Chapter 2:8-9
The voice of my beloved: Here it comes!
Leaping over the mountains, skipping across the hills.
My love is like a gazelle, a wild stag
He stands there on the other side of our wall, gazing
Through the windows, peering through the lattice.
My Beloved speaks to me through every sound, taste, fragrance, touch, color, light, emotion, and insight that leaps into my consciousness…
Through the ordinary miracles of each moment.
My Lover knows no obstacle to the pursuit of His Love.
He leaps over the mountains of my complacency, skips over the hills of my disappointment,
blinding doubt, numbing fear and deeply ingrained habit.I have built walls to keep You out.
Such awesome love will surely mean the destruction of my small world.Yet in moments of great beauty, my thick and stubborn opacity dissolves.
I stand before You transparent, trembling, at the intersection of my greatest terror…
and my greatest longing — the place where I am finally seen.
In the Fever of Love ©2008 Shefa Gold. All rights reserved.
Illustration ©2009 Phillip Ratner, courtesy of the Dennis & Phillip Ratner Museum and the Israel Bible Museum collection. All rights reserved.
Practice
Chant: The Voice of My Beloved
Commentary
Many years ago I had these words embroidered on the attarah of my tallit, my prayer shawl. I wanted to live in a state of expectancy, always opening to the unknown.
This is a practice of anticipating the miracle that is about to break through my complacency. With these words, I invite surprise.
Bridge to Torah
The voice of The Beloved is received in the sound and flow of blessing. As Jacob blesses Joseph’s sons and then his own children, we receive that blessing, love pouring through the lattice of Wisdom. This love is like a gazelle, a wild stag, and in Jacob’s blessing, like a young lion, like a strong-boned donkey, like a snake on the road, like a deer running free, like a wild wolf. To receive Jacob’s blessing is to know both the gentle gazelle and the wild stag inside us and know the leaping, skipping legacy of our ancestors within. They are gazing back at us across the ages.
Click to see Genesis 47:28–50:26 in Hebrew and English (JPS 1985) or the associated Torah Journeys page.
Question for Contemplation
Can I open in expectancy to the surprise of life unfolding in miraculous ways that I could never have imagined?
Resources
View Love at the Center Resources.
Click to see Song of Songs Chapter 2:8-9 in Hebrew with the English JPS (1985) translation.