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Scrolls of LoveRuth and the Song of Songs$
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Scrolls of Love: Ruth and the Song of Songs

Peter S. Hawkins and Lesleigh Cushing Stahlberg

Print publication date: 2006

Print ISBN-13: 9780823225712

Published to Fordham Scholarship Online: March 2011

DOI: 10.5422/fso/9780823225712.001.0001

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Entering the Holy of Holies: Rabbinic Midrash and the Language of Intimacy

Entering the Holy of Holies: Rabbinic Midrash and the Language of Intimacy

Chapter:
(p.201) Entering the Holy of Holies: Rabbinic Midrash and the Language of Intimacy
Source:
Scrolls of Love
Author(s):

Judith A. Kates

Publisher:
Fordham University Press
DOI:10.5422/fso/9780823225712.003.0015

In the midst of a Mishnaic debate about the canonical status of the books of Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs—a debate couched in the Mishnah's halakhically technical terms of whether or not these books “render the hands ritually impure”—one hears an impassioned outcry from Rabbi Akiva. Two details of Rabbi Akiva's language here are crucial: the Song of Songs “was given” to Israel on a day, precisely the same language characteristically used by the rabbis for the revelation of the Torah. Second, through the morphological echoing of the phrase “song of songs” in his evaluation—song of songs; holy of holies—“Song of Songs” becomes more than a title. It is also a declaration of supreme worth, as can be heard in one midrashic explanation of the phrase.

Keywords:   Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Rabbi Akiva, revelation, Torah, supreme worth

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