Comentario sobre Cantar de los Cantares 2:15

Seize for us the foxes. The Holy One, Blessed Is He, heard their voice; He commanded the sea, and it washed them away. That is [the meaning of], “Seize for us the foxes,” [i.e.,] the little one with the big ones, for even the [Egyptian] little ones were destroying the vineyards,³⁵I.e., the Bnei Yisroel. when our vineyards were still “with tender grapes,” when the grapes were tiny.³⁶I.e., the children were young. When a Jewish woman would give birth to a male and hide him, the Egyptians would enter their homes and search for the males, but the baby was hidden, and he was a year or two old. They would bring a baby from an Egyptian home; the Egyptian baby would speak, and the Jewish baby would answer him from the place where he was hidden, and they would seize him and cast him into the river. Now why does [Scripture] call them foxes? Just as the fox looks to turn back and flee, so too did the Egyptians look behind them, as it is stated, “I shall flee from before Yisroel.”³⁷Shemos 14:25.

Catch us the little foxes: The parable refers to the spies, who were weak like foxes. They said: “However, the people who dwell in the land are powerful … the Amalekites dwell in the south country” [Num. 13:28].

Little foxes. It is written without a vav שֻׁעָלִים, because He punished them through water, which was measured with the stride [=שַׁעַל of the Omnipresent.³⁸See Yeshayahu 40:12.

That ruin the vineyards: The parable refers to the nations that profited through Israel’s arrival in the land and the construction of the Temple, as our Sages said: ‘“All of the earth’s families shall be blessed through you’ [Gen. 12:3]—even the foreign families in the land are blessed only on account of Israel.”⁷⁹b. Yebamot 63a.
When Israel dwelled in their land, the Temple altar atoned for them [the nations]. Thus our sages said: “Abbaye said: ‘The seventy bullocks offered during the holiday corresponded to the world’s seventy nations.’ What was the purpose of the single bullock? It corresponded to that singular nation. A parable concerning a king who said: ‘Prepare a banquet for me.’ At the end, he said to his favorite: ‘Make me a small meal so that I might take pleasure with you.’ R. Yohanan said: ‘Woe to the world’s nations! For they have suffered a loss yet do not realize what they have lost! For throughout the existence of the Temple, the altar atoned for them. Now, who can atone for them?!’”⁸⁰b. Sukkah 55b.
All of the above is readily explainable. When the central column is nourished, so are all of its branches.⁸¹The energy flows through the central column of the sefirot and thence to the right and left branches. This is comparable to the [manifestation] of vitality from the brain to the spine, whence it passes throughout all of the sinews.

For our vineyard is in blossom: The parable refers to Israel, who at the time of their origins, their entrance into the land, were in blossom. When their redemption was revealed, it was like the appearance of fruit upon a blossoming vine.
Judgment was decreed and an oath sworn that Israel would not enter the land. The Glory and prophecy removed themselves and the shekhinah said in the Glory’s departure: