Chapter 8 of Shir HaShirim is the concluding chapter, carrying within it the climax of the declaration made by Kneset Yisrael of her loyalty to her Beloved. In this section, we examine the verses from "Mayim rabbim" through the end of the book: the inextinguishable power of love, the steadfastness of Israel against the temptations of the nations, the judgment of the kingdoms on the Day of Judgment, the sound of Torah for which the angels wait, and the final plea - "Berach Dodi" ("Flee, my Beloved"). We will follow the order of the verses with Rashi's commentary.
מַיִם רַבִּים לֹא יוּכְלוּ לְכַבּוֹת אֶת־הָאַהֲבָה וּנְהָרוֹת לֹא יִשְׁטְפוּהָ אִם־יִתֵּן אִישׁ אֶת־כָּל־הוֹן בֵּיתוֹ בָּאַהֲבָה בּוֹז יָבוּזוּ לוֹ׃ (ז) - Many waters cannot extinguish love, nor can rivers wash it away. If a man were to give all the wealth of his house for love, they would utterly scorn him. (7)
Rashi senses a difficulty: since when does one extinguish love with water? What does water have to do with love? Rather, this is a direct continuation of the preceding verse. There it says, "Its flashes are flashes of fire" - sparks of flame, and therefore the term of extinguishing applies to it. In the mashal (allegory), fire is put out with water, and so when the nations come to extinguish this love, their actions are likened to water.
And who are the waters? "Many waters - the nations," expressing their immense multitudes. "And rivers" - their ministers and kings, the prominent among them. "Will not wash it away" - neither through force and terror, nor through seduction and incitement. For a river has two aspects: sometimes it surges with great force and sweeps you to a place you never intended to go, and sometimes it flows placidly, while you float pleasantly on your back, only to suddenly find yourself in an entirely different place. These are the two ways the nations attempt to sway us, and the second way is the far more dangerous of the two.
And so the Chasam Sofer would say, as did the gedolim of all generations: more than we fear the hatred of the nations, we fear their love and closeness, because through love and closeness they harm us far more. The Rosh Yeshivah of Mir, Rav Finkel, used to say: far more than Germany harmed us in the terrible and horrific Holocaust, America has harmed us in the "silent holocaust" that has been underway for seventy years. It is terrifying to contemplate how many Jews have been lost in this holocaust, and it continues still - fifty percent assimilation. And there is one difference: people do not defend themselves against this holocaust; it is not frightening, nor does it provoke antagonism. On the contrary, everything is pleasant: equal rights, emancipation, everyone is equal before the law, how wonderful. And then we see, may Hashem have mercy, where it leads.
"If a man were to give all the wealth of his house" - the verse does not specify in exchange for what, and Rashi explains: to trade away your love. Should someone come and offer Kneset Yisrael vast riches so that she renounce the love of Hashem - "they would utterly scorn him." Kneset Yisrael despises him: is it my faith you wish to buy? Do you think you can purchase my God with money? And concerning all of this, Rashi explains, the Holy One, blessed be He, and His heavenly Beis Din testify that this is how Kneset Yisrael clings lovingly to her Beloved. And from where do we know that it refers to the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Beis Din? From the plural phrasing in the following verse - "We have a sister."
אָחוֹת לָנוּ קְטַנָּה וְשָׁדַיִם אֵין לָהּ מַה־נַּעֲשֶׂה לַאֲחֹתֵנוּ בַּיּוֹם שֶׁיְּדֻבַּר־בָּהּ׃ (ח) - We have a little sister, and she has no breasts; what shall we do for our sister on the day when she will be spoken for? (8)
The Holy One, blessed be He, and His Beis Din say: We have a sister in the lower realms, in this world, who binds herself, joins together, and yearns to be with Us. "Achot" (sister) is an expression of connection, from the root of mending or joining tears (le'achot), as Rashi illustrates: "tears that may not be mended" - the rending of a garment for a deceased parent which may never be sewn back together. Similarly, "ach" in the sense of a hearth fire - the burning brazier, concerning which the Sages said that these are pieces of wood joined together in brotherhood (achavah) and burning as one.
