On preparing to reread the Song of Songs on Erev Shabbos

During my religious reawakening of 2010 in the synagogue of a Chabad rabbi, one of the most interesting customs I discovered was how some observant Jews read the Song of Songs every Friday night. I'd just read David Hazony's The Ten Commandments and, inspired by his humane and practical analysis, was exploring the meaning of a sabbath, and finding ways to apply it to my life.  My favorite part of the faith is the texts, so I thought I'd follow the practice and see where it got me.

I was familiar with Chana Bloch and Ariel Bloch's magnificent translation - I'd even given my wife, Aishes Chayil, a copy when we were newlyweds - and revisited it. Unless you've read this translation, you probably never got the feel for the poem. The usually astringent Jonathan Alter amusingly to points to this verse in the King James Version:

While the king sitteth at his table, my spikenard sendeth forth thereof.
A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me.

And contrasts it to the Blochs's:

My king lay down beside me
and my fragrance
wakened the night

As I kept reading the poem and my Hebrew started coming back, I was able to appreciate how closely the Blochs hew to the spirit of the poem, which is the best expression of ardent love that I have ever read. It is so perfect and so human and so life affirming, it's not surprising that religious leaders through the ages have insisted that the poem is a metaphor for the love shared by the Lord and his people.

Which is obviously bullshit, and I wonder if the Orthodox are doing more than mouthing the words. I read the translation Chabad uses in its prayer book, and the English did not even resemble the Hebrew. It was a disconnect akin to seeing a picture of a naked centerfold with a caption "The rolling hills of Samaria in Eretz Israel." The English words would not get you in the spirit of Shabbat.

Which clearly someone realized that the Song of Songs is uniquely capable of doing. It reminds you palpably of ardent love, of its joy and its madness, and mostly the way it fills you with joy that you are you and your beloved is your beloved in that moment.

No better way to locate the spirit of Shabbat.

P.S. This was a fragment I saved as a draft a long time ago, and if I was going anywhere with it, I can't remember.