Love at the Center

Immersing in Shir Hashirim

Rabbi Shefa sends out weekly messages (aligned with the yearly Torah cycle) that provide verses from Shir HaShirim, interpretation, commentary, and practices. To get the weekly messages delivered to your Inbox, click subscribe to be added to the Love at the Center mailing list. To access the weekly Shir HaShirim verses here at the website, view the Love at the Center calendar.

Putting Love at the Center

It is time to put Love at the Center.

One way to do that is to reclaim The Song of Songs as a central text that can inform, remind and intrigue us daily. When it came time to decide which of our holy texts to retain in our canon and which to discard, Rabbi Akiva spoke for The Song of Songs (Shir HaShirim). “The whole Torah is Holy,” says Rabbi Akiva,” but The Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies.” He also said that “had the Torah not been given, we could live our lives by The Song of Songs.”

It is time for us to “live” it, to place Love at the center of our religious/spiritual practice and let the force of that love radiate out to penetrate every other aspect of our lives. Shir HaShirim is a hidden treasure that longs to be known. The Love of Shir HaShirim goes beyond the sentimental or romantic. This love is a force that connects the finite with the infinite, the known with the unknown mystery that lures us beyond our small lives. This love reveals the beauty that is everywhere hidden in Nature, in relationships and in the depths of our hearts.

Cornel West said, “Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.”

Finding and Cultivating Love

First we must find and cultivate that love, and then we can source every action, every expression from that infinite precious well. And through our loving expression and action, the Divine will flow through us, and the world will transform.

It occurred to me that the process of reading Torah each week, allows that text to slowly enter my being so that I might live it. Those stories – of Creation, Liberation and Journey – have made their way inside me over years of repetition and exploration. Likewise the passion of the prophets have entered my consciousness through the Haftorot.

It’s time to put love at the center.

Immersing in The Song of Songs

We can do this by immersing in The Song of Songs, exploring its subtleties, receiving her mysterious gifts, embodying her music, living her questions.

I’ve learned that the power of this text works slowly over time, and it needs the attention of the heart, soul and body as well as the intellect in order to reveal its power and mystery.

Each week you will receive just a few verses from this holy text. I invite you to explore these words, and ask, “What would it mean to live by them?” You might want to find a chevruta (a fellow explorer) or study them in community. You might want to create your own commentary through words, art, music, poetry, and dance that are inspired by these words.

I will offer some of my own commentary and practices each week.

Resources

NOTE: See the Love at the Center Resources page, which will be updated as new resources become known.

Here are some initial resources to inform your explorations:

  • Initiation onto the Path of Love, an article about The Song of Songs that I wrote years ago
  • In the Fever of Love: An Illumination of the Song of Songs by Rabbi Shefa Gold (published by Ben Yehuda Press)
    Available in hardback or paperback in the online store.
  • The JPS Bible Commentary: The Song of Songs with commentary by Michael Fishbane
    (This is an amazing compilation of Jewish sources that have shaped the way the way we have interpreted the Song of the centuries. It is organized around the PaRDeS model, giving 4 levels of interpretation to each verse.)
  • The Song of Songs by Ariel and Chana Bloch (published by Random House)
  • The Song of Songs: Love Lyrics from the Bible by Marcia Falk (originally published by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1977; reissued by Brandeis University Press/University Press of New England, September 2004.)
  • Shir Delight: A Journey through the Song of Songs by Rabbi Shefa Gold and Rachmiel O’Regan
    A CD of music and text available through the online store and MP3 files available through OySongs.