Shir HaShirim, the love-song between Hashem and the Jewish people, often speaks of the “daughters of Yerushalayim.”
As Rashi explains, these women represent the other nations of the world who are being called on to recognize the singular relationship between Hashem and the Jewish people. While this fits within the storyline of the song, it raises an additional question – what is the significance of the name “daughters of Yerushalayim?” Does that description connect with any of the major themes of Shir HaShirim?
The first appearance of these maidens occurs in the fifth verse of the megillah:
I am black but comely, O daughters of Jerusalem! Like the tents of Kedar, like the curtains of Solomon. Do not look upon me [disdainfully] because I am swarthy, for the sun has gazed upon me…
Rashi explains that the Jewish people are explaining that despite their outwardly dark appearance, they are still beautiful within:
The allegory is that the congregation of Israel says to the nations: I am black in my deeds, but I am comely in the deeds of my ancestors, and even some of my deeds are comely… For my blackness and my ugliness are not from my mother’s womb, but from tanning from the sun, for that blackness can easily be whitened by staying in the shade.
A foundational starting point for the entirety of the song is the true inner worth of the Jewish people. As Resh Lakish teaches us, even the empty ones of Israel are filled with mitzvos like a pomegranate.
It is only after one understands the fundamental divine nature of the Jewish soul that one can properly contextualize Hashem’s loving relationship with his people.
Perhaps it is for this reason that this verse is addressed to the “daughters of Yerushalayim.”
This spiritual perspective is not easily accessible to the mortal eye which might perceive the Jewish people as indistinguishable from the other nations of the world. Yerushalayim, however, gives one access to this deeper and truer outlook. Such proximity to the Shechina perforce gives one the ability to see things as Hashem sees them. Therefore, it is the “daughters of Yerushalayim” that are able to see the Jewish people as beautiful, despite the external trappings.
According to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, this is the mechanism through which the Beit HaMikdash atones for the sins of the Jewish people. When one reaches the spiritual heights through the Temple service, then one accesses a point in which the Jewish people are so inextricably bound to Hashem that the very notion of sin is impossible.
That is why the zenith of the dayyenu song is that Hashem brought us to the Beit HaMikdash “to atone for our sins.”
The highest level in which sin is an impossibility for the Jewish people is one which is afforded through being in Yerushalayim and the Beit HaMikdash.