“Fear
me not because I am dark, because
the sun has
tanned
me. The sons of my mother were angry with me, they
made me keeper of the vineyards. [Because] My
vineyard,
my own, I have not kept.”
(1:6)
Israel
speaks to the foundations (the “sons
of her mother”) of her true essence and identity as to what she
must return, for darkness is not part of her.
Here we understand that
the
negative choices of ego's fantasies and illusions (including
addictions, attachments, and obsessions) are temporary. These
ultimately are necessary experiences in order to make us appreciate
and value
goodness as the transcending essence of Israel's identity.
Thus
Israel, as the conscious self, speaks to her own transcending
positive qualities as also scions of her mother. Here the mother is
Jerusalem, the connecting point with God, from where Israel came to
fulfill His will for the material world. Hence the sons of her
mother, her brothers, represent ways and means to return to the
Creator and bond permanently with Him.
This
interpretation is similar to the opinion of the Yeffe Kol (a
commentary on the Song of Songs by Rav Shmuel Yeffe Ashzenazi, b. in
the XVI century),
referring to the “sons of my mother” as Israel's prophets who
urged her to return to God's ways in order to avoid exile and
destruction.
In
this view, our prophets also represent the highest awareness of the
Jewish identity, as well as the positive guiding and directing
principles in consciousness that maintain and
safeguard our
permanent connection with God. The
latter reproach Israel by being angry (lit. “incensed”) with her
for her negative choices and actions that took her into the darkness
of exile among the nations. These as the playing fields of ego's
fantasies and illusions.
“Tell
me,
You
whom my soul loved, where
do
You
delight [graze],
where
You
rest
[Your
flock]
down at noon. For why should
I
be
as
one veiled by
the flocks
of Your
companions?”
(1:7)
Israel
asks God's love in
her desire to
return to His ways and attributes as the flock that He grazes. The
first sentence suggests that the soul is the link to God. The past
tense (“my soul loved”)
indicates separation and yearning to love Him properly again. This
proper way is about living by God's ways and attributes.
There
is also a field
where the grazing of the flock takes
place, and it is God's place. In the awareness of His oneness, we
realize that the Sabbath is God's place where He delights, and also
the time of Israel's final redemption. The eternal place of rest in
the total awareness of God's love.
“If
you
know not, [you]
fair among women, get
you
forth by the traces of the flock and
feed your
goat kids
by the shepherds' dwellings!”
(1:8)
God
answers Israel that following His flocks (His ways and attributes) is
what needs to be done, and “feed” (inspire) our actions (goat's
kids) as well as our children, sons and daughters, with the
principles, values and guidelines (“shepherd tents”, “shepherds”
and “tents”). Footsteps (“traces”) as the effects of our
actions by the direction these take.
Thus we assimilate that wisdom, as the source from which intellect expresses itself, is also the
source of the genuine expressions of love. Hence wisdom and love
belong to each other, and are part of each other. There is no true
love without wisdom, and there is no true wisdom without love.
In
this context, love is a pure and untainted expression of wisdom, and
its ways and attributes are conceived by the righteousness inherent
to wisdom.
Wisdom implies an ethical conception and expression of love. This wisdom is acquired by a deep insight and discernment from intellect, and makes us understand God's love, and getting us close to Him.
Thus we understand that pure intellect is the expression of the soul
in human consciousness. Thus we also understand that the soul is our
permanent connection with God.
