Rosh Chodesh Nissan Torah Essay

One of the lenses through which to understand the timeless meaning of Pesach is its megillah, Shir Hashirim.  In particular, Shir Hashirim’s unique qualities are crystallized through comparison to Megillat Rut, which is in many ways its complement.  Just as Matan Torah represents the culmination of Yetziat Mitzrayim, and Shavuot concludes the process of Sefirat Ha-Omer that begins on Pesach, Shir Hashirim and Rut are two megillot that are intrinsically tied to and dependent upon each other.

Shir Hashirim and Rut are both love stories, but they are love stories that take place at opposite ends of the life cycle.  Whereas Shir Hashirim is filled with the rapture of young love^[1], Rut begins exactly when one would expect a love story to end: with the deaths of the protagonists’ husbands.  The story of Rut is about love that is manifest through loyalty and a sense of family connection and responsibility that extend beyond death.  Consistent with the two profoundly different experiences of love that are described in the two megillot, Shir Hashirim consistently emphasizes the physical beauty of the two protagonists as an essential element of their love.  By contrast, Boaz’s appreciation of Rut is not based on her beauty but on her loyalty, both to Naomi and to him^[2].

The contrasting experiences of love are manifest as well in the protagonists’ differing approaches to the involvement of other people in their lives.  The story of Rut is filled with meaningful relationships; after Mahlon’s death, Rut finds succor in her relationship with her mother-in-law, and ultimately in her relationship with Boaz.  By contrast, the two lovers of Shir Hashirim have eyes only for each other, repeatedly expressing frustration when they are forced to interact with other people outside of the context of their love.  For example, on three separate occasions they warn the “daughter of Jerusalem^[3]” not to disturb their love^[4].  The feeling of wanting to be left alone is powerfully expressed in Shir Hashirim 8:1: “Oh that you were like my brother that sucked the breasts of my mother! When I should find you outside, I would kiss you and, yes, no one would despise me.”  In this verse, the protagonists express the feeling that the intensity of their love is such that no one else can fully appreciate it; in fact, others are likely to malign it.

Another manifestation of these different orientations toward social context is found in the historical background offered by both books.  Megillat Rut situates its story in historical context, both in its opening and closing verses^[5].  By contrast, Shir Hashirim gives no context other than to identify the male protagonist with Shlomo.  Its focus is entirely on the characters of the story, not on their relationship to others.  This distinction between the approaches of the two megillot to social and historical context is another manifestation of the difference between Shir Hashirim’s depiction of passionate, all-consuming love between two people and Rut’s story of love that is rooted in a web of relationships and commitments that transcend the two lovers themselves.

The feeling created by Shir Hashirim is of a love that is intense, all-encompassing, and difficult to sustain.  While the male and female protagonists are deeply in love, on three separate occasions–including in the very last verse of the book–the female protagonist, seemingly without warning, sends her lover away^[6].  It seems that the intensity of their love is so overpowering as to be, at times, overwhelming.  By contrast, Rut contains repeated descriptions of people sticking with each other (even when one would expect them not to); in this context, the  root “davak” (to cleave/stick to) appears four times^[7] in Megillat Rut.

This analysis suggests that the two megillot simply represent opposite depictions of love. However, these two stories are not only distinct from each other but complementary.  Perhaps one can better understand the complementarity of the visions of love in Shir Hashirim and Megillat Rut by considering an idea described by Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik in the context of the personalities of Sarah and Abraham^[8]:

…Sarah at twenty was mature and fully developed both intellectually and emotionally; she was energetic, bold, and daring.  Yet the adult in Sarah did not destroy the child. . .The adult might have reached the highest peak of intellectual greatness or growth, her creative cultural activities might have been enormous, yet all that did not interfere with the secret presence of a child in Sarah…

Abraham, like Sarah, was a child all his life.  Avraham was extremely inquisitive; every star twinkling in the Mesopotamian heavens mystified him; every flower in the field and every drop of dew puzzled him. . .Youth represents idealism.  The young are committed unconditionally. They arrogantly defy the world.  Abraham, like Sarah, was a youth all his life; he defied the society of which he was a part.  He shattered the idols as an act of holy arrogance.  He dared to be an iconoclast in a pagan society that worshiped icons.

The ability to be all three together, to experience existentially child, youth, and old age, is a sign of the covenantal community. . .

Rav Soloveitchik maintains that the ability to draw together the exuberant idealism of youth with the wisdom and maturity of age is fundamental to the avodat Hashem not only of Avraham and Sarah, but of the covenantal community writ large.  Shir Hashirim and Rut embody profoundly different visions of love, one associated with youth and the other with age.  The depiction of these two models in the two parallel megillot implicitly presents both as fundamental even though each is insufficient.  Ahavat Hashem weaves together striving for the two extremes of intense, visionary passion and unwavering, loyal commitment.

On Pesach, we celebrate the enthusiasm and excitement that pulse through Shir Hashirim and that led our ancestors to follow Moshe into an unknowable future^[9].  At times, that love was tested and wavered–both in the relationship of the protagonists of Shir Hashirim and in Bnei Yisrael’s relationship with Hashem in the wilderness–but Pesach reminds us that passion at the heart of avodat Hashem is essential nonetheless.

During this difficult time for Am Yisrael, may our retelling and reliving of the timeless love story of Pesach be not only an inspiration for our individual avodat Hashem, but a harbinger of divine love and complete redemption on a national scale.

 

^[1] Rashi, for example, reads the peshat of Shir Hashirim as a retrospective of an older, estranged couple on the love of their youth.

^[2] Rut 3:10: “He said, “Blessed are you to Hashem, my daughter. This last kindness is better than the first,⁠ that you have not gone after the young men, be they poor or rich.” (All translations in this article are taken from alhatorah.org.)  Rashi and Ralbag understand the “first kindness” as a reference to Rut’s decision to remain with Naomi after their husbands’ deaths.

^[3] A group of young women who seem to represent the female protagonist’s peers, and generally to represent society beyond the two lovers

^[4] Shir Hashirim 2:7, 3:5, 8:4.  There are contexts in which the daughters of Jerusalem are spoken to with more warmth; these are all verses in which they are either listening to the female protagonist describe herself and her love or helping her find him (1:5, 3:10, 5:8, 5:16).

^[5] See Rut 1:1 and 4:17-22.

^[6] Shir Hashirim 2:17, 5:3, 8:14

^[7] See Rut 1:14, 2:8, 2:21, 2:23.

^[8] Abraham’s Journey, eds. David Shatz, Joel B. Wolowelsky, and Reuven Ziegler (Jersey City: Ktav, 2008), 187-188.  Rav Soloveitchik’s exposition is based on Genesis 23:1, which states that Sarah lived to the age of “one hundred years and twenty years and seven years,” and midrashic interpretations that suggest that this verse imparts that Sarah was in some ways mature at a young age, and in other ways youthful at an advanced age.

^[9] In the words of Yirmiyahu 2:2: “’Thus says Hashem, ‘I remember for you the kindness of your youth, the love of your betrothals, how you went after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.”