The Sex Ethic of the Song of Songs
WASKOW, ARTHUR
The Sex Ethic of the Song of Songs Arthur Waskow During Passover in 1973, the Fabrengen — an autonomous Jewish fellowship, or chavurah, in Washington, D.C., which since 1970 has been wrestling its...
...Another, her amusement gathering: "My brothers told me that when I grow up, they will adorn me like a wall, like a door — with bronze and gold...
...A chorus: "Of course...
...And finally, one of the men this time: "I think I see...
...The Sex Ethic of the Song of Songs Arthur Waskow During Passover in 1973, the Fabrengen — an autonomous Jewish fellowship, or chavurah, in Washington, D.C., which since 1970 has been wrestling its way toward a "holistic Jewish life-process" — for the first time fulfilled the mitzvah of reading the Song of Songs together, as is traditional during Passover...
...And finally, a man in a troubled voice: "And when she goes out at night to find her lover, the guardsmen beat her up...
...But I told them that when I grow up my breasts will be my adornment: I don't need all their artificial ornaments...
...Over and over, the refrain, "Do not stir up love until it please...
...There may not have been a single other woman mystic in all of Jewish history, but whoever wrote this was...
...Do not stir up love until it please...
...As women and men gathered in the house of one member-family to sit in a circle on the floor, munch fruit, and glance through a number of different translations of Shir Hashirim, several readers prepared to read it as a dramatic dialogue...
...Someone asks, "What are the traditional commentaries like...
...Images of flow and spontaneity: a cloud of goats scudding across Mt...
...Not just that...
...Laughter and pleased nods from a couple of other women...
...It's different from every other book in the Bible...
...A pause...
...ALEINU, the title of this column, is taken from the prayer which begins with that word, and means, "it is incumbent upon us...
...After the reading had finished, there was silence for a few minutes...
...Startled looks from most of the men, and then: "What in it makes you feel that way...
...Several of us put it together: Shir Hashirim is a criticism, a gentle one but clear, of the whole "male" mode of guarding: of the obsession with calendars and clocks, with regularity and structure, that informs most of Jewish tradition...
...Suddenly a woman burst out: "A woman wrote that...
...You mean because the woman is fully equal here, chooses her own life...
...Look: let's reread what she has to say about the men in her life, her brothers and the rest...
...Still another, laughing: "And as for Solomon, in the midst of this lovely springtime the poor man marches up to the city with a chariot of bronze and a retinue of 60 guards...
...So slowly, we began to unravel the text together...
...This column is for wrestling with God and His commandments...
...Think of it: guards to show his glory when all around are smells and birds and flowers...
...One woman,smiling: "My brothers told me to guard the vineyard, but I didn't guard my vineyard...
...Gilead...
...the turtledove . . . dreams . . . the appearance/disappearance of the lovers . . . deep breaths of spice...
...It feels like a whole different form of spiritual life, a whole different way of being Jewish from the rest of the Bible, and the rabbis...
...None of us had ever before read Shir Hashirim put into English in such a way as to hear it as a conversation among its persons . . . and as the readers settled down, our own conversation hushed: "O give me of the kisses of your mouth . . . Hurry, my beloved, swift as a gazelle or a young stag, to the hills of spices...
...and a member of the Fabrengen Community...
...Arthur Waskow is a Resident Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C...
...They had gone through the Hebrew text and worked out which passages are spoken by a woman, which by a man, and which by the chorus of "the daughters of Jerusalem...
...It's what she's like...
Vol. 1 • April 1976 • No. 9
