Shir Hashirim Al Perush Hasod

The Depths of Shir HaShirim follows the Song of Songs verse by verse as a single, unbroken account of the love between זְעֵיר אַנְפִּין and נוּקְבָא — the Divine configuration of six emotive sefirot and the Shekhinah who receives them. Four threads run through every chapter: the peshat, read as the Malbim reads it, of a maiden confined in a royal palace whose heart belongs to a shepherd in the hills; the history Targum Shir HaShirim traces through the Exodus, Sinai, the wilderness, exile, and the ingathering still to come; the Kabbalah of the Zohar, Tikkunei Zohar, and the Arizal's own Sha'ar HaPesukim, tracing the Shekhinah's diminishment, descent, and reunion with her Beloved; and the avodah each turn in that story asks of a soul confined in a body, finding its way to the same union in prayer. Divided into fifty-four portions, one for each parasha of the year, so a reader who takes up one part each week completes the whole book — and the whole inner story it tells — in a single annual cycle.