Likkutei Torah · Sefer Shemos · Shabbos October 10
פרשת שיר השירים
Parshas Shir HaShirim
41 maamarim of the Alter Rebbe on the parsha, in the Hebrew of the Kehot edition, with every marei makom opened right where it appears. 16 maamarim have the English translation and explanation; the rest are on the way.
Your progress in Parshas Shir HaShirim
The maamarim 41
- שיר השירים אשר לשלמה ישקנו מנשיקות פיהו כי… The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s The Jewish people are G‑d’s bride in two ways, by self-sacrifice that consumes the self and by yearning love in which a self remains, and these draw down two “grooms”: G‑d’s great Name clothed in the Torah’s supernal wisdom, and the Torah and mitzvos brought into the lower worlds. G‑d’s love revealed through them reaches His very essence, and so it is “better than wine,” better than any revelation that comes out of concealment.
- שיר השירים אשר לשלמה The Song of Songs, which is Solomon’s In true prayer the one who sings is not the individual but the Community of Israel and, above it, Malchus; the person’s mouth is only a vessel through which praise from above flows, which is why the verse says “be praised” (hishallelu) rather than “praise.”
- לריח שמניך טובים שמן תורק שמך על כן עלמות אהבוך For Fragrance, Your Oils Are Good Contemplation, the “wine” of the Torah, moves only a heart that can be moved; but the Torah itself, the “oil” drawn from G‑d’s supernal wisdom and higher still, reaches even a sealed heart, so that “the maidens,” too, come to love G‑d.
- לריח שמניך טובים שמן תורק שמך על כן עלמות אהבוך For the fragrance of your goodly oils All the rewards of the World to Come are only a single glimmer of G‑d’s light, while teshuvah from the depth of the heart, possible only for a soul in a body, reaches G‑d’s very being and essence. The souls above reach that same inclusion through the Torah they learned below, whose “fragrance” grows the further it descends.
- שחורה אני ונאוה בנות ירושלים וגו׳ “I am black and comely, O daughters of Jerusalem” The Torah’s black fire on white fire describes how the Infinite Light, too great to be grasped, is hidden and contracted into “letters” so that it can be revealed; the hiddenness is itself the source of beauty. In the soul, the “blackness” of a hidden love, concealed and covered by the animal soul, is rooted in that white fire and can be revealed and transformed.
- שחורה אני ונאוה בנות ירושלים כאהלי קדר כיריעות שלמה “I Am Black, yet Comely, O Daughters of Jerusalem” The soul that has descended into a body is “black”: it receives G‑d’s wisdom as the dark mass of halachic detail and the rabbinic fences around the prohibitions, and it lives among worldly business. Yet this very blackness makes it more beautiful than the souls that never came down, because the prohibitions, and tzedakah given from hard-earned money, join it to the light that surrounds all worlds, which no positive deed can reach.
- ביאור ענין שחורה אני ונאוה An Explanation of “I Am Black, yet Comely” The Shechinah’s descent into the lower worlds makes her “black,” through the bitterness of distance and through being clothed in physical mitzvos, yet that very blackness makes her more “comely” than the souls that never left Atzilus. Through it she rises above the level of vessels to the lights, and to the essence of the Infinite One.
- ביאור הדברים ע״פ שחורה אני ונאוה An Explanation of the Matters on “I Am Black, Yet Comely” The soul’s descent into a limited, physical world makes it “black,” yet that very blackness is the source of its beauty: through mitzvos done with physical things, and above all through the prohibitive commandments, which reject what cannot be elevated, a light is revealed that is higher than anything the soul knew above, reaching even to G‑d’s essence.
- לסוסתי ברכבי פרעה דמיתיך רעיתי “To My Mare Among Pharaoh’s Chariots I Have Likened You, My Beloved” The “horse,” the letters that carry without understanding, brings the divine light down to the lowest places and also carries the supernal Man upward, beyond the level of Man, to G‑d who “is not a man”; its strength comes not from itself but from G‑d’s essence, and so Israel, through Torah and mitzvos, are likened to G‑d’s mare.
- לסוסתי ברכבי פרעה דמיתיך רעיתי To My Mare Among Pharaoh’s Chariots Israel “sustain” G‑d as food sustains a person: through Torah and mitzvos, which flow from G‑d’s own delight, they let His infinite light reach the worlds as kindness. Like a royal horse that serves its rider’s pleasure without grasping it, the soul does this through self-nullification before a delight beyond all understanding.
