Finding God through God the Ecstasy of Physical Love—The Song of Songs Annotated & Explained
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More than ancient erotic love poetry, this celebration of the human relationship with Wisdom can be a companion for your own spiritual journey. The Song of Songs is the Hebrew Bible's deeply erotic poem of love, sexual yearning and consummation. Holding it sacred yet troubled by its thinly veiled eroticism, Jews and Christians for millennia have read the Song of Songs as an allegory of God’s love for Israel—the classic Jewish understanding—or Jesus’s love for his Church—the classic Christian understanding. This fresh translation restores the Song’s eroticism and interprets it as a celebration of the love between the Divine Feminine and the contemporary spiritual seeker. Scholar and award-winning teacher Rami Shapiro renders this ancient love song as Lady Wisdom offering seekers physical and spiritual intimacy with her so that they might awaken to and participate wisely in the unity of God, woman, man and nature. His intriguing facing-page commentary provides historical, religious and spiritual insights from Christian and Jewish wisdom traditions as well as clear comparisons to other translations. Now you can understand the poetry, beauty, genius and mystery of the Song of Songs with no previous knowledge of the Hebrew Bible or wisdom literature. Compelling in its novelty and accessible in its presentation, this version of the Song of Songs will beckon you more deeply into Jewish-Christian sacred texts while offering you wisdom teachings and practices rooted in but not limited to religion.
Translated with commentary by
Rami Shapiro is one of the most innovative rabbis of the last thirty years. An award-winning author of two dozen books on religion and spirituality, he received rabbinical ordination from the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and holds a PhD from Union Graduate School. A congregational rabbi for twenty years, for the last fifteen he has been writing, leading retreats, co-directing One River Wisdom School, blogging at rabbirami.com, and writing a regular column for Spirituality and Health magazine called "Roadside Assistance for the Spiritual Traveler."
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