Chapter 2:6-7
His left hand beneath my head,
His right arm embracing me,
Daughters of Jerusalem, swear to me
By the gazelles, by the deer in the field,
that you will not awaken Love until it is ripe.
When I surrender to the “fever of love”;
When I consent to the embrace of My Lover;
When I stop resisting and instead rest, lean into those arms that support me…
I am held in the contours of Life.
Then, unafraid, I can eat from the Original Tree and
Share its fruit with every hungry, curious Adam, every searching, thirsting Eve.
This fever is the sun at the center of my heart, shining out, ripening the fruit that is me.Friends of my soul, I ask you this:
Be my witness, my companion in abandon,
See in the tight bud, my blossoming beauty,
have patience for the deepening of color,
the ripening of friendship,
For Love awakening in its time.
In the Fever of Love ©2008 Shefa Gold. All rights reserved. All rights reserved.
Practice
Chant: Divine Embrace (S’molo)
Commentary
When I can relax, and feel held, and lean into a sense of ultimate Divine support, then I touch the place within me that is beyond this small identity, that includes and yet transcends this particular time and place. I open to the realm of timeless Being where I am nurtured, reconnected to my soul identity, recharged and the sent on the path of self-realization.
For me this is a description of Shabbat consciousness.
It is circular: The more that I feel that Divine support, the more that I can relax; the more that I relax, the more that I can open; the more that I can open, the more that I receive God’s support.
Bridge to Torah
Finally, when love is ripened, Joseph is reconciled with his brothers. They embrace each other and weep in that embrace. Finally when love is ripened, the family is reunited and the blessing of God flows through them, as goodness, as Life. When their father Israel goes down to Egypt to be reunited with his beloved Joseph, again there is a momentous embrace. In that ripened moment of love, hope is awakened and a deep wound is healed.
Click to see Genesis 44:18–47:27 in Hebrew and English (JPS 1985) or the associated Torah Journeys page.
Questions for Contemplation
Can I relax into the support that is there for me? Through that sense of relaxation, can I open to the flow of goodness?
Resources
View Love at the Center Resources.
Click to see Song of Songs Chapter 2:6-7 in Hebrew with the English JPS (1985) translation.