How the Song of Songs Upstages Ecclesiastes’ Wisdom

[additional-authors]

Gershon Hepner

April 21, 2022

“Song of Solomon (Song of songs). Woodcut after a drawing by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (German painter, 1794 – 1872) ZU_09/Getty Images

While Shir Hashirim, of all Songs the Song,

is to Ecclesiastes’ Qohelet an objection,

it takes our breath away by causing us to long

not for what can’t be understood without objection—

the wisdom that’s achieved by means of intellect,

and contradicted constantly by its pursuers—

but rather for the love that helps us to connect

with those whom with affection we become their wooers.

Only connect is what it says, tout court,

prioritizing in our lives affection:

the method that will mathematically ensure

that with love’s targets we make a connection.

Wisdom’s error-arrows we should spurn,

and shoot the highest of emotions, love,

shalhevetyah that shines like one that ought to burn

in Jewish hearts for what’s not just above

the earth in highest heaven, but inside

all hearts that can connect when they’re inflamed,

consuming what it reaches, not denied,

unlike the wisdom that Qohelet shamed.

Kiss me with it, as Solomon requested,

its vintage not dependent on its age,

but on the feelings that we have invested,

Qohelet’s wisdom willing to upstage.

Songs of Songs 8:6

ו שִׂימֵנִי כַחוֹתָם עַל-לִבֶּךָ, כַּחוֹתָם עַל-זְרוֹעֶךָ–כִּי-עַזָּה כַמָּוֶת אַהֲבָה, קָשָׁה כִשְׁאוֹל קִנְאָה: רְשָׁפֶיהָ–רִשְׁפֵּי, אֵשׁ שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָה6 Set me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thine arm; for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave; the flashes thereof are flashes of fire, shalhevetyah, a very flame of the LORD.

Francis Landy, Emeritus Professor at the University of Alberta, writes in thetorah.com, “Is Love an Answer to the Meaninglessness of Life?”

https://www.thetorah.com/article/is-love-an-answer-to-the-meaninglessness-of-life

The Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes can be read together, as deliberate presentations of opposite sides of the question of the point or pointlessness of life—like two panels of a medieval diptych painting. Ecclesiastes claims that everything, even love, is evanescent, and yet the Song argues that love is as strong as death.

Gershon Hepner is a poet who has written over 25,000 poems on subjects ranging from music to literature, politics to Torah. He grew up in England and moved to Los Angeles in 1976. Using his varied interests and experiences, he has authored dozens of papers in medical and academic journals, and authored “Legal Friction: Law, Narrative, and Identity Politics in Biblical Israel.” He can be reached at gershonhepner@gmail.com.