In his reflections on the meaning of life, Ecclesiastes again and again returns to the thought of the uselessness of any human deeds and efforts applied by a person to achieve the goal he has set before himself. And the point is not even the impossibility of achieving the goal as such. Often, according to Ecclesiastes, it happens that, having everything, a person cannot make use of anything (vv. 1-2). One may live many years, but if during all these lived years a person has never had occasion to experience the joy of life, one may consider that the person has not lived at all (vv. 3-6).

Clearly, the main theme of Ecclesiastes' reflections becomes the quality of human life. A person labors for sustenance, for physical bread, but his life ("soul") is not satisfied by this bread. And wisdom, if it is reduced only to reflections, abstraction, speculation (to what Ecclesiastes calls "wandering with the soul"), is also worth nothing: it is important not only to reflect, but also to see with one's eyes (vv. 8-9). Clearly, in the search for the meaning of life Ecclesiastes became so immersed in reflections, speculations, and abstractions that he himself sensed their excessive instability. This is not surprising: for the concept of wisdom in ancient Israel was always connected not so much with theory as with practice, whether practice connected with craft or artistic labor, or the practice of social relations, or, finally, as in the post-exilic writings of the wise, the practice of righteous life, inseparable from the observance and fulfillment of the Torah.

But every practice presupposes the presence of a meaning obvious to the one practicing it, and this, clearly, Ecclesiastes has lost. One can be a righteous person, but righteousness is not rewarded in this world and is needed by no one in it except the righteous person himself. One can be a good ruler, but there are still more bad rulers, and no one has the power to change the life of society for the better. And the main thing is that everything ends in Sheol, which deprives everything of meaning: human efforts aimed at arranging life, all the deeds of a good ruler, and even righteousness itself. What remains is only the human being before the face of an unknown, blind force that is certainly stronger than he is (v. 10). And then it really becomes completely impossible to determine what the meaning of human life consists in, what is better for a person, and how to gain wisdom that would make life in this senselessly hostile world at least somewhat bearable (vv. 11-12).

At first Ecclesiastes reasons confidently; his thoughts about how well and how badly people are able to use wealth give the impression of clearly thought-out life principles. But in the end the reflections come to the question: who knows what is good for man in life? This question resembles a cry in a dead end into which the questioner has fallen while hoping to find his way out of the labyrinth. The entirely correct observation that all a person's labor is for his mouth, yet his soul is not satisfied, was a deep insight, but it surpasses hopes for the sufficiency of a quiet life based on peaceful labor and the use of its fruits.

Centuries will pass, and Christ will say as something self-evident: "life is more than food, and the body than clothing" (Luke 12:23), and these words can be called both an answer to Ecclesiastes and a confirmation of his insights. Yet even now the fullness of meaning in the Gospel words fits only with difficulty into many hearts.

Ecclesiastes keeps returning to the theme of life in the present. Or rather, in the Present. Exactly so, with a capital letter. Though it would seem he is not speaking about God or about any mystical illuminations, but simply about joy. It would seem, not even about Joy. But the point is that joy from which a person truly feels joyful and at peace can only be Joy with a capital letter, and nothing else.

And if the one rejoicing does not experience any special mystical illuminations and does not go through any altered states of consciousness, perhaps that is not needed. After all, the great prophet of Israel, Elijah, understood that God can be near even when He is silent. That He can more readily be heard in inner stillness, in apophatic silence, than in storm, fire, or earthquake, as Elijah himself had been used to in his former life.

After all, any illuminations, revelations, and experiences are born from that same inner stillness. From apophatic silence. But all this still has to be born. Joy and peace, however, always accompany God's presence. This is the form of its manifestation in our world and the way it exists in our heart. But the joy of God's presence can exist only in the Present.

In the Present, which a person usually experiences as the current moment, as the here and now brought to a halt. There is more meaning in the appeal "stay, moment, you are beautiful!" than appears at first glance. And the point is not only that the best moments should remain with us forever. The point is that only a stopped moment can be beautiful. A moment fallen out of the spaces and times that form the bad infinity of the created world spoiled by the fall. A moment that contains both the fullness of creation and the eternity of God.

Such moments are always in the present. They are, in fact, the true present, not memories of a past that no longer exists and not dreams of a future that does not yet exist, but the present as the only true reality. And since every true joy is from God, it can be experienced only in the present. In a stopped moment. But trying to find happiness in the future is a useless occupation, meaningless and exhausting.

The expected happy tomorrow will keep moving to the next day, as in the familiar children's poem about the monkey who could never wait for tomorrow, because every day that came somehow turned out to be today again. Living by endless expectation of a future that never arrives and working for its sake is truly exhausting. And meaningless. For only God's presence can give meaning to everything, and it is always in the present. Always here and now.