"Little" - she diminishes and humbles herself before all the nations, in the sense of what is written, "Not because you were more numerous than all the nations did Hashem desire you." You are not the majority, nor do you exalt and aggrandize yourselves. And the Holy One, blessed be He, consistently chooses the one characterized by humility and lowliness. The Kli Yakar demonstrates this throughout the entire Torah: from Cain, Abel, and Seth - the world was founded (hushat) specifically through Seth; Ishmael was the firstborn yet Isaac was the successor; Esau was the firstborn yet Jacob the younger was chosen; Reuven was the firstborn, yet Joseph took two tribes, Levi the Kehunah (priesthood), and Judah the monarchy - all of which originally belonged to Reuven; Aaron was older, yet Moses was given leadership; David was the youngest of the brothers, tending "those few sheep," yet he was chosen, and likewise Solomon. All along the way, the Holy One, blessed be He, spurns that which leans toward grandeur and pride, and chooses that which has humility, desiring to rest His Shechinah specifically upon the small and the humble.
"And she has no breasts" - similar to what is said regarding the Egyptian exile in Yechezkel 16, "your breasts were formed," which was a sign of the arrival of the redemption. Here, however, "she has no breasts" - her time of love has not yet arrived, like a young maiden who has not yet reached the age of marriage. That is to say: we do not yet possess sufficient merits, and the time for our redemption has not yet arrived.
"What shall we do for our sister on the day she is spoken of" - when the nations whisper concerning her to annihilate her, as it is stated: "Come, let us cut them off from being a nation." And the expression "spoken of" (yedubar) is fitting, for Rashi always explains that dibbur implies harsh speech, in contrast to amirah, which is gentle. It is also possible to interpret "spoken of" (yedubar) as related to subjugation or extermination (hadbarah) - that the nations will seek to crush her and wipe out her existence.
אִם־חוֹמָה הִיא נִבְנֶה עָלֶיהָ טִירַת כָּסֶף וְאִם־דֶּלֶת הִיא נָצוּר עָלֶיהָ לוּחַ אָרֶז׃ (ט) - If she be a wall, we will build upon her a turret of silver; and if she be a door, we will enclose her with boards of cedar. (8:9)
"If she be a wall" - if she stands firm in her faith and fear of Heaven, remaining like a bronze wall against them so they cannot enter within her - meaning she will not intermarry with them, they will not penetrate her borders, and she will not be enticed by them - then "we will build upon her a turret of silver." We will be a fortified city, a crown, and an adornment for her, and we will build for her the Holy City and the Beit HaMikdash. One may also add a reason for the mention of "silver" (kesef): the Beit HaMikdash is called "Levanon" because it whitens (malbin) the sins of Israel, and silver is an aspect of white (chesed), as opposed to gold, which reflects red and judgment (dinim).
"And if she be a door" - a door turns on its hinge, and with a slight knock it swings open. So too, if she opens herself up to them - where they enter into her and she mingles with them, ready to absorb all the concepts, philosophies, and corruptions of the nations - then "we will enclose her with boards of cedar." We will place decaying wooden boards upon her door, which worms gnaw through and consume. In other words, whoever is not a strong, unyielding bronze wall, but rather a door constantly in motion, cannot endure.
אֲנִי חוֹמָה וְשָׁדַי כַּמִּגְדָּלוֹת אָז הָיִיתִי בְעֵינָיו כְּמוֹצְאֵת שָׁלוֹם׃ (י) - I am a wall, and my breasts are like towers; then I was in his eyes as one who found peace. (8:10)
Keneset Yisrael declares: "I am a wall" - I am steadfast in the love of my Beloved, just like that bronze wall spoken of by the Holy One, blessed be He. "And my breasts are like towers" - these are the synagogues and study halls that nurse Israel with words of Torah. And as explained several times, the term "breasts" represents bounty and the pouring forth of abundance; here, our abundance stems from the synagogues and study halls that bestow words of Torah upon us.
