Fleeting Dreams and Possessive Dybbuks
On Dreams and Possession in Jewish and Other Cultures
Edited by: Rachel Elior, Yoram Bilu, Yair Zakovitch, Avigdor Shinan
Jerusalem 2013
Abstracts
A Woman’s Dream (Song of Songs 5:2–6:3): Real or Imagined?
Yair Zakovitch
Many of the poems in the Song of Songs have the character of daydreams, and two explicitly describe night dreams (3:1-5; 5:2–6:3), resulting in the reader often being left to wonder what is real and what is fantasy. All dreams in the Song, whether reverie or deep-night dream, are women’s dreams (this corresponds with the spirit of the book, in which the central role is filled by women), in contrast to all other dreams in the Bible, which are the imaginings of men. The dreams outside the Song of Songs, in biblical narrative, are different in one further respect: they are of a prophetic nature and give us glimpses of the future. Women’s dreams in the Song, on the other hand, are personal and lend themselves—as do all personal dreams—to being interpreted and analyzed by readers throughout the ages, each according to the theories he or she prefers, whether Freudian or otherwise.