SONG OF SONGS: 4. Draw me, we will run after you; the king brought me
to his chambers. We will rejoice and be glad in you. We will recall your love
more fragrant than wine; they have loved you sincerely.
5. I am black but comely, O daughters of Jerusalem!
Like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon.
6. Do not look upon me [disdainfully] because I am
swarthy, for the sun has gazed upon me; my mother's sons were incensed against
me; they made me a keeper of the vineyards; my own vineyard I did not keep.
70 SOULS THAT DESCENDED TO EGYPT: Enoch
TALMUD SHEVUOUTH - Daf 2
BOOK OF JEREMIAH: Chapter 2
Week 2 in the Jewish calendar is the
week of Yom Kippur. In the Song of
Songs, the Jewish people sing about how, after getting a glimpse of G-d drawing
us near, we now run after Him. On Yom
Kippur is also the only time of the year when the Kohen Gadol, the high priest enters the Temple’s inner chamber, the
Holy of Holies. The Talmud states that Yom Kippur, along with Tu B’Av, is the happiest day of the
year. That is a remarkable statement, given that it is a purely spiritual day,
with know festivity or wine (See Rashi
who explains that “wine” in the above verse is a reference to all physical
festivities).
Furthermore, the Jewish people sing
of how they have sinned, but are beautiful in their essence – they can still do
teshuvah. Rashi again comes to
explain the verse in this manner: “and if I am black as the tents of Kedar,
which are blackened by the rain, for they are constantly spread out in the
deserts, I am easily cleansed to be like the curtains of Solomon.” (Verse 5, Rashi) The Jewish people exclaim that
the exile has caused them to be unable to properly keep the commandments.We were meant to be a light unto the
nations, help them guard their moral principles, yet our own morals we have not
been able to uphold.
Of the seventy souls of the Jewish people that
descended to Egypt, the second mentioned is Reuven’s firstborn, Enoch. Enoch
has the same name as one of the first descendants of Adam, who was so righteous
that Hashem took him alive, and he became an angel. That is the idea of Yom Kippur, to be like angels.
The tractate of Shvuot
begins with the statement of the Torah that describes certain elements in Jewish
law that “are two that are [really] four.” This points to the duality
related to Week 2. Daf Beit (Folio 2) also spends a significant portion, perhaps the
majority of its content on the ritual sacrifices of Yom Kippur!
Chapter 2 of
the Book of Jeremiah begins with the exact quote used by Rashi to describe how the Jewish people felt in the verses of the
Song of Songs above:
2. Go and call
out in the ears of Jerusalem, saying: so said the Lord: I remember to you the
lovingkindness of your youth, the love of your nuptials, your following Me in
the desert, in a land not sown.
3. Israel is
holy to the Lord, the first of His grain; all who eat him shall be guilty, evil
shall befall them, says the Lord.
Rashi again, links the verse to Yom Kippur, and the themes explored
above, such as the nuptial room, and return to G-d. Shavuot is a marriage, and Yom
Kippur, a second one (when the second set of Tablets were given):
I remember to
you: Were you to return to Me, I would desire to have mercy on you for I
remember the loving kindness of your youth and the love of the nuptials of your
wedding canopy, when I brought you into the wedding canopy, and this (כלולתיך)
is an expression of bringing in. Your nuptials (Noces in O.F.). Now what was
the loving kindness of your youth? Your following My messengers, Moses and
Aaron, from an inhabited land to the desert without provisions for the way
since you believed in Me.
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