Book Review: Song of Riddles — Deciphering the Song of Songs

Song of Riddles – Deciphering the Song of Songs by Geula Twersky (Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing, 2018), 240 pages. Reviewed by Yonatan Horovitz.

Rabbi Akiva states (Yadayim 3:5) that “all the writings are holy, but Song of Songs is the holy of holies.” Despite its romantic and often erotic imagery, rabbinic tradition has largely adopted this statement and viewed Song of Songs as a metaphor describing the deep relationship between the Almighty and the Israelite nation. Scholars across the ages have tended to dismiss this notion as not reflecting the true meaning of the text.

Geula Twersky, in her masterful analysis of the Song, demonstrates through a detailed breakdown of its metaphors, language, and structure that the rabbinic tradition can be intellectually upheld. Twersky leads the reader through the Song, focusing first on specific recurring themes and then on anomalies in both text and structure. Drawing on sources ranging from Near Eastern scholarship to modern and less modern biblical scholarship and rabbinic commentaries, Twersky shows the parallel between elements in the Song of Songs and the Temple in Jerusalem — in particular the keruvim (cherubs) that adorned the Holy Ark in Solomon’s Temple.

For example, in unraveling the significance of the three “Who is this?” poems found in the Song, all of which contain elements relating to motion, Twersky writes that they “function together as a chronicle of the movement of the keruvim and the Holy Ark from Sinai until their arrival at their final destination in Solomon’s Temple” (p. 41). She identifies these three journeys as the travails through the desert to the Land of Israel, several interim abodes of the Ark during the period of the Judges and King David, and finally the move from the City of David to the Temple.

The analysis is exhaustive and compelling, leaving the reader somewhat overwhelmed but, by the book’s end, convinced of Twersky’s theory that the numerous shared motifs between the keruvim and the lovers in the Song strengthen the case for their close relationship, offering perspectives that resolve a variety of anomalies that have challenged both classical and contemporary interpreters of the Song.

My only concern is that on occasion Twersky appears to ignore other possibilities in order to reach her preferred interpretation. For instance, in an elaborate elucidation of the word eres, commonly translated “bed,” in connection with the Shulamit (Song of Songs 1:16), Twersky concludes that the word alludes to God’s footstool, hadom raglav, as intimated by Psalms 132:7 — assumed to be God’s resting place, the Holy Ark. However, the same phrase, hadom raglav, is employed in Isaiah 66:1, where it refers not to the Ark but to the entire world.

In her concluding chapter, which includes an excellent summary of the book’s ideas, Twersky claims that “when an intricate puzzle is successfully put together, with its many pieces falling neatly into place, we need not second guess its successful resolution… the shoe fits” (p. 183). While I agree that Twersky presents a coherent and holistic analysis of the Song of Songs, I would suggest that when dealing with Shir HaShirim — a work of biblical poetry that naturally lends itself to multiple layers of interpretation — it may be that another shoe could fit too.