Mah-yafit u’mah-na’amt ahavah batanugim

How beautiful and how sweet is Love
In all its pleasures! (Song of Songs 7:7)

In a Birkat HaMazon I composed many years ago, I wrote, “Pleasure is a doorway to expanded reality.” Allowing pleasure to be a doorway means that we must commit to walking through… which is very different than the usual patterns of grabbing on to pleasure and pushing away pain. The Songs of Songs knows love as the highest and most profound pleasure. Its profundity is rooted in the fact that it is indeed a doorway and a force of beckoning. We are called through that doorway of pleasure into an expanded reality, where we can know ourselves as part of the greater whole. Called by beauty, we walk through, tasting each sensation, and letting go, opening into the greater mystery.

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

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

• Pleasure as a Doorway (melody)  
• Pleasure as a Doorway (harmony)  
• Pleasure as a Doorway (mix)  

To download the PDF file for this chant, click Pleasure as a Doorway PDF. For the musical notation, click Pleasure as a Doorway notation PDF.

Sha’r’raych agan hasahar al yechsar hamazeg

Your navel is the moon’s goblet,
Ever filled with wine. (Song of Songs 7:3)

I sing these words as a blessing on the continuity of life in its fullness. The navel is the place where the imprint of the umbilical cord forms a magical moon-shaped goblet, filled with the wine of everything beautiful, joyous and life-giving. That ghost of an umbilical cord connects me with my Source. The moon’s goblet is filling us with a remembrance that nothing is lacking. HaMazeg is sometimes translated as “mixed wine” — nourishment and beauty combined. We celebrate this round belly — a mound of wheat, fringed with lilies — nourishment and beauty combined.

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

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

• The Moon’s Goblet (melody)  
• The Moon’s Goblet (harmony)  
• The Moon’s Goblet (mix)  

To download the PDF file for this chant, click The Moon’s Goblet PDF. For the musical notation, click The Moon’s Goblet notation PDF.

Shuvi, shuvi haShulamit, shuvi, shuvi v’nechezeh-bach

Turn and return, Oh Shulamit,
Turn and return that we may gaze upon you! (Song of Songs 7:1)

The Shulamit, the aspect of ourselves that is the Perfected One, dances with fervor, authenticity, passion and artistry. When we can know our lives as a dance, then the twisting and turnings of fate are reframed and experienced as poignancy, beauty, dignity, nobility or play. It’s all a dance!

To gaze upon the Shulamit is to be inspired by her dance, so we can each find our own dance, our own way of moving in the world and between worlds. I often come back to the question posed by Gabrielle Roth, the great teacher of Ecstatic Dance: “If you don’t do your dance, who will?”!!

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

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

• Turn and Return (melody)  
• Turn and Return (harmony)  
• Turn and Return (mix)  

To download the PDF file for this chant, click Turn and Return PDF.

Mi zot hanishkafa k’mo shachar
Yafa ka’l’vana, bara kachama ayuma k’nigdalot

Who is that rising like the morning star?
Clear as the moon, bright as the sun,
daunting as the stars in the sky. (Song of Songs 6:10)

As we open to the power of Love, we are joining the Dance of the Cosmos.

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

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

• Who Is That Rising?  

Shir Delight: A Journey Through the Song of Songs ©2004 Rabbi Shefa Gold. All rights reserved.

El-ginnat egoz yarad’ti lirot b’ibay hanachal

I went down to the nut grove,
To see the new green by the brook. (Song of Songs 6:11)

We usually go up to a higher place to see… but sometimes we need to go down. We need to descend into our own depths and use a different kind of vision to penetrate the complexities within. We enter the nut grove with an eye toward cracking that nut whose hard exterior hides a delicious treasure. And our inner journey takes us to the nachal, which is a kind of stream that flows intermittently. (The Arabic word would be a wadi; the Spanish word, an arroyo.) The “new green” that sprouts up in that nachal is mysterious and miraculous… . found only by those who have the insight and courage to “go down” and explore the hidden places.

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

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

• Going Down To See (melody)  
• Going Down To See (harmony)  
• Going Down To See (mix)  

To download the PDF file for this chant, click Going Down To See PDF.