Комментарий о цитате к Шир ха-ширим 4:9

And when I passed by and saw you wallowing in your blood I said to you: In your blood, live. This is the blood of circumcision.
Yea, I said unto you: In your blood, live. This refers to the blood of the Passover offering.
“You have captured my heart, my sister, my bride; you have captured my heart with one of your eyes, with one coil of your necklace.” (Song of Songs 4:9) Rabbi Rabinowitz applies this verse to the Exodus of Egypt in a lengthy analysis of this verse. He explains that there were two evil inclinations that Israel had to overcome in Egypt: one was the inclination for sexual immorality and the other was the inclination toward idolatry. Israel had overcome the first inclination but not the second. They finally accomplished this through the two commandments which they observed in Egypt and this is what made them worthy of redemption.
How did Israel overcome idolatry and "capture the heart" of God? They did so by fulfilling two mitzvot, circumcision and the Passover offering. That is why the expression "capture the heart" is repeated twice. While people often perform good deeds with an interest in the reward they will receive, Israel performed these two commandments without any personal interest. These commandments involved a complete personal sacrifice on their part. First the Israelites underwent circumcision which left them in a weakened state so they could not defend themselves, and then they sacrificed the Passover offering enraging the Egyptians who revered the lamb and who might try to kill them. The Israelites did this without any concern for their own well being. God is said to have two eyes – one is for the quality of justice and the other for the quality of compassion. By acting in this fashion, Israel looked to God for His compassion and not for their just deserve; they looked to God with one eye as the verse says. Finally it was through the leadership of Moses that Israel was willing to do this. According to the Midrash, when the people smelled the Passover sacrifice of Moses (it had the aroma of the Garden of Eden) they all demanded that they be circumcised so that they could eat the Passover sacrifice. And who circumcised them – none other than Moses!
And when I passed by and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you: In your blood, live. Yea, I said unto you: In your blood, live: This statement is based on a passage in the Mechilta which asks why, in Exodus, Chapter 12, the Torah emphasizes the 'taking' of the Passover sacrifice before the offering of the sacrifice. Obviously the people had to take the offering before they could sacrifice it! Rabbi Matya ben Heresh quotes Ezekiel 16:8, “I passed by you and saw that your time for love had arrived…” This means that the time had come to fulfill God‟s promise to Abraham, but Israel did not have enough commandments to make them worthy of redemption. God, therefore, gave Israel two commandments and God also told them set aside the lamb four days before it was sacrificed.
It was through their actions that they became worthy of reward (and by setting aside the lamb four days early the people showed their intention to sacrifice it).
Yet elsewhere we learn that Israel did have other commandments to their credit. Rabbi Elazar Hakafar taught that Israel performed four mitzvot in Egypt: they were not suspected of sexual immorality, they did not gossip, they did not change their language or their names. Why, then, was it necessary to have two more mitzvot so the Israelites would be worthy of redemption? The reason why the extra two mitzvot of circumcision and the Passover offering were necessary has to do with a law regarding the status of a priest. If a kohen worships idols or bows down to an idol, he can never participate in the temple service again.
While the Talmud says that repentance can transform a willful act (zadon) into inadvertent sin (sh’gagah)26, the kohen is judged as a sinner and cannot participate in the Temple service again. Only if we can show his repentance to be completely sincere and out of love for God (and not out of self-interest) is his sin completely removed from him. But since we cannot know what is in a person's conscience, we can never know whether his repentance was sincere or simply convenient so he is disqualified from the priestly service.
We can now understand the reason for the extra two mitzvot that the Israelites were given before they left Egypt. The Israelites had worshiped idols – how could they now offer the Passover sacrifice? What is more they had not observed any positive commandments. The four mitzvot that they had already observed were all negative injunctions. These commandments were proof that Israel feared God but they did not prove that Israel loved God. They were, therefore, given two more mitzvot that were positive commandments which proved that they truly had abandoned idolatry and were prepared to devote themselves entirely to God even if it involved considerable self-sacrifice. By circumcising themselves, the Israelites were in a weakened state and could not defend themselves. By then setting aside the lamb for the Passover sacrifice they were showing the Egyptians that they were prepared to sacrifice their sacred animal – if the Egyptians became furious with the Israelites, Israel would not be able to defend themselves. These positive commandments were an expression of absolute love for and loyalty toward God. They were also a proof that Israel‟s repentance was repentance out of love rather than repentance out of fear of God. It also proved that they were now worthy of participating in the service of the divine.
