שיר השירים אשר לשלמה

The maamar opens with the first verse of the Song of Songs and sets its theme: what it means in prayer to “receive the face of the Shechinah.” It rereads the Talmud’s rule about saying the Shema audibly, “let your ears hear what you bring forth from your mouth,” by taking “you” (atah) as a name for the Community of Israel, the collective soul of the Jewish people, as the Zohar does in the places cited. The Kehot note says this maamar is part of the Alter Rebbe’s discourse Hodu LaShem Kir’u Vishmo of 5561 (1801), and that the Tzemach Tzedek set the verse “Song of Songs” at its head.

Read this way, the Sages are saying that a person’s whole task in prayer is to listen to and contemplate what the Community of Israel, speaking within him, brings forth from his mouth; that “you” is his own life-force and soul, for the souls of Israel are G‑d’s own portion, “the lot of His inheritance.” In Yahel Or the Tzemach Tzedek, citing this passage, explains “you” as in “For You (atah) are our Father”: the level called atah is what brings forth from the mouth the letters and words of Torah and prayer.

Because all Jewish souls are bound up with one another, each supplies what the other lacks, and only together do they form one complete body, a “complete stature.”

It follows that one who cuts himself off inwardly from a fellow Jew, in his attitudes, traits, understanding or divine service, is in effect removing a limb from that single body. The separation need only be in his heart for the Community of Israel to be left lacking a limb.

If one limb is missing, G‑d’s Name as it rests on the Community of Israel is incomplete. So whoever trembles at G‑d’s word must take great care not to separate himself inwardly from any other Jew.

In prayer this becomes a practical resolve: the one praying is not the body and its animal soul, the life that drives physical existence, but the G‑dly soul, “a part of G‑d above,” which speaks the words of prayer within him.

The person’s own part is only to listen, letting his ear hear the song and praise that the G‑dly soul utters. Prayer with this awareness is what the Alter Rebbe calls “receiving the face of the Shechinah,” an idiom that ordinarily means greeting the Divine Presence.

The phrase is now defined: the pleading, self-abasing prayer of the Community of Israel is itself “the face of the Shechinah,” and a person’s attentive hearing of it is the “receiving.” The Alter Rebbe reads “receiving” literally, as a vessel receives what is placed in it.

The listener’s hearing is only a garment for the prayer, as a vessel only holds its contents. But there is also a “bad vessel” that cannot keep the good placed in it and spits it out.

That bad vessel is a person who cannot bend his ears and heart to understand the words of the prayer; this is called not meriting to receive the Shechinah’s face. The Alter Rebbe calls it the scheme of the evil inclination, which works to keep a person from hearing and understanding, lest he return to G‑d and be healed.

The title “Song of Songs” is now explained. The plural “songs” are the separate songs of individual Jews, while “the Song of Songs” is the single song of the Community of Israel in which they are all united, the song that sings within each person.

A grammatical question: in “Be praised (hishallelu) in His holy Name,” hishallelu has a passive form, like nishba (“sworn”) and ne’echal (“eaten”), suggesting that praise is drawn into the people rather than coming from them. Since they are the ones praising, one would expect the active hallelu, “praise.” In its plain sense the verse says “Glory in His holy Name”; the maamar reads the form as passive.

¶8 Hold this question about hishallelu: paragraph 8 answers it.

The answer will come through the verse that opens the Amidah, “Ado-nai, open my lips, and my mouth shall declare Your praise.” The Alter Rebbe first gives an analogy from a person’s own experience of prayer.

Usually, stirring the heart in prayer takes hard work in contemplation, but sometimes it comes with no effort: the moment a person thinks of G‑d’s oneness and greatness, his heart is drawn on its own, “with cords of love,” without his knowing who is drawing it. In Likkutei Torah, Vayikra, the Alter Rebbe explains these same two levels: what a person gains through his own toil lasts, while an arousal that comes from above alone fades when that light withdraws.

He wonders where his heartfelt devotion came from, since it arrived of itself. The explanation begins with the verse “so that glory may sing to You and not be silent,” which, as the next paragraph shows, the maamar reads as the unceasing song of Malchus.