- נאוו לחייך בתורים צוארך בחרוזים “Your Cheeks Are Comely with Torim, Your Neck with Strings of Beads” The two Torahs are torim, triangular jewels on the cheeks: in burning love, prayer, kindness and Torah, three separate “points,” are joined by lines into one. The “strings of beads” on the neck are the separate things of the world, pierced by self-nullification and strung on the thread of Torah, so that G‑d is “the first and the last” equally, below as above.
- הנך יפה רעיתי יפה עיניך יונים כו׳ “Behold, You Are Fair, My Beloved; Your Eyes Are Doves” Israel’s love for G‑d is also how they “sustain” Him: a will awakened in mind and heart draws the Infinite Light into the one thought of creation and down to every soul, as food lets the soul live in the body. The verse says “fair” twice because there is a beauty Israel make through their own service, “we will do,” and a greater beauty that G‑d draws down from Above, “we will hear.”
- קול דודי הנה זה בא מדלג על ההרים… “The Voice of My Beloved! Behold, He Comes, Leaping over the Mountains” At the Exodus G‑d’s own essence, “He and His Name alone,” far above the chain of worlds that His Name sustains, was revealed to Israel by a “leap,” out of all proportion to their low state; only such a revelation could free them from Mitzrayim, the realm of limit. Israel’s own service (the guarded first matzah, reached through the bitterness of maror, and later the Counting of the Omer) prepares for this revelation and draws it down, and it will return openly in the future.
- ולהבין ענין מדלג על ההרים מקפץ על הגבעות… To Understand “Leaping over the Mountains, Skipping over the Hills” Mitzvos are “fruits”: like a seed sown in the earth, the physical deed below is the vessel through which the Infinite Light, which at creation came as a free gift, is now drawn down and revealed. The mitzvos bring both inner light, from the Gevuros, and encompassing light, from the Chasadim, and so they are the “hills” over which G‑d skips with both feet.
- יונתי בחגוי הסלע בסתר המדרגה My dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the hidden place of the step: show me your appearance A soul rises to G‑d in one of two ways: the orderly ascent of “Arise for yourself,” through prayer, Torah and mitzvos, which belonged to the Exodus; or, in exile, when love and awe are hidden, the cry of a soul that remembers it is a mirror, sent down only in order to return. That cry of teshuvah breaks through and draws down even more.
- ביאור ע״פ יונתי בחגוי הסלע וגו׳ An explanation of the verse “My dove, in the clefts of the rock” G‑d’s thought, unlike man’s, is the true “something,” and the souls of Israel are rooted in His primordial thought, Adam Kadmon, before which spiritual Atzilus and physical Asiyah are equal. That is why their Torah and mitzvos can make a dwelling for G‑d below; and in exile, when they cannot simply rise to that root, turning the concealment itself into love draws from a still higher level.
- עוד ביאור הדברים ע״פ יונתי בחגוי הסלע וגו׳
- צאינה וראינה בנות ציון במלך שלמה בעטרה שעטרה…
- להבין ענין הטעם למה שהאתדל״ע הבאה אחר האתעדל״ת…
- צאינה וראינה בנות ציון במלך שלמה בעטרה שעטרה…
- ביאור הדברים
- לבבתני אחותי כלה
- ביאור על פסוק לבבתני
- באתי לגני אחותי כלה אריתי מורי עם בשמי…
- ביאור ע״פ באתי לגני
- אני ישנה ולבי ער קול דודי דופק פתחי לי כו׳
- להבין ביאור הדברים ע״פ אני ישנה ולבי ער כו׳
- הסבי עיניך וגו׳
- שניך כעדר הרחלים שעלו מן הרחצה שכולם מתאימות
- ששים המה מלכות ושמונים פילגשים ועלמות אין מספר…
- לבאר הדברים ע״פ ששים המה מלכות כו׳ ודרשו…
- ששים המה מלכות ושמונים פילגשים כו׳
- הנה ענין מדלג על ההרים הוא עד״מ שההפרש…
- מה יפו פעמיך בנעלים כו׳
- מי יתנך כאח לי יונק שדי אמי כו׳
- שימני כחותם על לבך כו׳
- ביאור על זה
- כי על כל כבוד חופה
- ביאור הדברים ע״פ כי על כל כבוד חופה…
- תנו רבנן כיצד מרקדין לפני הכלה ב״ש אומרים…
- כי כאשר השמים החדשים כו׳
Learn it in seven days Sunday to Shabbos
The Rebbe asked that all the maamarim of the week’s parsha be learned in that week, spread over its seven days. Here is the parsha in seven portions of about equal length.