Upon my couch: “Couch” refers to Israel’s forty year sojourn in the wilderness, when they were denied permission to enter the land of Israel.

At night: When Israel was in trouble, distress, and darkness.

I sought: Israel said: “I have repented in order that the Glory might return to me as at the beginning.”

I sought him but found him not: Throughout those forty years, the shekhinah had departed and prophecy had ceased. As it is written: “When all the warriors among the people had died off, the Lord spoke to me, saying …” [Deut. 2:16–17]. To me was the Word. This reveals that Moses had not prophesied until this moment.

I must rise and roam the town: Israel adds further, saying: “I engaged in many supplications and circumambulated the Throne of Glory, but to no avail.”

I met the watchmen who patrol the town: These are Moses and Aaron, engaged in holy service, as it is written: “You and your sons shall take care in performing your priestly duties in everything pertaining to the altar” [Num. 18:7]. I asked them: “Have you seen the one I love?”

Scarcely had I passed them: When Moses died I departed from them until I found Joshua. As it is written: “After the death of Moses, the servant of God, the Lord said to Joshua” [Josh. 1:1] and it says: “Now, cross this river Jordan” [Josh. 1:2].

I held him fast, I would not let him go: A parabolic metaphor, indicating that I (Israel) did not stumble in sin until I entered the land during the days of Joshua.

To my mother’s house: This is Jerusalem, “within which Righteousness resides” [Isa. 1:21].⁸³] symbolizes the shekhinah.

footnotes: ⁸³ Righteousness [tzedek

To the chamber of her who conceived me: This is the Temple.

I adjure you, O maidens of Jerusalem: Since I stand in glory and a lofty state, take care that you not sin and cause the departure of the Glory.

Who is she who comes up from the desert like columns of smoke: When journeying before the Israelite camp, the shekhinah seemed like a column of smoke, rising upwards and ascending. The verse states “smoke” for she is derived from fire, as it is written: “Now Mount Sinai was all in smoke, for the Lord had come down upon it in fire, the smoke rose like the smoke of a kiln” [Exod. 19:18]. The shekhinah receives her emanative energy primarily from the left side, from darkness.⁸⁴, the force of divine judgment. Darkness is elemental fire, as it says concerning it: “Let me not see this great fire anymore, lest I die” [Deut. 18:16]. And it says: “When you heard the voice from amidst the darkness” [Deut. 5:19].

footnotes: ⁸⁴ “Darkness” and “fire” here refer to din

Perfumed with clouds of myrrh and frankincense: The verse states “perfumed” for she is energized through her reception of emanative energy from the other sefirot. Myrrh and frankincense are visual polarities, myrrh being red, frankincense white.⁸⁵ white=ḥesed or divine love. Attend and carefully contemplate the wonders of this parabolic image. It refers to the two cherubim, the world’s fathers. She is situated and receives emanation from both of them.

footnotes: ⁸⁵ Red=din;

With all of the powders of the merchant: The verse says that while all this is true, she includes all of the other spiritual entities and is sealed with them all. To this point we have the enquiry of the questioner, the order of the sefirotic entities, and an account of their likeness.

Now for the answer to the question: This is Solomon’s couch: Of the name of the Holy One, blessed be He.

Encircled by sixty warriors: The verse designates sixty corresponding to the six directions.⁸⁶ from ḥesed to yesod. The ten sefirot are reflected in each of them. Since the seventh is an intermediate boundary, a spiritual entity upholding them all, and from it all things derive nurturance, it is not included in the sum, as we will explain further on. The verse designates them as warriors as they receive their being from the side of divine justice. And it enquires further over what they are appointed—over justice.

footnotes: ⁸⁶ The six sefirot

All of this constitutes the context of the parable, as we explained earlier in the introduction to the text. As a similar example we find: “From the mouths of infants and sucklings you have founded strength on account of Your foes, to put an end to enemy and avenger” [Ps. 8:3]. And “Mighty king who loves equity” [Ps. 99:4].

Because of terror by night: The Sages said: “from the terror of hell which is likened to night.”⁸⁷. This is said in truth for it is from night (divine Justice) that the shekhinah receives her emanation. The text begins to set forth the hierarchy of emanation.