¶6 Why the heart sometimes stirs without toil: paragraph 6 explains.

The Zohar reads “G‑d (Elokim), let there be no silence for You” as said of Malchus, the last of the Sefiros, which constantly sings upward: the “lower light” never stops calling to the “upper light.” So too “And I am prayer”: the “I” is Malchus, whose very nature is prayer.

Malchus contains within it all ten Sefiros: intellect, emotions and speech. From its power of speech come the Ten Utterances by which the world was created; these are clothed in all the worlds, but souls and angels receive them with less concealment than lower creations do.

At times the Infinite Light is revealed in Malchus’s praise, not only in its intellect and emotions but down to its level of speech. This is the state described by “so that glory may sing to You” and “let there be no silence for You”: a song above that is fully expressed.

An analogy from human prayer: when a person prays with real longing, his words come from the depth of his heart like flames, and words that come from the heart enter the heart of the one who hears, until he is moved too. Cold words have no such effect.

The analogy is now applied above: Malchus, “And I am prayer,” contains intellect and emotions, which extend down into its power of speech.

That speech is the “letters,” the Creator’s power within the created beings, the souls and angels. When the Infinite Light fills this speech, those souls and angels shine as an open revelation of G‑dliness, like words spoken from the heart.

This revelation can reach even souls in this world, so that a person’s heart is moved and set aflame for G‑d without effort. This is love and awe given from above as a gift, alluding to the verse “a service of gift I will give,” and it explains the effortless inspiration described in paragraph 3.

¶3 This answers the question from paragraph 3 about effortless stirring.

At other times the supernal speech is not revealed below, and the verses “I was mute with silence” and “like a ewe (rachel) before her shearers is mute” describe that state. Elsewhere the Alter Rebbe explains that the Community of Israel, Malchus, is called Rachel after this very verse (Torah Ohr, Vayetzei 4:2), and that the supernal speech is “mute” when it is clothed in the lower worlds (Likkutei Torah, Tzav 3:1).

A second reason for not feeling inspiration is a person’s own coarseness, which leaves him no vessel for it. To receive love and awe from above, he must first arouse love and awe in himself through his own effort.

The verse from paragraph 3 is now explained. “Ado-nai, open my lips” uses the Name Ado-nai, which corresponds to Malchus; so it is Malchus that opens the lips of the person praying.

The word yagid ordinarily means “declare,” but the Alter Rebbe reads it as drawing forth, like water poured from a higher vessel that flows down by itself once the vessel is tipped. Later in Likkutei Torah (Shir HaShirim 41a) he gives the basis of this reading: yagid as in the Aramaic of Daniel 7:10, where a river of fire “flowed” (the same root) “and came out from before Him.”

So too, a soul’s praise of G‑d does not come from its own understanding, as if it produced the praise. The praise is “Your praise,” belonging to Malchus itself, and the person’s mouth only releases and conveys it, like the hand that tips the vessel.

A person’s mouth is a vessel in which the divine speech of Malchus comes to rest. This answers the question from paragraph 3: the verse says the passive hishallelu, not the active hallelu, because the praise is received rather than produced.

¶3 This answers the question about hishallelu from paragraph 3.

When there is a revelation from above, even souls and angels, whose praise rests on their grasp of G‑d, are told that their praise is not their own doing. The praise is drawn into them from above, and their mouths only declare it, which is why they are told to “be praised” (hishallelu) rather than to “praise.”

The text points to two Zohar passages on the cows that carried the Ark home from the Philistines and “went straight” (vayisharnah), a word the Sages also read as “they sang” (from shir, “song”): the Zohar says the Ark on their backs made them sing, and once it was lifted off they lowed like ordinary cows. The first passage is at the end of Zohar I, 123a; the printed “153a” appears to be a misprint, since the Zohar itself (II, 138a) refers to the passage as 123b. With all this, the title “Song of Songs” is understood: the song within each Jew is the song of the Community of Israel and of Malchus, drawn from above.