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Ecclesiastes

Following on the great spiritual uplift of the Yamim Noraim, reading Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) on Succot seems counter-intuitive. Even without discounting the final chapter, which seeks to lighten up an otherwise seemingly dark and cynical text, one wonders why we read this book immediately following Yom Kippur, during the holiday called Zman Simchatenu-the time of our joy.

Even if one reads the final chapter as a bracing tonic against Kohelet's general tone, why pick a work that seems so wearisome?

Some answers perhaps resonate with the experience of the holiday proper: fear of rain, shortening days, the harvest at stake, the winter attending. A certain biting awareness of the moment now might seem appropriate. In this moment, tied in our tradition to our memory of G-d's protective mantle floating over the Jewish people while we wandered in desert, we remember too what the struggles and values of daily life entail. Isn't it odd to sit in a sukkah, celebrating G-d's love of the Am Israel while we study a book that tells us, right off the bat, that everything we try to do is futile?

If there was one thing the rabbis of antiquity were, they were deep and astute observers of human psychology, in the sense of both the ancient "study of the soul" (psyche equals soul in Greek) and in the modern sense of "study of human emotional reactions".

Look at how they construct for us our ending of Yom Kippur. One would have thought that they, the rabbis, would have directed us , for example, to take our heart-wrenching peak of the Neilah service, that final rendition of our plaintive Avinu Malkenu, and wrap it in some period of quiet and contemplation, withdrawal and meditation, some finely tuned spiritual exercise. On the contrary, they directed us to break our fast, and get our hands dirty building the sukkah. Run, they tell us, to build the sukkah.

Now certainly sukkah building is a fine mitzvah, but hammering away, or just trying to figure out the plan of attack is not what one would usually call spiritual. Of course, we all hasten to add, the point of Jewish spirituality is to made G-d's qualities present in the world through our actions. A good way to make the transcendent immanent is to build a personal holy, although temporary, structure.

Perhaps however there is another facet to this gem of rabbinic observance in reading Kohelet.

How do we leave the shul after the gates of repentance are finally, but neither completely nor irrevocably, closed on Motzei Yom Kippur? Elevated, we hope, cleansed, encouraged, committed, charged up.

And realistically, for the most of us, how long does that state last? Through the evening, when we go off to our break-fast, and the first little pieces of lashon ha-ra (the evil tongue, a rabbinic circumlocution for gossip) dribble out? Until the next morning, when work or school or spouse or children face us again with all the petty, practical, necessary demands of our lives that seem to distance us from the almost-rapture of the fast and song? Maybe we hold on to that precious sense of G-d's love and grace until the first time we forget to say a bracha that we had pledged to say "religiously".

The rabbis knew this-and they knew that we would recoil from our quick, but inevitable, failings by justifying them with some quick and bitter retort. So, they beat us to the punch, as it were. On one level, every rationale, every excuse could be read into Kohelet: everything has its time and place, nothing that I do is new and unique, it has all been done before.

But even more so than that we fail-our Jewish admonition is always to strive against our inevitable failings-but that we cannot sustain the elevation our Yom Kippur tears bring. There are those, a few, who can live each moment with a sparkling awareness of G-d's ever-present holiness. Most of us can't---I suspect most of us wouldn't want to. Kohelet comes to remind us that, after those peak moments, there are valleys, and those too come in their right and proper time. With the depths, we seek exoneration for our failings also. And through those depths, the rabbis let Kohelet-rich, cynical, wise, jaded Kohelet, remind us that life is still worth living, even if we can't do it burnished by the reflected light of G-d's glory all the time. Seated under the s'hach and the stars, we praise G-d's great love for us, both as individuals and as members of Am Israel, and balance the paradox of our lives, living in Yom Kippur as almost an angel, and called again to the ground on Sukkot. Kohelet gives us one of the tools to manage that paradox. The scholars may be right: the last chapter is an appended justification for the inclusion of the book in the canon of the Bible. But, from the perspective of one who takes wisdom and hope from the Torah, not "just" a history or literary lesson, so what? After we view all the alternatives, we need to remember again before Whom we stand.

Some of us, though diligence, education, circumstances, might find ourselves truly raised to new heights on Yom Kippur. Most of us, however, even if raised, plummet down quickly enough. Kohelet is for the rest of us, the plummeters. It's not really cynicism, at least not in the context of all its chapters-but it is a careful study in how we would like to justify ourselves. Not our "evil" selves, but our self-absorbed selves. And it is out of our self-absorption that we need to reach both to G-d, and to let G-d reach through the Sukkah to us, and to our people.

The sukkah is a symbol of peace, of G-d's sheltering of us all. This year, let us all pray fervently for peace, for our beloved Eretz Israel and for our people. May G-d's shelter encompass us all.

Chapter 12:

Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw near, when you shall say, I have no pleasure in them;
Before the sun, and the light, and the moon, and the stars are darkened, and the clouds return after the rain;
In the day when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those who look out of the windows are dimmed,
And the doors are shut on the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low;
Also when they are afraid of that which is high, and fears are in the way, and the almond tree blossoms, and the grasshopper drags itself along, and desire fails; because man goes to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the streets;
Before the silver cord is removed, or the golden bowl is broken, or the pitcher is broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern.
And the dust returns to the earth as it was; and the spirit returns to G-d who gave it.
Vanity of vanities, said Kohelet; all is vanity.
And besides being wise, Kohelet also taught the people knowledge; for he weighed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs.
Kohelet sought to find out acceptable words; and words of truth written in proper form.
The words of the wise are like goads, and like nails firmly fixed are the collected sayings, which are given by one shepherd.
And furthermore, by these, my son, be admonished; of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
The end of the matter, all has been heard. Fear G-d, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.
For G-d shall bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil.

(While Kohelet is traditionally ascribed to King Solomon, the general scholarly consensus is that it was written during the second temple period. The author, an upper-class Jerusalemite, may have lived as early as the period of Persian domination, but most scholarship argues for at least superficial Hellenistic influences, the content and structure of the work reflecting aspect of Hellenistic wisdom literature. Again, the consensus is that the twelfth and final chapter was added on at a later time by a different author. Since the inclusion of Kohelet in the biblical canon was the cause of some dissension recorded among the rabbis, perhaps this tag-chapter, so to speak, took off some of the cynical edge of the rest of the work.)

Hag Sameach to all.

Dennis