Question: (Song of Songs 1:1) In the “Song of Songs, King Solomon is perhaps the most striking  symbol of love. It is enough to look at the list of the works of art that were based upon quotations from the “Song of Songs” to understand the degree of influence of this book on the emotions and imagination of people from the moment it was written until our day. Immediately the question arises, for whom was this wonderful song written?

Answer: It was written for a person who already feels that all of life and all of nature is love, and the general rule, “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself,” is the general force that rules the world. This is speaking about a man who in his development has already attained an understanding and awareness that goodness surrounds him and that all of reality is arranged and built according to the final goal from the start, to attain wholeness.

Wholeness is not acting under the influence of hormones and calling this “love,” such as from my experience of feeling pleasure from something and saying that I love it. For example, I love fish. But we cannot love a fish other than by eating it. If a person understands that he loves with his essence, meaning with the evil inclination, then this is natural, earthly love.

Through this love he destroys the world because he approaches what is good for him and rejects what is bad for him. In this way he doesn’t rise above his egoistic desire. It follows that our love is worthless from the start.

A person must rise to a completely different love: to connection. He must connect with everyone, with the substance of the still, vegetative, animate, and humans above his natural attitudes. If I turn towards the world like this, which is entirely love, then this means that I participate in the general desires and suffering. I feel what is imperative and required for everyone, and want to fulfill and complete this: “And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

This is what is called “love,” and not the yearning to enjoy the surrounding world and accordingly determine what does and doesn’t please me. I detach myself from this natural love, rise above it, and begin to love everyone because according to the general law of nature I must be connected with everyone. This is attained with the help of a unique education, in the course of which I begin to understand and become aware that everything is connected, interdependent, that there is one fate for everyone, and we guide it.

If I attain a relationship to nature like this, then I see that in fact the force of love is acting in everything. And the “Song of Songs” begins from this: “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth” (Song of Songs 1:2), meaning that I am already connected with all of nature and begin to investigate how to continue developing my connection of love.

In other words, a “song” from the start raises me to a very high level. I understand that I must fulfill and complete the creation in which we humans exist in opposition: “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis 8:21). This means that instead of exploiting the world that exists outside of me, I must connect with it and complement it in such a form that will be good for it.

This is to say that love is expressed in my wanting things to be good for everyone. That is how we relate to children, we think constantly about what we can add further to our concern about them, fulfilling and creating a good mood. This is the expression of love. I don’t enjoy the object, as generally happens in our life; rather, I enjoy it being good for him. From the moment that I am directed towards this, the story begins.
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From KabTV’s “A New Life” 5/28/14

Related Material:
There Are No Two Loves That Are Alike
Love that Egoists Are Not Familiar With
Is There Love In This World?

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