Chapter 4:1-2
How beautiful you are, my friend,
How beautiful!
Your eyes are doves behind the thicket of your hair,
Your hair
Like a flock of goats
Trailing down Mount Gilead.
Your teeth like a flock of ewes
That come up white from washing,
All of them alike, all shining and present.
My hair is thinning and going gray.
My breasts will never perch firm and high,
pasturing on the lilies of my chest.
My nose will never be straight; my teeth are no longer
white and shining. The tower of my neck seems to sag under the weight of each passing season, trampled beneath the relentless hooves of Time.
My once moist lips chap and dry in the desert sun.
And yet you know me as Beautiful — perfect, without blemish!
In the Fever of Love ©2008 Shefa Gold. All rights reserved.
Illustrations ©2009 Phillip Ratner, courtesy of the Dennis & Phillip Ratner Museum and the Israel Bible Museum collection. All rights reserved.
Practice
Chant: How Beautiful
Commentary
Love opens my heart to the beauty that surrounds me and is in me. In seeing that beauty, my heart is opened to love. This practice teaches me that it’s not enough to see beauty. It is the expression of my appreciation for what is beautiful that opens me to love.
In this practice, I chant these words in 3 ways:
- First, I sing a love-song to the beauty in my life — to the color, light and fragrance, to the unique shapes and sounds that make up my world, to the faces, flowers, art, landscapes and subtle splendors- I raise my voice in thanks and appreciation. I do this with my eyes closed, calling up image after image.
- With the 2nd way I chant this, I open my eyes and see the beauty before me. If I’m with other people I look into their faces. I open my eyes to the beauty that was always there waiting for me in the simple lines and textures of the room I sit in, and I sing myself awake to receive that beauty.
- With the 3rd way, I close my eyes and imagine that God, the Beloved, is singing this to me. I receive this acknowledgment, and move through the contradiction, remembering that I often don’t feel like I can ever live up to society’s version of beautiful. When God sings this to me, I open to the truth of my own unique beauty. Through that knowing, I step out of my small, self-conscious shame and into my power.
Bridge to Torah
The Torah leads us through an accounting of all the materials and work used to build the Mishkan, and then it is dedicated, activated to become a vehicle for the Divine Presence. The Song of Songs reminds us how important beauty is to the Mishkan of our spiritual lives, and that we activate that vehicle through the appreciation of the beauty before us. It is the generous expression of appreciation that will transform the beauty of our lives into an experience of God.
Click to see Exodus 38:21–40:38 in Hebrew and English (JPS 1985) or the associated Torah Journeys page.
Questions for Contemplation
Can I let Beauty open my heart to Love? Can I let Love open my eyes to Beauty?
Resources
View Love at the Center Resources.
Click to see Song of Songs Chapter 4:1-2 in Hebrew with the English JPS (1985) translation.