The Torah's Most Erotic Text Is Actually God's Love Letter
Song of Songs was almost excluded from the Hebrew Bible. Rabbi Akiva saved it by declaring it the holiest book in all of scripture. The entire debate turned on whether its love poetry was literally about lovers — or metaphorically about God and Israel.
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"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for your love is better than wine." The first verse of Song of Songs is not a prayer. It is not a law. It is not a prophecy. It is a woman expressing physical longing for her beloved, with imagery of wine, fragrance, and the shepherd's tent. The book proceeds through eight chapters of alternating voices — the woman, the man, a chorus — describing desire, separation, reunion, gardens, vineyards, and the overwhelming force of love. Rabbi Akiva (50-135 CE), when the sages debated whether it belonged in the canon at all, declared: "All the writings are holy, but Song of Songs is the holy of holies." And then he threatened anyone who sang it at banquets with losing their share in the world to come.
Why Was Song of Songs Almost Excluded?
The debate over Song of Songs' place in the Hebrew Bible is recorded in the Mishnah, tractate Yadayim (3:5, compiled c. 200 CE). The school of Shammai opposed its inclusion; the school of Hillel generally supported it. The objection was its content: taken literally, it is a love poem with no explicit religious content. It never mentions God. It never mentions Israel. It never commands, prohibits, or instructs anything. The assembly at Yavneh (c. 90 CE, convened by Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai after the Temple's destruction) finalized the Hebrew Bible canon, and Song of Songs was included. The decisive voice was Rabbi Akiva's, who insisted that the book's surface content was not its real content — that the entire poem was an allegory for the relationship between God and Israel, and that its intensity was therefore not scandalous but sacred. The Midrash Rabbah on Song of Songs (Shir HaShirim Rabbah, compiled c. 500 CE) is essentially a verse-by-verse elaboration of Rabbi Akiva's claim.
Who Are the Lovers in the Midrashic Reading?
In Shir HaShirim Rabbah (c. 500 CE), the female voice is Israel and the male voice is God. Every specific image gets decoded: the vineyard is the Land of Israel; the beloved's arrival in springtime is the Exodus from Egypt; the "daughters of Jerusalem" are the righteous of Israel; the "foxes that spoil the vines" (2:15) are the wicked who corrupt the community. The description of the lover's physical appearance in chapter 5 — "his head is like the finest gold, his locks curly, black as a raven" — is read in the Tanchuma midrash (c. 800-900 CE) as a description of God as apprehended by different generations: young and vigorous at the Red Sea, aged and majestic at Sinai. God appears differently to different people in different moments, but the relationship — the love — remains constant.
What Did Kabbalists Make of the Love Poetry?
For the Zohar (c. 1280 CE), Song of Songs was the supreme text of mystical experience. The Zohar (Parashat HaAzinu, 3:287b) calls Song of Songs the book of the union of the divine masculine (Tiferet) and the divine feminine (Shekhinah) — the reunification of the cosmic split that occurred at the creation of separateness. The Sabbath itself is described in Zoharic mysticism as the weekly reunion of these two divine aspects, with the community of Israel, gathered in prayer on Friday night, as the witness to and participant in the union. The Kabbalah collection at jewishmythology.com contains over 200 texts developing this mystical reading of Shabbat as cosmic wedding, drawing directly on Song of Songs imagery. The poem that almost was not scripture became the central text of Jewish mystical theology.
What Is the Meaning of "Strong as Death Is Love"?
Song of Songs 8:6 — "Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is as strong as death, jealousy as harsh as Sheol" — is cited more often in rabbinic literature than almost any other verse in the book. The comparison of love to death is startling: death is the ultimate force that cannot be reversed, that no human being can resist or negotiate with. And love, the verse asserts, is equally powerful. The Legends of the Jews (Louis Ginzberg, 1909-1938) preserves a tradition that this verse was revealed to Solomon specifically to describe the love between God and Israel — a love that, like death, cannot be undone, cannot be refused, and ultimately cannot be separated from its object. The Zoharic reading goes further: love and death share the same metaphysical structure because both involve the dissolution of the boundary between self and other. In death, the self dissolves into the infinite; in love, the boundary dissolves voluntarily.
Why Is Song of Songs Read at Passover?
Song of Songs is the scroll (megillah) associated with Passover, read on Shabbat of Passover week. The connection is seasonal — the poem is set in spring, with its imagery of blossoming almond trees and singing birds and the beloved appearing "like a gazelle, leaping across the mountains" (2:8-9). But the theological connection is deeper: Passover celebrates the beginning of the love story between God and Israel, the moment when God "noticed" Israel's suffering and chose to intervene. The poem's opening cry — "Let him kiss me" — is read in Shir HaShirim Rabbah as Israel's voice at the moment of the Exodus: after four hundred years of slavery, the first act of the relationship was the most intimate. Discover the full world of Song of Songs commentary across our collections at jewishmythology.com.