פירוש על שיר השירים 8:1

If only you were a brother to me. That you would come to comfort me in the manner that Yoseif did to his brothers,¹Alternatively, if only my desire that my relationship with God, i.e., to be near Him and to pursue His holiness were out of love, as one’s relatioship is with his brother. (Sforno) who did evil to him, and it is stated concerning him, “and he comforted them.”²The Gemara in Bechoros 8a states, that from the time of an apple tree’s blossoming until its fruits are ripened, a period of sixty days elapse. Accordingly, an apple represents the sixty masechtos incorporated into the Oral Law. Mount Sinai was suspended over Bnei Yisroel’s heads “like an apple” in order to arouse them to accept the Oral Law of the Torah. (Yosef Beor)

If only you could be like my brother: The Glory responded: “If you desire and yearn for me to join myself to you, ‘so will all of my desire be directed towards you’ [Ps. 38:10], that you might be a brother to me and that I might not be separated from you.”

When I would find you outside I would kiss you. I would find Your prophets speaking in Your Name, and I would embrace them and kiss them; I also know that “no one would scorn me,” for Your love is worthy that Your beloved should go about in search of it.

As if you had nursed at my mother’s breast: You would receive your nurturance from the place of my suckling, that is the spirit of the living God.²⁰¹Most likely ḥokhmah as ruah hayyim.

When I met you in the street: When I find you during the period of exile, all of my desire and will is that you be with them in their suffering.

Then I could kiss you: You would adhere to me.