Dark Beauty

Shechorah Ani veNa’vah

“Black I am, and beautiful” – Shir haShirim 1:5

This verse is one of great esoteric importance.

Kabbalah connects the color black with Ein Sof – G-d in “Himself,” apart from any relationship to the created world (for that characterization of Ein Sof, cf. http:www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/judaica/ejud_0002_

0006_0_05655.html).  For example, regarding the initial Sefirah (Keter) that emanated from Ein Sof, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero (Or Ne’erav 6:4) states, “by virtue of being with the Emanator, it is black.”  Daniel Matt (The Essential Kabbalah p. 171) comments, “Since Keter is joined with Ein Sof, it partakes of the unknowability of the infinite, symbolized by the color black.”

The association of the color black or of darkness with the Infinite Depth of G-d is not confined to Jewish esoteric sources.  In Christian mysticism, G-d, considered not in relation to creation or any other activities, is regarded as a “super-essential Radiance of the Divine Darkness,” not an absence of light but a superabundance of light that is “a deep but dazzling Darkness” (cf. http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/Volume II/MysticalTheology.html).  In Islamic Sufi mysticism, night represents the Unmanifest, the Divine Essence, as in the story of Laila and Majnun, in which the feminine beloved Laila (the Arabic word for night) represents the Divine Beloved, a blackness that absorbs all light, a beauty that is above manifestation, That which lies beyond Being (cf. http://psychspiritual.blogspot. com/2012/04/islam-divine-feminine.html).  Similarly, for Shakta Hinduism, Kali is depicted as black because black is the color in which all other colors merge – “Just as all colors disappear in black, so all names and forms disappear in Her” (Mahanirvana Tantra).

Thus, we have here in Shir haShirim a mystical statement regarding the Divine Essence, and the words used are feminine in form, thereby evoking the “Femininity” of that Essence.  As previously explained, one can legitimately regard either the “masculine” or “feminine” aspect of G-d as including both aspects.  In this verse, we see the “feminine” aspect as the very Essence of G-d.  It is worth noting that “Atzmut” and “Mahut,” the Hebrew words for the Divine Essence, are feminine.  Such is also the case in Arabic, where the word for the Divine Essence, “al-Dhât,” is feminine.  The Sufi master Najm al-Din Kubra wrote of “al-Dhât” as the “Mother of the divine attributes” and  Ibn al-‘Arabî wrote that “I sometimes employ the feminine pronoun in addressing Allah, keeping in view the Essence.”  So, the Jewish esoteric perspective should be regarded as fully in consonance with the Islamic one, with the role of Laila in Sufism being that of the Shulamit here.