Ecclesiastes: and the Search for Meaning

Kohelet’s use of contradictions may in itself present a message: human beings may strive for consistency but will always be riddled with imperfections and ambiguities. Accepting this can minimize frustrations, not only with Kohelet, but also with the world, others around us, and within ourselves.

Over time, Kohelet recognizes that it is precisely temporality that offers humans beauty, meaning, and joy.

“Economies thrive when individuals strive, but because individuals will only strive for their own happiness, it is essential that they mistakenly believe that producing and consuming are routes to personal well-being.”

Life may be challenging under the sun, in the arena where humans interact, indulge, and suffer, but above the sun, in the heavenly realms hidden to humans, God’s world offers justice, peace, and contentment. The closest way to access these realms is to live by God’s word.

We are here now to enjoy life’s pleasures now, a sentiment reinforced by biblical verses that remind us not to wait for gratification because it may soon be eclipsed by random terror: “Because you would not serve the Lord your God in joy and gladness over the abundance of everything, you shall have to serve – in hunger and thirst, naked and lacking

Kohelet, however, did learn something about himself. Ultimately, hindsight is a better teacher than foresight.

Once you make peace with just being a lump of meat on a rock, you can stop stressing and appreciate the rock itself.

Hevel appears seventy-three times in Tanakh; thirty-eight of those instances are in Ecclesiastes, making it the work’s repeated, summative, and unavoidable drumbeat of a mantra.

Happiness lives in the realm called Not-I.”