They’re playing "Our Song": The Song of Songs, Nishima and me.
By Alon Kaplan
On my wedding day, as Nishima walked down the aisle towards me, our friend Michael sang "Dodi Li" the haunting melody set to verses from the "Song of Songs." The Lover in these verses imagines his Beloved as a Rose of Sharon, a lily of the valley. "You have ravished my heart, my sister, my bride," he says. Over ten years later, Nishima continues to ravish my heart and the meaning of these words deepen for me as the years go by.
Recently watching Nishima create these gorgeous ketubahs and rereading King Solomon’s poem for the millionth time, I was struck by how entwined our lives have been with this three thousand year-old poem.
In the first year that Nishima and I were seeing each other, and learning how to set up a Jewish home, we would sing verses snatched from the "Song of Songs" at our Shabbat table not knowing where the words came from. A modern Israeli song, "Erev Shel Shoshanim / Evening of Roses" became one of our favorites.
Later, we studied this ancient Hebrew poem with Rabbi Ira Stone in Philadelphia, the wonderful Rabbi who taught me most of what I know about living a Jewish life, led Nishima’s conversion process, married us under the chuppah and remains our dear friend.
Rabbi Stone opened up the meaning of these beautiful words and taught us the wealth of spiritual jewels woven by Solomon into the fabric of the poem. What I gathered from his teachings is that in this world we are each stand-ins for God. The love that I experience for God comes out in the way that I love and respect my wife, other people, animals, plants in other words, the world. The Lovers’ quest for each other in the poem is not only a desire for physical satisfaction. By loving each other, by binding their hearts and souls together, they are fulfilling the promise of redemption. They are bringing God’s love into the world.
Given our intense and wonderful experience studying the "Song of Songs" with Rabbi Stone, it was no wonder that we chose several passages for Michael and others to sing at our ceremony.
I’d like to think that "The Song of Songs" has remained with us through all the great times and also the trying times which we have experienced, as a couple.
Ten years after we stood under the chuppah, the romantic Shabbat dinners that we shared in a one-bedroom apartment in Philadelphia are a thing of the past. Even though our two mischievous - but incredibly adorable girls - prefer rocking out to Le-Cha Dodi than cooing "Evening of Roses" over wine and candlelight, Nishima is more my ravishing bride than ever.
I guess "The Song of Songs" feels to me like "Our Song" (that and "Something in the Way She Moves," which was our First Dance.) Over the years, the emotions and images that these verses conjure up have subtly become a part of our marriage, a part of our life together.
Now, through Nishima’s sensual and evocative ketubahs, they are a part of the world. We are excited to help "our song" become "your song" as you begin your new life together.
