Komentaryo sa Awit ng mga Awit 2:14: Tze'enah Ure'enah, Rashi & Ezra ben Solomon

“My dove” [2:14]. [Midrash] Rabbah writes: Rabbi Huna said in the name of Rabbi Abba. Why did Sarah and Rebecca and other righteous women not get pregnant immediately, but only after many years? The reason for the waiting is that their husbands should have pleasure from their beauty, since when a woman becomes pregnant she becomes ugly.²⁰Song of Songs Rabbah, 2:8; Yalkut Shimoni, Song of Songs, Remez, 986.

“Let me hear” [2:14]. The Holy One says to Israel: come here and let me hear what you have learned through hearing. That is to say, you have heard words of Torah from a person through his voice, which he said to you. Show me the Torah that you have learned through seeing with your eyes, that you saw a book yourself with your own eyes. This is the meaning of the verse “let me see your face” [2:14]. Show me what you have learned by your seeing it in a book. “For your voice is sweet” [2:14]. The Torah that you received through someone telling you the Torah is sweet and smells nice. “Your face is comely” [2:14]. The Torah that you studied through seeing with your eyes, that you learned yourself from the book, this Torah is also beautiful, but not sweet. It is much better to hear Torah than a person learning it himself from a book.

My dove, in the clefts of the rock. This is said regarding the time when Pharaoh pursued them and overtook them camping by the sea. With no place to escape in front of them because of the sea, and they could not turn to the side because of wild beasts. What did they resemble at that time? A dove that was fleeing from a hawk and entered the clefts of the rocks, where a snake was hissing at her. Should she enter inside, there was the snake; should she go outside, there was the hawk. The Holy One, Blessed Is He, said to her [Yisroel], “Show Me your countenance,” [i.e.,] the quality of your deeds, to whom you turn in time of distress.

Let me hear your voice. “And the Bnei Yisroel cried out to Adonoy.”³¹Tehillim 107:27.

In the clefts of. In the crannies; this is a term referring to a breach, and similar to this is, “They were frightened יָחוֹגּוּ and they staggered,”³²Yeshayahu 19:17. [and,] “And the land of Yehudah will be for Egypt a dread לְחָגָּא,”³³II Shmuel 10:4. and in the plural form [Scripture] calls them חַגְוֵי [=cracks]. Similarly, [the plural form of] קָצָה [=end] is קַצְוֵי[=ends], and similarly, “and he cut their garments מַדְוֵיהֶם.”³⁴These are the terraces that are dug into hills around fortifications.

Cliff. Eschelons, in O.F. When they make a ditch around the towers and pour the earth above it to raise the mound around it, they make it in many levels, one above the other.

In the concealment of the cliff. There are sometimes holes in them, and reptiles and birds enter therein.