Commento su Cantico dei cantici 5:2

I slept. When I was confident and calm in the first Beis Hamikdosh, I despaired of worshiping the Holy One, Blessed Is He, as one who slumbers and falls fast asleep.

I was asleep: The shekhinah states, I was asleep in Babylonian exile.

But my heart was awake. This is the Holy One, Blessed Is He. This is expounded in the Pesikta.⁹Alternatively, ולבי ער, refers to the prophets and the sages who were constantly exhorting and rousing the Bnei Yisroel to rise from their spiritual sluggishness. (Sforno)

But my heart was wakeful: Anticipating the time of redemption, “until the time of the fulfillment of Jerusalem’s desolation, seventy years.”¹³⁶Daniel 9:2. This was actually eighteen years after Cyrus’ declaration, which preceded the fulfillment of the seventy years promised for Babylonian domination.¹³⁷v. Jer. 29:8. also look at Seder Olam ch. 30 ala Milikovsky.

But my heart was awake. The Holy One, Blessed Is He, Who is, “the Rock of my heart and my portion,”¹⁰Tehillim 73:26. is awake to guard me and to benefit me.

Hark, my beloved knocks!: This parable alludes to the Glory arousing the prophets to prophecy to Israel that they should ascend from Babylon to Jerusalem.

A sound! My beloved knocks. He rests His Divine Presence upon the prophets and He warns through them by, “rising early and sending forth.”¹¹Yirmiyahum 7:25.

For my head is drenched with dew: I’ve had enough of dwelling outside of the Temple.

Open for me. Do not cause Me to depart from you.

For my head is drenched [as though] with dew. A term referring to a man who comes at night, knocking on the door of his beloved. He says thus, “Out of love for you, I have come at night at the time of dew or rain.” And the allegory is as follows: “For my head is drenched [as though] with dew,” because I am full of good will and satisfaction with Avrohom your forefather,¹²ראשי alludes to Avrohom who was first [=ראש] to believe in God. (Sifsei Chachomim) whose deeds were pleasing to Me as dew. And behold, I come to you, laden with blessings and the payment of reward for good deeds if you return to Me.

My sidelocks drip with the rains of the night. In My hands there are also many categories¹³Rendering קוצותי as קבוצותי [=collections]. of types of retribution, to punish those who forsake Me and anger Me. “Dew” is a term indicating pleasure.

Rains of the night. The rains of the night, which cause hardship and weariness. רְסִיסֵי is the Targum of רביבים [=drops], “and like raindrops וְכִרְבִיבִים upon blades of grass,”¹⁴Devarim 32:2. [is rendered as,] “and the late rains וכרסיסי.” קְוֻצּוֹת [=locks] are clumps of hair of the head stuck together, called flocels in O.F. And because Scripture adopted an expression of dew and rain, it adopted an expression of head and sidelocks, for it is ususal for dew and rain to stick to the hair and sidelocks. It is also possible to interpret both “dew” and “rains of the night,” both denoting good, [i.e.,] the reward for minor precepts that are easy to perform as “dew,” and the reward for major precepts that are difficult [to perform], as the hardship of the “rains of the night.”