Week 20 (Book 4b):Perez and Bursting Out of the Cold

SONG OF SONGS:

13. Your arid fields are as a pomegranate orchard with sweet fruit, henna and spikenard.

14. Spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all frankincense trees, myrrh and aloes, with all the chief spices.

15. A garden fountain, a well of living waters and flowing streams from Lebanon."

SOULS THAT DESCENDED TO EGYPT: Perez

TALMUD SHEVUOTH: Daf 20 – Oaths related to eating and pleasure.

BOOK OF JEREMIAH: Chapter 20

Week 20 in the Jewish calendar is the week of Tu B’Shvat. Tu B’Shvat is the Rosh Hashanah of the trees. The verses of Shir HaShirim of this week again address the theme of nature, as well as pleasure. This week, however, fruit and trees are mentioned specifically.

Of the seventy souls of the Jewish people that descended to Egypt, the twentieth mentioned is Perez. His name means to “burst forth.” Perez’s birth is described in quite detail, and how he burst forth to become the firstborn. It seems related to also how the flowers and fruits must “burst forth,” after the trees’ enduring the cold winter.

Daf Kaf (Folio 20) of Shvuot continues to discuss different laws related to oaths, most of which are also related to eating and pleasure.

Chapter 20 of the Book of Jeremiah contains a similar theme to the above. The chapter speaks of pain endured by Jeremiah, but its most striking part is when he speaks of the day of his birth. It seems to relate back to the themes birth and conception related to this month:

14. Cursed be the day in which I was begotten; the day in which my mother bore me shall not be blessed.  

  

15. Cursed be the man who brought the news to my father, saying, "A male child has been born to you," making him glad. 

16. And that man shall be like the cities that the Lord overturned and did not repent, and let him hear an outcry in the morning and a scream at noontime.

17. That he did not put me to death from the womb, that my mother should be my grave and her womb a perpetual pregnancy.

  

18. Why did I come forth out of the womb to see toil and grief, and my days end with shame?