ציטירנדיקער פּירוש אויף שיר השירים 2:15

A Midrashic approach, based on Tanchuma Re'ey 12: the words: “honor the Lord from your wealth (הונך),” are interpreted as related to הנאה, something from which one derives satisfaction or profit. Solomon urges people who have received anything enjoyable from G’d over and above what the average person enjoys (not only their harvest) as obligated to “kick back” something to G’d and to thereby honour His name. As an example of the point just made, consider a person who has been endowed by G’d with an especially beautiful voice, a singer. It behooves such a person to place this gift in the service of the Lord by acting as Cantor in the Synagogue services during communal prayer, provided he does so in order to honor the Lord and not in order to receive personal applause by the congregants in his own honor. If such a person truly intends his vocal contribution to the Synagogue services to be in G’d’s honor, the words of Solomon in Song of Songs 2,15: “Let Me hear your voice for your voice is sweet,” may be applied to him. On the other hand, if such a well endowed person uses his gift to reap personal honor, Scripture applies to him the verse in Jeremiah 12,8: “She raised her voice against Me, therefore I have hated her.” A similar example would be someone endowed with the ability to be a calligrapher of especial talent. He should acknowledge having been granted this talent, by using it in the preparation of sacred texts, to write Torah scrolls, phylacteries, etc. If he does indeed write a Torah scroll from pure motives (not because he wants to sell it at a profit), he has acquired an outstanding merit. Our sages (Menachot 30) went as far as describing a person who wrote a Torah scroll from such motives as comparing him to someone who had literally received the Torah from heaven (at Mount Sinai). The same applies to people who possess exceptional skill in performing the art of circumcision. Such people should strive to use their skill regularly, seeing that the performance of that commandment is linked to 13 covenants between G’d and His people. All people endowed with exceptional skills or talents are duty bound to place it in the service of the Lord as a form of acknowledging that their talent is G’d-given.
The words ומראשית כל תבואתך quoted in Proverbs 3,9 are reminiscent of the fact that the Jewish people are described by G’d as “His first harvest (ראשית),” such as in Jeremiah 2,2. It behooves them therefore more than any other nation to know and acknowledge the Lord Who is the First of all Firsts. They must therefore honor the Lord by offering Him the very first of their respective harvests. This is what the Torah had in mind with the commandment governing the bringing of Bikkurim to the Temple as spelled out already in Exodus 23,1. The Torah commanded the Jewish people who have been called ראשית to go to Jerusalem, a place which is known as the first in the universe, i.e. ranking first in beauty, as described in Psalms 50,2 and to offer these firstlings of their harvest to the First, i.e. to the Lord of the universe. They deliver these gifts to the priest who represents the “first” of the nation performing service to the Lord in that capacity, etc. This is the meaning of the opening verse of our Parshah,

וְאֶת־עֲמָלֵנוּ. אֵלּוּ הַבָּנִים V’et amalainu - elu habanim, “And our toil - this refers to the sons.” First Pharaoh commanded the midwives, “look at the birthstool: if it is a boy, kill him…” (Ex.1:16) But the midwives feared God and did not do what the King of Egypt commanded. When Pharaoh saw this, he slaughtered many babies each day and bathed in their blood for his leprosy, because his doctors told him that the blood of the baby boys would help him. But doctors don’t work for nothing; they treat the sick with contradictory cures and apply what is generally helpful. We find Isaiah cured King Hizkiyahu, with a cake of figs which is generally helpful even on healthy flesh.¹²⁶Thus, he seems to be saying that doctors don’t really know what they are doing and simply give common sense cures that have nothing to do with the illness. But the illness became worse in the way the doctors treated Pharaoh. When Pharaoh saw that the cure didn’t help, he still didn’t want to reject it without reaching his goal; he wanted to decrease the Israelite nation. Therefore he commanded that every male child be cast into the river. Then, “Catch us the foxes, the little foxes…” (Song 2:15) The Egyptians would enter the Israelite houses with their young children. They would then pinch them and make them cry so that the Israelite children who were hidden would hear the child crying and they would also begin crying - this is the way of infants. The Egyptians would then follow the sound of the children and take them against the parents will and throw them in the river.¹²⁷BT Sota 12a When the Israelite women saw that it didn’t help to hide their children in their homes they would go out and give birth in the fields and hide them in the ground. They would then come and nurse them there. When the Egyptians figured this out, they would plow over the field, as Scripture states, “Plowmen plowed across my back; they made long furrows. ” (Ps. 129:3) God would cause the ones who were most worthy to be redeemed from Egypt were place deep enough until they were at the level of rocks and there they would nurse on honey and oil, as Scripture states, “He fed him honey from the crag and oil from the flinty rock,” (Deut. 32:13)¹²⁸See BT Sota 11b Much of this passage is drawn from Sota.

AND NOT AT THE HEAD OF FOXES. Lions seem appropriate for the first part of the parable, as they are the most honorable of and rule over all the animals, and possess great strength and courage; they appropriately stand for the great and famous men, who possess the great strength it takes to bear the yoke of the Torah. Foxes, however, do not seem as appropriate. There are certainly lesser animals, so why use them in the parable?
Midrash Shmuel writes in the name of R. Yehuda Lerma that the parable conveys that one should not be lazy and abandon the study of wisdom to the point that he must get his victories through cunning and trickery—for example, by mocking a colleague and thereby causing him to fumble his arguments and other such tricks. For such a one is like the foxes, who must be victorious over the other animals through their cunning because of their lack of strength.
I say that “at the head of foxes” is discussing people who have not yet learned enough to answer legal questions, of whom the verse says “she has felled many dead” (Proverbs 7:26).¹⁷³This is the Talmud’s reading of the verse in Avodah Zarah 19b. They are likened to foxes, for when they decide to occupy the seat of judgment and they wish for people to accept their rulings they must engage in cunning and trickery and fool people.¹⁷⁴Who would not accept them based on the true level of their learning. And the mishna says “at the head of foxes”¹⁷⁵And not just “do not be one of the foxes”. According to Tosafot Yom Tov, the mishna is warning against assuming the position of judge or decisor when one is actually not ready for it. Why, then, does it warn specifically against being “at the head of foxes”? Being one of the foxes is itself the problem. to teach that even if one sees many unqualified people issuing legal decisions and knows that he is a greater scholar than they, i.e. “at their head”, he should not be envious of these sinful people.¹⁷⁶That is, he should not be envious of them because he thinks of himself as being at their head and yet does not have a position. They are unworthy of issuing rulings and their positions were gotten by dishonest means, so he shouldn’t take them into account at all. And I say of them what King Solmon said: “Catch us the foxes, the little foxes destroying the vineyards, for our vineyard is in blossom” (Song of Songs 2:15)—the vineyard being the vineyard of the Lord of Hosts, which is the gathering of the Sages, as I write on the mishna in Eduyot 2:4 which mentions “the vineyard of Yavneh”.¹⁷⁷These were the Sages of Yavneh, called Jamnia in non-Hebrew sources. Seforno on Song of Songs comments that the foxes in question are those who pretend to be scholars.
I subsequently found that Rambam in Hilchot Talmud Torah 5:4 quotes the abovementioned reading of the verse “she has felled many dead” as referring to insufficiently learned students who decide legal questions and then adds: and of them Solomon said in his wisdom, “catch us the foxes, the little foxes destroying the vinyeards”—i.e., the vineyards of the Lord of Hosts. It pleased me that I was able to arrive at the conclusion that someone as great as he had arrived at previously.