We can now understand why Moses commands the people to set aside and also to take the Passover lamb. It wasn't simply enough for the people to have a lamb. They had to publicly take the lamb so that people would witness their repudiation of idolatry. The lamb would make much noise and it would be apparent to everyone that they had taken it for a sacrifice. This would arouse the Egyptians to kill the Israelites and, therefore, the Israelites actions would truly be self-sacrifice. Also the smell of the roasting meat would waft through the neighborhood so everyone would know what the Israelites were doing. The Israelites would have been convinced that the Egyptians would certainly want to kill them. Their willingness to risk martyrdom would certainly make them worthy of redemption. This also explains why the circumcision was also necessary. Without recovering from their circumcision the Israelites might have believed they could defend themselves. Now that they were in a weakened state they realized that they were totally dependent upon God. Prior to their circumcision they might have reasoned that the Egyptians had been weakened by the plagues – now they were weakened by the circumcision so that they were dependent upon God.

A Kabbalistic approach: The additional letter ה at the end of the word ידכה was “borrowed” from the tetragram, i.e. from the last letter ה in the name י-ה-ו-ה. It symbolizes the attribute of Justice as practiced in the terrestrial world. It is the type of wisdom given to Solomon [who asked to be a competent judge for the people of Israel] in the dream when G’d allowed him to make a wish (Kings I 3,9). He spoke of his wish to possess a לב שומע, “a heart which is able to listen.” This is the reason that the phylacteries of the arm are to be worn on the left arm, the arm closest to the heart. The attribute which Solomon wished for is also known as כלה. The text of the phylacteries of the hand is written on a single roll of parchment and has a single housing, as opposed to the four “housings” of the phylacteries on the head. There is a mystical dimension to this in Song of Songs 4,9 where the same Solomon describes this attribute as אחתי כלה, usually translated as “my own, my bride.” The closeness to the point of a shared identity between Israel (Solomon) and the attribute of wisdom is alluded to by the word כלה as כלולה ב'לב, “included in the 32 paths of בינה, the ways to acquire wisdom.” [the oldest kabbalistic text, the ספר היצירה, is based on this concept. Ed.] The attribute כלה granted to Solomon enables the student to make a useful combination of these 32 paths of understanding, insight.
In order to teach that this letter ה at the end of the word ידכה has symbolic significance, the paragraph והיה כי יביאך contains five letters ה each of which is equipped with a תג, [a crown on top of a letter, usually reserved for the letters ש ע ט נ ז ג ץ You will not find these תגים on the corresponding letters in the Torah scroll. They are written only in the parchment which is part of the phylacteries of the hand. Ed.] The respective letters with these “crowns” are: the ה in ונתנה לך; the two letters ה in הקשה, the ה in ויהרוג, and the ה in ידכה. All of the words in question which have this ”decorated” letter ה are references to G’d’s attribute of Justice.
Having put on the phylacteries on the arm, one proceeds to put on the phylacteries of the head. The phylactery of the head is divided into four housings closely stuck together and containing the four paragraphs of the Torah in which the subject of phylacteries is mentioned in separate housings, each on its own parchment. They are in the sequence: 1) קדש לי כל בכור, 2) והיה כי יביאך, 3) שמע, 4) והיה אם שמוע. The paragraph קדש לי כל בכור corresponds to the emanation (attribute) חכמה, which is also known as ראשית, i.e. ראשית חכמה יראת ה' (Psalms 111). The word קדש, “sanctify” is a clear allusion to this. We have other verses containing the word קדש which are always understood as a reference to his attribute of חכמה.
