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30 2 The Song of Songs as Cultural Text From the European Enlightenment to Israeli Biblicism T he Song of Songs was embraced by secular Zionism with unparalleled passion from the early twentieth century on, and yet this thriving exegetical scene has hardly been investigated. There are, to be sure, other pivotal biblical texts in Zionist culture—among them “The Binding of Isaac,” Exodus, and the Book of Joshua.1 Each one of these highlights other cultural aspects. What makes the Song’s reception unique is how it touches on the intricate nexus of aesthetics and hermeneutics while allowing for a consideration of a certain history of emotions—above all, a record of the fashioning of national love. My account of the adaptations of the Song in Israeli art, music, dance, and scholarship is by no means exhaustive. I trace the distinctive nuances of this rich canvas in broad strokes, probing the interpretive trends and realms that are particularly relevant to Agnon’s preoccupations. To better understand the Zionist Song of Songs, one needs to begin with its precursors in the European Enlightenment. The eighteenth century saw the initial forging of a new literal Song by various scholars and literati, both in England and in Germany. Johann Gottfried Herder was undoubtedly the most fervent and eloquent advocate of this exegetical revolution. In his Lieder der Liebe of 1778—a translation of the Song and a verse-by-verse commentary —he bluntly attacks the traditional allegorical reading of the ancient love poem.2 After centuries of distorted readings, the time had come to admit the obvious: “What then is the content? What does it treat from beginning to end? . . . Love, love. It is simply . . . what it is and with every word suggests : a love song.”3 The literal character of the poem, its original meaning, was repressed by Jewish and Christian exegesis, Herder protested, and concealed The Song of Songs as Cultural Text 31 by mystical allegories of divine love. “I read the book and can find in it not the tiniest sign, not the smallest hint that any other meaning is . . . the purpose of the book.”4 Herder’s literalist approach is inextricably connected to an aesthetic turn in biblical exegesis. He admires the Bible’s earthly love song as an exemplary code of art within the great code of art. More specifically, he regards it as a superb product of the Bible’s unparalleled Oriental imagination, a text whose subtle meanings are best understood in light of the culture and customs of the Orient.5 His Lieder der Liebe calls for a relishing of the literal beauty of these ancient love songs through a “sympathetic” immersion in the Song’s original, Oriental realities. “It has frequently been noted,” writes Hans W. Frei, “that in Herder’s hands interpretation is not a technical or critical analysis of aesthetic products but an empathetic submission to the author, his depictions, and the atmosphere out of which they arise.”6 Herder’s well-known guidelines for readers of the Bible in Briefe, das Studium der Theologie betreffend offer a succinct formulation of such Einfühlung (empathy/sympathy). “Become with shepherds a shepherd, with a people of the sod a man of the land, with the ancients of the Orient an Easterner, if you wish to relish these writings in the atmosphere of their origin; and be on guard especially against abstractions of dull, new academic prisons, and even more against all so-called artistry which our social circles force and press on those sacred archetypes of the most ancient days.”7 To follow the Oriental “spirit” of the Song of Songs, for Herder, means to “become with shepherds a shepherd,” to draw nearer to the actual cultural and geographic setting of its composition, to enter empathetically into the convivial realms of the folk imagination that produced these admirable love songs. Such folk poetry (Volkslied, or “folk song”)—the true poetry of Nature— that gives voice to the living experiences of common people, claims Herder, was superior to the polished, sophisticated poetry written in Germany at that time. “The more primitive, i.e. the more vivacious and uninhibited a nation is [ . . . ] the more primitively, vivaciously, freely, sensually, lyrically active must its songs be, if indeed it has songs! The more removed a nation is from artificial, scholarly thinking, language and letters, the less should its songs be prepared for paper, and its dead letters used as verses.”8 Against those among his contemporaries who...

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