"Then I was in his eyes as one who found peace" - the Gemara expounds "as one who found" (kemotzeit) in the sense of wholeness and perfection (shelemut): like a bride who is found complete and finds peace in the home of her husband, where she is loved and contented. If I hold firmly to the love of my Beloved, I will merit this reality.
כֶּרֶם הָיָה לִשְׁלֹמֹה בְּבַעַל הָמוֹן נָתַן אֶת־הַכֶּרֶם לַנֹּטְרִים אִישׁ יָבִא בְּפִרְיוֹ אֶלֶף כָּסֶף׃ (יא) - Solomon had a vineyard in Baal-hamon; he entrusted the vineyard to keepers; each was to bring a thousand pieces of silver for its fruit. (8:11)
This is an allegory: "Solomon" refers to the King to Whom peace belongs, the Holy One, blessed be He. "In Baal-hamon" - in Jerusalem, which teems with a multitude of people. "He entrusted the vineyard to keepers" - He delivered it into the hands of cruel overseers, the foreign kingdoms. "Each was to bring a thousand pieces of silver for its fruit" - each of them extracts a thousand pieces of silver for itself from the fruit of the vineyard by levying taxes and head tolls upon them. That is to say, each nation takes for itself a share of the vineyard's produce.
כַּרְמִי שֶׁלִּי לְפָנָי הָאֶלֶף לְךָ שְׁלֹמֹה וּמָאתַיִם לְנֹטְרִים אֶת־פִּרְיוֹ׃ (יב) - "My vineyard, which is Mine, is before Me; the thousand is for you, Shlomoh, and two hundred for those who guard its fruit." (12)
"My vineyard, which is Mine, is before Me" - on the Day of Judgment, the Holy One, blessed be He, will summon them to trial and say: My vineyard, even though I delivered it into your hands, remains Mine. Do not imagine that I abandoned it. For this was the mindset of the nations: whoever afflicts and torments Israel most will prosper, for the Holy One, blessed be He, has rejected them; indeed, they claimed this proves He chose Christianity, Islam, or another religion - behold, you see He gave His children over to plunder, proof that they are no longer His children. This lies at the very foundation of the Christian claim. The Holy One, blessed be He, says to them: You are mistaken; I have not forsaken them for a single moment: "Where is the bill of your mother's divorcement, with which I put her away? Or which of My creditors is it to whom I sold you?"
"And before Me came" everything you snatched for yourselves of its fruit - it is revealed before Me, and nothing you extorted from them was hidden from Me. On the Day of Judgment they will no longer be able to deny it, and so they say: "The thousand is for you, Shlomoh" - all the thousand pieces of silver we collected from them we will return, "and two hundred for those who guard its fruit" - and we will add much more of our own and give it to them, to their leaders and their sages. Thus they promise reparations, as it is written: "Instead of copper I will bring gold," where the Targum explains: instead of the copper that the nations looted from you in Jerusalem, they will bring gold in place of what they took. And likewise: "You shall suck the milk of nations, and nurse the breast of kings," which describes how the nations in the future will come, bow face to the ground, bring tribute, and bestow goodness upon the Jewish people.
"And two hundred for those who guard its fruit" - these are the Torah scholars. They are called the guardians of the vineyard because they protect the vineyard of the House of Hashem. This aligns with what Chazal taught: "'Go around, go around,' we say to the Nazirite, 'do not come near the vineyard'" - the entire purpose of rabbinic decrees is: circle the perimeter of the vineyard and do not enter, for if you enter, you may come to eat the grapes as well. The Torah scholars ensure that nothing in the holy Torah is compromised, by means of the safeguards they erect around it.
On this subject, a great Torah figure once remarked: there are two transgressions in which many people have stumbled. One is reciting the Shema in its proper time. Quite a few people miss the designated time for Shema and nullify a positive commandment of the Torah every single day. After all, if someone were told not to eat matzah on the Seder night, who among us would agree to listen? And the second is shaving with a razor. One can still recall from childhood a sign in the synagogue that read: a person who shaves with a razor violates five negative commandments every day, as though he had eaten so many portions of pork. Today, baruch Hashem, there is hardly any need for this, but older generations remember when this breach was widespread; for many it began in the army and continued afterward. How could it be that people stumble daily in biblical prohibitions?
