Divine-Love-Play: Hasaybi | Rabbi Shefa Gold

Hasaybi aynayich minegdi, shehaym hirhivuni

Turn your eyes away,
For they dazzle me. (Song of Songs 6:5)

When I try to enter these words in a serious mood, they don’t make a lot of sense to me. But when I understand them as Divine play, then I am lifted up into an inspired, joyful reverie. The Song is filled with playfulness — in language and style as well as content.

In Hinduism there is a concept called lila. Lila is a way of describing all reality, as the outcome of creative play by the Divine Absolute. Lila is Divine play, a purpose-less purpose, a natural outflow, a spontaneous and generous self-manifestation of God. The concept of lila calls forth the role of delight in Creation.

When I enter into the playfulness of the Song, I begin to see the world as the play of light and shadow, pain and joy, separation and union, while holding the wide perspective of unitive bliss which transcends and encompasses all duality.

In this playful repartee, the lover doesn’t really want the beloved to “turn away…”. He is just saying , “Wow! I am blown away.”

To view context from Shir HaShirim through the Love at the Center project, click Shir HaShirm (Korach).

To hear the chant, use the audio players. To download a chant, right-click the note and save (or download) the linked MP3 file.

To download the PDF file for this chant, click Divine-Love-Play PDF. For the musical notation, click Divine-Love-Play notation PDF.