Tu B’Av, the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Av, is celebrated in Israel as a frothy holiday of love and romance. The origins of this celebration can be found in the Mishnah, which describes Tu B’Av as a day when “the daughters of Jerusalem” would dress in white and go dancing in the vineyards in search of a spouse (Taanit 4:8).
In honor of this celebration of romance, we will look at one of the Zohar’s reflections on kissing.
Rabbi Yitzhak opened with the verse “Kiss me with the kisses of your mouth …” (Song of Songs 1:2). These words were said by the community of Israel. But why “kiss me”? She should have said “love me” instead of “kiss me”…What are kisses? They are a connection of spirit to spirit. This is because we kiss with the mouth, which is the source and the point from which breath emerges. When we kiss with the mouth, lovingly, and connect spirit to spirit we will not separate from each other… This is why the community of Israel said “kiss me with the kisses of your mouth” — to connect spirit to spirit so that we do not separate from each other.
Zohar 2:124b
Explore this passage in context on Sefaria.
Rabbi Yitzhak begins his teaching with the first verse of Song of Songs, the Bible’s sensual love poem, which opens with the female protagonist’s desire to be kissed by her beloved. This choice anchors the teaching in the longing for physical connection even as he immediately takes the image into spiritual realms — by identifying the female lover with the “community of Israel.” This idea is not new with the Zohar. Classical rabbinic midrash interprets Song of Songs, which describes a passionate love between a man and woman, as a parable for the relationship between the people of Israel and God.
But in the Zohar, the “community of Israel” is not only the Jewish people. It is also one of the names of Shekhinah, one of the sefirot and the female aspect of God. Read this way, Song of Songs is about the Shekhinah and her relationship with the sefira Tiferet, the male aspect of God.
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The Zohar’s more spiritual love story does not erase the embodied, physical one. According to Rabbi Yitzhak, the love story is playing out on three levels simultaneously: First, it is the story of the young lovers described in the Song of Songs. Second, it is the story of the Jewish people in relationship with God. Third, it is the story of internal dynamics within God — the relationship between sefirot.
In the Song of Songs, the lovers come together and are torn asunder; they long for one another, search for one another, find one another, turn away from one another, and so forth. All of this drama, according to Rabbi Yitzhak, is happening at all three levels — between the man and woman, between Israel and God, between Shekhinah and Tiferet — and each story reflects and embodies the others.
Rabbi Yitzhak then poses a question: Since so much of this is about spiritual connection, why does the verse emphasize physical kisses? The answer is that a kiss is not merely an expression or a symbol of love; the mouth-to-mouth contact and the mingling of breath create a specific connection. Hebrew uses the same word (ruach) for both “breath” and “spirit” (similar to the connection between “respiration” and “spirit” in English). The Torah tells us that God gave life to humanity by breathing ruach into the first human’s nostrils (Genesis 2:7). In Rabbi Yitzhak’s understanding, the mingling of breath in the two human lovers directly reflects a mingling of spirit at all three levels of this metaphor.
Now the Zohar turns to the first kiss in the Torah, between Jacob and Rachel, related in some detail in Genesis 29.
Rabbi Yehudah said: It is written “Jacob kissed Rachel, and he raised his voice and wept” (Genesis 29:11). Why did he cry? It is because his heart could not contain the connection of spirit with her, and he wept.
You might wonder: Doesn’t it also say (when Jacob met his brother) “he kissed him and they wept” (Genesis 33:4)? Regarding that case we have learned: Why is the word “he kissed him” marked with dots? Because there was no connection of spirit at all, as it says, “The kisses of an enemy are false” (Proverbs 27:6).
What is false in an enemy’s kisses? One who kisses with love connects their spirit to the other’s spirit in the connection of love. But one who does not kiss with love, these kisses are not connecting, they are false … This is why it (Song of Songs 1:2) says, “kiss me with the kisses of your mouth” — it means a connection of spirit to spirit.
Zohar 2:124b
Explore this passage in context on Sefaria.
Rabbi Yehuda notices that Jacob doesn’t just kiss his cousin Rachel when he first meets and falls in love with her. He also kisses his brother Esau when they meet 21 years after Jacob’s flight. Both kisses are followed by tears. However, while the meeting with Rachel leads to a lifelong love story, Jacob and Esau go their separate ways immediately following this meeting, and we never hear of them coming together again except for the occasion of their father’s funeral. So was the kiss with Esau a genuine sign of affection? Rabbi Yehuda says it was not and brings in an earlier rabbinic teaching (Sifrei Bamidbar 69:2), which explains an obscure scribal tradition of marking dots in the Torah over the word vayishakehu (“he [Esau] kissed him”) as a hint that Esau’s kiss was insincere.
For Rabbi Yehudah, a kiss without love, without the intention of connection, is vulgarity. There is power in the physical connection but only when that connection is backed by true feelings. So while Rabbi Yitzhak taught us that the physical act of kissing has the power to facilitate spiritual connection, Rabbi Yehudah taught that this power depends on the emotions and intentions we bring to kissing.
Happy Tu B’Av!
This piece was originally published as part of A Year of Zohar: Kabbalah for Everyone, an original series produced by My Jewish Learning and Sefaria. Sign up for the entire series here.