That great man explained: notice that in these two mitzvos there is no "safety margin", no rabbinic buffer. If you recite Shema by a certain time, you have fulfilled the mitzvah, and if you are late, you have already violated a biblical law. There is no intermediate stage. And likewise with the razor: had there been a scenario where one method was rabbinically forbidden and another biblically forbidden, people would have been careful and on guard. But because there is no fence there, a person falls straight into a biblical violation. Where there is no fence, people fall. From this you see the principle: "those who guard its fruit" are the Sages, who through their decrees build a safeguard for the Torah of Hashem.
And those payments are given to the Torah scholars, as it says: "For her merchandise and her hire shall be for those who dwell before Hashem" - all the merchandise and hire brought from Tyre will be given to the Torah scholars. And who are "those who dwell before Hashem"? The Torah scholars who immerse themselves in Torah. Some explain that this refers to the Kohanim, and this too is entirely consistent, for the Kohanim were the Torah scholars of the generation - "For the lips of the Kohen should safeguard knowledge, and they should seek the Torah from his mouth" - as they belonged to the tribe of Levi, who were free to occupy themselves with the Torah.
Rashi brings another explanation: "And two hundred for those who guard its fruit" - following the law of one who derives benefit from consecrated property (hekdesh), who pays the principal plus a fifth (chomesh). So too shall we pay, for "Israel is holy to Hashem, the firstfruits of His harvest" - Israel is called holy, and whoever misappropriated from them is as though he misappropriated consecrated property, and must add a fifth. And the two hundred is the fifth of the thousand. Yet this poses a slight difficulty, for the fifth added in halachah is calculated from without (milbar), meaning one always divides by one less: if you want to know a sixth, divide by five; if you want to know a fifth, divide by four. According to this, for a thousand from which one benefited he should have paid two hundred and fifty, since twenty-five is a fifth of one hundred and twenty-five. Indeed, the Acharonim raise this question: the Yaaros Devash, the commentary of the Vilna Gaon, Rinat Yitzchak, and many others, and most leave it as unresolved (tzarich iyun). Whoever wishes may consult the Chatam Sofer, who explains and resolves it in his customary way.
הַיּוֹשֶׁבֶת בַּגַּנִּים חֲבֵרִים מַקְשִׁיבִים לְקוֹלֵךְ הַשְׁמִיעִינִי׃ (יג) - "You who dwell in the gardens, companions listen for your voice; let Me hear it." (13)
The Holy One, blessed be He, says to the Congregation of Israel: you who are scattered in exile, grazing in the gardens of others, and dwelling in synagogues and study halls. It emerges from Rashi that two themes are present here: on the one hand, "gardens" depicts the exile - Israel is not in its natural place, but rather like an animal grazing in the garden of others. On the other hand, "gardens" denotes a place where everything blossoms and flourishes, "they shall still bring forth fruit in old age", a place of perpetual yield - and these are the synagogues and study halls, where Torah bears fruit and multiplies, constantly yielding new insights, additional words of Torah, and greater service of Hashem.
"Companions listen for your voice" - these are the ministering angels. And why are they called companions? Because they are your companions, beings of the divine realm, and your equals in stature. They listen and come to hear your voice in the synagogues, delighting in the sound of Torah resonating in the gardens.
"Let Me hear it" - and only afterward do they sanctify Him, as it is stated, "When the morning stars sang together" - these are Israel, and only then, "and all the sons of God shouted for joy." The word ron derives from rinah, joyous song, as in the phrase "and the cry passed through the camp," a sound of singing. We gather in the morning in synagogues and study halls to sanctify His Name, and the angels wait and listen for when we sanctify, and only then does the Holy One, blessed be He, tell them to sound their voices - "and all the sons of God shouted for joy." They are secondary to us.