The second paragraph והיה כי יביאך, which deals with the Exodus is understood to refer to the attribute בינה, The attributes חכמה,בינה,גדולה,גבורה were prominently involved in the Exodus and are therefore represented in the phylacteries. This is reflected also in the four-armed letter ש [as opposed to the usual three-armed ש. Ed.] which is embossed on the housing of the phylactery of the head. The emanation (attribute) תפארת is represented by the phylacteries themselves rather than by the Torah sections written inside them. All this is part of the mystical dimension of what the Talmud says in Berachot 6 that “G’d Himself puts on phylacteries.” The emanations (attributes) נצח והוד are represented by the respective “heads” of the letter שין which is embossed on the phylactery of the head. The three “extremities” רישי'ן i.e. ראשין (upper ends of the letter ש), symbolise the three emanations נצח הוד יסוד. (in the usual three-armed ש). The additional arm and its head is considered the קשר, the “connection“ to the lowest emanation מלכות which links the emanations (attributes) to the terrestrial world the one known as אחרונה, “the last one, the hindmost one. This is also the mystical dimension of G’d saying to Moses (Exodus 33,23) וראית את אחורי “you will only see the hindmost aspect of Me.” What G’d did show Moses was the קשר של תפילין, the “knot, tie” of the phylacteries, i.e. the point at which G’d the transcendent becomes immanent, i.e. manifest, in the terrestrial part of His universe. (Berachot 7).
Seeing that the straps of the phylacteries surround the head of the wearer this is perceived as an allusion to the continuous link between the manifest part of G’d’s largesse all the way to that point of the קשר. In view of the fact that the straps at the same time extend down to the level of one’s navel, it is an allusion to the fact that at the other end these emanations extend till the קו האמצעי, emanation תפארת, the central emanation (dividing line between what is perceived on the left and what is perceived on the right of the diagram of these 10 emanations) Seeing that these straps have to be black, a decree dating back to Moses for which we have not been told a reason, this is proof of the profound mystical meaning concealed within the whole commandment of the phylacteries and its details. The reason the second phylactery has to be placed on the head is that this is the seat of the power of the soul. Whatever has been written inside the phylactery on the head has also been written inside the phylactery of the hand, except that it has been written on a single piece of parchment and in an undivided housing. This is to teach that the lowest emanation מלכות, also known as אחרונה, is contained within it, and that it on the other hand contains all the higher attributes (emanations). The קשר, i.e. the shape of the knot in the strap symbolizes the צדיק; the reason it is worn on the left arm is that in that way it is opposite the right side of G’d whom we are to face at all times.
You must appreciate that the commandment of phylacteries are really two separate commandments though they (both) are part of the same syndrome. The proof that they are two commandments lies in the fact that they are not interdependent as are for instance the ארבעה מינים, the four plants on Tabernacles. When the Etrog is missing for instance, one cannot recite a benediction over the remaining 3 plants and vice versa. In the case of the phylacteries, however, absence of either the phylactery of the head or the phylactery of the arm does not prevent one from putting on the other (Menachot 38) and reciting a benediction over performance of the commandment. Moreover, seeing that both phylacteries represent the same idea, one must not engage in conversation between putting on the one and the other. This is what is meant in Sotah 44 that if one engages in conversation between putting on one phylactery and the other, this rates as the kind of sin on account of which a soldier is sent home rather than participating in an expansionist war [to protect him from the angel of death who is always around in places of danger waiting to pounce on the guilty. Ed.]

You are among those who ruined me. This is the feminine usage.¹⁸הִכְרַעְתִּנִי, with the “cherik” vocalization under the ת, is generally translated as referring to the first person neuter, “I brought to the knees.” Here, however, the translation is the feminine “you brought to the knees.” Similarly, "You captured my heart, my sister bride."¹⁹Shir Hashirim, 4:9. Here, too, לִבַּבֽתִּנִי, with the “cherik” vocalization under the the ת, is translated as the feminine “you captured my heart.”