footnotes: ⁸⁷ Midrash Yalkut Shim ‘oni ad locum

Behold King Solomon made for himself a palanquin. From the outpouring of Wisdom and its luminescence, He radiated light, and from it drew forth emanation. Concerning this it states in Genesis Rabbah [3:4]: “Whence was the light created? The Holy One, blessed be He, enwrapped Himself as in a robe, and radiated His luster from one end of the world to the other.” The robe designates the invocation of the emanation of wisdom which encompasses the totality of all things. The act of enwrapping conveys that He received radiance from that emanational outflow and literally sparked forth light. This is furthermore the opinion of Rabbi Eliezer the Great who said: Whence were the heavens created? He took from the light of His garment; He wrapped Himself as in a robe. The light extended outwards, as it says: “wrapped in a robe of light, You spread the heavens like a tent cloth” [Ps. 104:2]. Whence was the earth created? God took hold of some of the snow underlying the Throne of Glory and cast it downwards. As it says: “He commands the snow: ‘Fall to the ground!’” [Job 37:6].⁸⁸, “fall to the ground,” means literally “become ground.” This accords with the opinion of Plato, who argued that it was vain to believe that the Creator created something from nothing, but rather there was a preexistent matter. This is not the same as clay in the potter’s hands or the smith’s iron, who shape from them whatsoever they desire, so that the Creator, be He praised, shaped heaven and earth from primordial matter, but sometime might create something else of it. That God does not create something from nothing should not be considered a diminution of His power, just as there is no diminution in His inability to create logically impossible entities, such as a square whose diagonal is equal to its side or the simultaneous conjunction of two opposites. Just as in these cases, there is no diminution in His capacity, so too there is no denigration if He does not emanate something from nothing, but rather uses a primal element. For this too is included in the general category of impossibility. Solomon too spoke of this, revealing lucid wisdom and sound reasoning, through the aegis of the holy spirit of prophecy.

footnotes: ⁸⁸ Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer, 3. Havei aretz

Of wood from Lebanon: Thence originates the emanation of all, including the [sefirotic] existences. [There] emanation began, as our sages say: “‘Let there be light and there was light.’ Not ‘then there was light,’ but ‘there was light’—light which already existed.”⁸⁹ For it was already emanated from the supernal light which existed in the transcendent potentiality.

footnotes: ⁸⁹ Gen. Rabbah 3:2.

He made its posts of silver: This is the “right hand” of the Holy One, blessed be He, which the Book of Creation [2:1] designates as the “scale of merit.”

Its back of gold: This is the left hand, designated “the scale of guilt.”⁹⁰

footnotes: ⁹⁰ Ms. reading is quite different here: the right hand is “water from air,” the left is “fire.” The central pillar is “truth, justice, peace, seal of the structure, the seal of God.”

Its seat of purple wool: This is the central pillar designated as the central “tongue of the statute” mediating between them. So our Sages say: “‘Upon this semblance of a throne, there was the semblance of a human form’ [Ezek. 1:26]. It was designated as purple,”⁹¹ for just as purple wool is woven out of many types of colors, so too the central pillar receives from this one and that. And so it states: “like the appearance of the bow in the cloud was the appearance of the likeness of the Glory of God” [Ezek. 1:28].

footnotes: ⁹¹ In Numbers Rabbah 12:4?

Within, it was decked with love: This is the shekhinah.

By the maidens of Jerusalem: The Central Column. This is the meaning of “a man’s wife,” concerning which the prophet said (of those men who brought home foreign wives): “Has not one done this out of excess of spirit? What does one seek but godly seed?” [Mal. 2:15].⁹² is wife to the Central Column, source of godly seed; so too should Israel, husbands and wives, bear godly seed.

footnotes: ⁹² The obscure passage seems to mean that shekhinah

King Solomon: The king of peace.

The crown with which his mother crowned him on his wedding day: The entire sefirotic edifice coheres and is unified and ascends towards infinity, nor does it suffer a departure of the holy spirit. The crown stands for the emanation of blessing and superabundance from the spirit of the living God designated as the mother in the Midrash to Proverbs,⁹³ in the Rabbis’ exegesis of “May your father and mother rejoice” [Prov. 23:25]. Rabbi Akiba states: “Even the Holy One, blessed be He, rejoiced in him, as Wisdom rejoiced in him. As it says: ‘Let your father rejoice’: this is the Holy One, blessed be He. ‘And your mother’: this is that wise woman of whom it is written: ‘You shall call understanding a mother’ [Prov. 2:3].” Consequently, blessing, sanctification and unification which draw energy from the negation of thought are designated as the diadem and crown. Our sages say in the Midrash to Psalms [19:2]: “The angel assigned to Israel’s prayers waits until her final congregation has prayed and weaves them into a crown for the Holy One. As it says: ‘Blessings alight upon the head of the righteous, the life of all worlds’ [Prov. 10:6].” For this reason, the sages ordained the Sanctus and blessing within the blessings attached to the recitation of the shema, and placed the unification of shema in close proximity to them. And they ordained that all three⁹⁴], blessing [barukh], and shema‘. should be recited in the great Sanctus of the Additional Prayer. For these three enter under the rubric of the unity of divine Wisdom, Understanding and Knowledge, the emanational edifice containing the seven (lower) sefirot. Because all of the ten sefirot are included within the (upper) three: Wisdom, Knowledge, and Understanding, the three recitations of the Sanctus⁹⁵ of the daily morning service. exist to unify them. Within their totality, all things are included. So we have found in the Chapters of Rabbi Eliezer:⁹⁶ “The world was created with ten statements but these were included in three. As it says: ‘God established the earth in wisdom, founded the heavens in understanding, through His knowledge the depths were split and the heavens shower dew’ [Prov. 3:19].”

footnotes: ⁹³ Midrash Mishle, ed. B. Wissocsky, p. 57. ⁹⁴ Sanctification [kadosh ⁹⁵ This could refer either to the threefold repetition of “Holy” or to the three kedushot ⁹⁶ Chapter 3, end.