בְּרַח דּוֹדִי וּדְמֵה־לְךָ לִצְבִי אוֹ לְעֹפֶר הָאַיָּלִים עַל הָרֵי בְשָׂמִים׃ (יד) - "Flee, my beloved, and be like a gazelle or a young hart upon the mountains of spices." (14)
"Flee, my beloved" - from this exile, and redeem us from among them. This is a plea: Master of the Universe, the Shechinah is with us in exile, and we ask that You flee from this exile, for when the Holy One, blessed be He, departs from the exile, His children naturally depart along with Him.
"And be like a gazelle" - to hasten the redemption, for the gazelle is exceedingly swift; meaning that our redemption should speed forward and arrive quickly. "And rest Your Shechinah upon the mountains of spices" - this refers to Mount Moriah and the Beis HaMikdash, which shall be rebuilt speedily in our days, Amen. "Mountains of spices" can also be understood as referring to the spice incense that was offered there, as well as to all the sacrifices that are a pleasing aroma to Hashem. Furthermore, as an allusion, one can say: "Mountains of spices" (harei vesamim) - the place that is the gate of heaven and the portal of heaven through which prayers ascend. And so we say and have in mind before the Shemoneh Esreh prayer: Behold, I stand to pray facing Eretz Yisrael, facing Jerusalem, facing the Beis HaMikdash, facing the Holy of Holies, toward the space between the two Keruvim, where the gate of heaven and the Shechinah dwell.
In this regard, a profound insight was explained by Rav Nissim Peretz ztz"l. We have discussed several times the secret of the Tzimtzum (the divine contraction), wherein the Holy One, blessed be He, contracted His light to create the world, and afterward drew down a thin ray of light from above upon which the Sefiros were arrayed - the circular Sefiros (Iggulim) and the linear Sefiros (Yosher) - as we have explored when studying Michtav M'Eliyahu and on other occasions. Rav Nissim Peretz explained: that very thin ray of light reaches down to between the two Keruvim. That is, it descends from above, from the realm of the Ein Sof beyond the Tzimtzum, passes through the Tzimtzum, and reaches directly between the Keruvim. Thus, that spot possesses the highest conceivable level of spirituality, and this is the true essence of the gate of heaven - the mountain closest to heavenly transcendence, "the mountains of spices."
Commentators also note another dimension of "Flee, my beloved, and be like a gazelle": due to the sheer speed of its flight, a gazelle sometimes loses track of its original place, and must then calculate where it had been and where it needs to return. How does it find its way back? By the scent it left behind along its path. But when it reaches mountains of spices, it becomes disoriented, for the fragrance of the spices masks its own trail and it can no longer find its way back. It is often noted that smugglers attempt to conceal contraband from federal authorities by hiding it inside sacks of coffee, because the aroma of coffee is so intense that even detection dogs cannot pick up any scent. In the same way, the fragrance of the spices is so potent that the gazelle cannot retrace its path back.
And this is what we ask: Master of the Universe, flee, my Beloved, from the exile, and be like a gazelle that flees to the mountains of spices - so that once You arrive there, the way back will be forgotten, and You will remain there. In this way our redemption will be guaranteed, and He will never return us, Heaven forbid, to exile. And Rashi concludes: "The commentary to Shir HaShirim is completed, praise to the Creator of lights."
The conclusion of Shir HaShirim is a declaration of a love that no force in the world can extinguish: neither the many waters of the nations, nor the rivers of their princes and kings, neither through a torrential flood of force nor through the gentle stream of temptation and assimilation - which is the most dangerous of all. Knesses Yisrael proves that she is a "wall" and not a "door," that she cannot be bought for all the wealth in the world, and her breasts are like towers - the synagogues and study halls that nurse her with Torah. On the Day of Judgment, the Holy One, blessed be He, will answer the kingdoms that the vineyard has always remained His; the thousand, along with the two hundred, will be paid to the keepers of the vineyard, who are the Torah scholars guarding the fences; and the angels who await our voice will sound theirs only after us. And over all seals the plea: Flee, my Beloved, to the mountains of spices, and may this be a redemption from which there is no return. Just as we have merited to complete the commentary of Rashi on Shir HaShirim, so may we merit to learn and to teach, to observe, to do, and to fulfill, Amen and Amen.