drive, and no lustful power. The soul is now leaving the physical corpse, which is why these two things are not mentioned here.
שִׁשִּׁים הֵמָּה מְלָכוֹת וּשְׁמֹנִים פִּילַגְשִׁים וַעֲלָמוֹת אֵין מִסְפָּר׃ - There are sixty queens and eighty concubines, and maidens without number.
Now the Holy One, blessed be He, turns to the daughters of Jerusalem, which are the bodily faculties surrounding the soul. He says to them: Shlomo - who represents the governing intellect within the body - possesses many forces. "Sixty queens" - sixty higher faculties through which the body operates, and beneath them another eighty lesser faculties. For "queens" indicates a superior power, while "concubines" signifies a subordinate one. Thus there are sixty higher faculties in the body, and eighty subordinate ones. And the body's faculties do not end there, but "maidens without number" - countless traits, attributes, and abilities. They are so innumerable that psychologists to this day continue to earn a livelihood by researching the powers of the human psyche.
אַחַת הִיא יוֹנָתִי תַמָּתִי אַחַת הִיא לְאִמָּהּ בָּרָה הִיא לְיוֹלַדְתָּהּ רָאוּהָ בָנוֹת וַיְאַשְּׁרוּהָ מְלָכוֹת וּפִילַגְשִׁים וַיְהַלְלוּהָ׃ - One is she, my dove, my perfect one; she is the only one of her mother, the pure one of her who bore her. Daughters saw her and called her blessed; queens and concubines, and they praised her.
Out of all these physical faculties - sixty queens, eighty concubines, and maidens without number - I have one that is unique: "One is she, my dove, my perfect one," referring to the holy soul. She is unique among them, having no peer or brother among all the bodily faculties, completely distinct from them all.
"She is the only one of her mother" - we have seen that the body is allegorically called the mother of the soul, for it nurtures and protects the soul, housing it within. And Scripture says: the physical frame has produced no other offspring as unique as this among all the faculties we have seen. Sixty queens, eighty concubines, and maidens without number - yet none is as distinct as the power of the soul. In simple terms: this mother has many children, but one child is preeminent, and that is the soul. The many children are all the bodily faculties, and not one of them compares in value to the power of the soul.
"The pure one of her who bore her" - barah (pure) is related to bar (cleansed grain) and fine flour, denoting that which is most select and refined. Earlier we spoke of the choicest part within the body; now Scripture says: not only within the body, but in all of nature which gave birth to all existence, she is the pure one. For if we examine nature, it consists of inanimate matter, vegetation, animal life, and speaking man; and above them emerged the soul, which is a daughter of the heavens above. Even among "speaking man," that can include the nations of the world, whereas the soul possesses the distinct loftiness of Israel, an immensely exalted stature. Thus, the nature that brought forth everything we see in the world is as nothing compared to the purity, clarity, and brilliance of what was brought forth in the soul - this select power that transcends all living things and all that exists in the world.
"Daughters saw her and called her blessed" - all the forces of creation, all the daughters of existence, look upon the soul and declare: she is true bliss, she alone is the portion of Hashem with His people, forged from the breath of the Creator ("he who blows, blows from within himself"), the very power of the Holy One, blessed be He. "Queens and concubines, and they praised her" - even those bodily faculties mentioned in the previous verse praise her and say: there is none like her, there is no force like the soul, no strength like the soul, for she alone is immortal and endures forever, unlike the body that withers and decays in the grave. Thus, she is the supreme and most exalted spiritual power in creation.
מִי זֹאת הַנִּשְׁקָפָה כְּמוֹ שָׁחַר יָפָה כַלְּבָנָה בָּרָה כַּחַמָּה אֲיֻמָּה כַּנִּדְגָּלוֹת׃ - Who is this that looks forth like the dawn, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, awesome as bannered hosts?
The faculties of the physical frame now sense that the soul of Shlomo is about to depart from them, and they ask: Who is this peering through the windows, through the lattices and shutters of dust and the body, extending her head outward through the window? "Looks forth" (nishkafah) - meaning she is still within the body, as it were, but is beginning to emerge; her head leans outward, gazing out, as though yearning to break free. Therefore she is described as looking forth, just as we saw earlier, "peering through the lattices," poised to depart.
And she resembles the dawn. In our allegory, dawn marks the boundary between day and night, the end of the night and the beginning of the day, where both celestial forces of creation are visible, both moon and sun: at dawn the moon is still seen, while on the other hand the rays of the sun begin to sparkle. So too here: the soul now stands at the threshold between temporary existence and eternal life, beginning to emerge from the body to unite with the Infinite - between the night, which represents the material reality here below, and the day, which is the illumination of the Holy One, blessed be He, and the infinite spiritual reality.
"Fair as the moon" - as long as the soul is in this world, it is enclosed within the totality of matter, and physical reality envelops it and prevents it from fully expressing itself. What is it comparable to? To the moon, which possesses no light of its own, but rather receives its light from the sun and reflects it outward, acting as a reflector. So too is the soul within the body: it cannot radiate its own essence, but only receives sparks of light from the Holy One, blessed be He, who bestows light upon it; yet from its own side, it cannot project its powerful light through its own strength.
The Malbim adds: just as the moon, being a solid and opaque substance, blocks the sun's rays. Imagine if the moon were transparent - would we receive reflected light? Certainly not, for a transparent object allows light to pass straight through it. What causes the moon to reflect light? Specifically the fact that it is a solid, dense, and opaque body, so that light strikes it and bounces back. So it is when the soul is bound to matter: because of the opacity and density of physical matter, the spiritual light does not penetrate deep inside the soul, as it were, creating an aspect of reflected light; thus it is "fair as the moon."
Yet now, as it departs from the body and returns to its Source, to the Ein Sof, blessed be He, it is "clear as the sun": pure, luminous, and radiating like the sun, shining with that spiritual light that is itself an aspect of Godliness. And at the very moment of departure, it is like the dawn - that transitional stage when the moon gradually fades and can no longer be seen by day, while the sun gradually rises and illuminates. At dawn, both great luminaries are present together; the soul is still within the body, yet its head is already peering out the window.
"Awesome as an army with banners" - just as the moon is accompanied by myriad stars, so too at its departure, the soul is escorted by the Torah, mitzvot, and good deeds it performed, and by the angels created through all its righteous acts. They accompany it upward, and therefore it is "awesome as an army with banners" - like those military banners formed from the good deeds it accomplished.
The fifth song depicts the soul's departure from the body. The bodily forces, which throughout life pulled the soul toward earthliness, finally recognize the greatness of the supreme Beloved and seek to know where He has gone and where He has turned - whether along the direct path of prophecy or through the hazardous path of deep contemplation. The Beloved descends to the "beds of spices," to the soul, plucks the roses - the righteous who need no longer return in reincarnation - and receives the soul through the kiss of death as its good deeds welcome its arrival. He proclaims that its deeds have found favor, that it outweighs all bodily forces combined, and that camps of Torah and good deeds shield it from the forces of impurity. Out of sixty queens, eighty concubines, and maidens without number, it alone is "the only one" and "the pure one" - the finest pinnacle of all creation. And at the moment of parting, it is like the dawn: concluding its role as the moon reflecting light through the opacity of matter, and beginning to radiate like the sun in its own inherent light, accompanied by the banners of angels created by its deeds.