Talking Dirty Bible-Style

Tomorrow, if you get yourself to synagogue you’ll hear somebody sing The Song of Songs, which is full of titillating lines like, “Your love is more delightful than wine. Your ointments yield a sweet fragrance” (1:2-3), “My beloved to me is like a bag of myrrh, lodged between my breasts” (1:13), and my favorite, “Your hair is like a flock of goats streaming down Mount Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of ewes climbing up from the washing pool; all of them bear twins and not one loses her young” (4:1-2). I don’t know about you, but when a guy tells me my teeth are like a flock of ewes I pretty much lose all control. And since Wikipedia tells me that myrrh smells “sharp, pleasant, somewhat bitter and can be roughly described as being ‘stereotypically resinous’” you can imagine how anxious I am to find a guy who reminds me of a bag of myrrh in my cleavage. So what’s the deal with this supposedly holy erotica? Anyone who spent any time in Jewish day school can probably tell you that the rabbis made it very clear: no matter how many times breasts are mentioned (seven, by my count) it’s not actually about sweet action. Rabbinic commentators have generally understood the book to be allegorical. It’s about God’s love for Israel, or God’s love for Shabbat. Christian theologians understandably want to bring Jesus into the picture, and since the time of Origen have been linking the Song of Songs to the relationship between God or Jesus and the Church or the individual soul. Problem is, there’s no hint of allegory in the text. We’re used to parables and metaphors in the Bible, but they’re generally explained to us in detail in the text itself. God doesn’t seem to trust us to figure out what he means based purely on his allegories, so he spells it out. That’s why, for instance, in the first chapter of Jeremiah it says, (1:13-14) “And the word of the Lord came to me a second time: What do you see? I replied: I see a steaming pot, tipped away from the north. And the Lord said to me: From the north shall disaster break loose upon all he inhabitants of the land.” God doesn’t just show Jeremiah a pot and say, “You’ll get it eventually,” Mr. Miyagi-style. The Bible isn’t supposed to be a big puzzle that’s incredibly difficult to decipher. And if that’s the case, a book about lovers is just a book about lovers, right? It amuses me that so many rabbis are so intent on proving that the Bible wouldn’t write explicitly about sex. The characters in the Song of Songs aren’t doing anything particularly kinky or shocking. They’re enjoying sex and each other’s bodies. Even the most observant communities at least pay lip service to the importance of sex in a strong marriage. Why not use this as a model for a healthy/exciting sex life? It can be the reward you get for staying chaste until marriage, no? Apparently not. The concern is that when some girls hear “His hands are rods of gold studded with Beryl, his belly a tablet of ivory, adorned with sapphire. His legs are like marble pillars set in sockets of fine gold…His mouth is delicious and all of him is delightful” (5:14-16) they just won’t be able to wait for the chuppa to get it on. Better tell them that Mr. Sweet Lips is really God so they don’t get too hot and bothered.