NOTES for Ecc 2:1-26

Traditional wisdom literature does not place much value on merriment and laughter. And yet, in his search for the meaning of life, Ecclesiastes decided to try this path too, but, as we can see, without much success (vv. 1-2). Perhaps, having understood the utter uselessness of official bustle, he really wanted to lose himself in noisy merriment, but his mind, inclined to reflection and ruthless analysis, apparently did not allow him to immerse himself completely in what seemed empty and meaningless.

Apparently, Ecclesiastes was not one of those who sees the solution to worldview problems in refusing to ask questions that interfere with the enjoyment of life. Wishing, it seems, to test everything, he even tried to find consolation in wine. But since this was not a matter of trying to forget himself, but a kind of experiment, wine, as might be expected, not only solved no problems but did not even allow him to forget them (v. 3). And then attempts to forget the problems gave way to attempts to solve them. If nothing can be changed in the big world, then perhaps it is possible to arrange at least one's own house, to create one's own world, ordered reasonably and in accordance with the Torah.

Few people had such opportunities to arrange their own house as Ecclesiastes had, and he apparently did not neglect them at all: the house turned out just as its master wanted to see it, and at a certain moment it seemed to him that the long search for the meaning of life had been crowned with success (vv. 4-10). But the illusion of happiness did not last long; very soon sobriety came (v. 11). Every person is mortal, and the wise person, for all his wisdom, dies just as the fool does (vv. 12-16).

Such pessimism becomes quite understandable if we remember that ideas about the fate after death in early Judaism did not differ very much from those of neighboring peoples. Each person's life ended in the world of shadows, which in Hebrew is called "Sheol," where all are equal because everyone turns into a shadow, dragging out an existence that can no longer be called life. The dead do not remember the world of the living; they do not retain even the memory of their own life, while the living quickly forget past generations and their deeds. The only hope was hope for the resurrection and for the messianic Kingdom, but in the days of Ecclesiastes the messianic prospect seemed too distant to be seriously hoped for. Sheol, meanwhile, was not inspiring at all. It is no wonder that life, losing all meaning and every perspective, seemed hateful to Ecclesiastes (v. 17).

And the point is not only that, departing to Sheol, a person leaves the fruits of his labor to the mercy of fate, since it is unknown how the dead person's heirs will dispose of the inheritance they receive (vv. 18-21). The point, above all, is that, as it was revealed to Ecclesiastes, even the joy a person receives while enjoying the fruits of his labor does not, in essence, depend on him. Labor itself brings only weariness and anxiety, while joy is given by God, and only on Him does it depend whether a person will be able to receive enjoyment from his labor (vv. 22-26).

In all times there have been people who saw the meaning of life in creative and constructive labor. And the point here is not that labor ennobles a person by itself. Like most human occupations, labor in itself is spiritually and morally neutral: it can both help a person's spiritual and moral formation and hinder it. But labor allows one to arrange the world around a person. To change the space surrounding a person, both spiritual and physical. Building palaces and planting gardens, Ecclesiastes changes the physical space around him.

Joining himself to wisdom and assimilating it, he changes the spiritual space: after all, wisdom was needed first of all so that the reality around a person would be filled with new meanings, just as, when palaces are built and gardens are planted, it is filled with new things. And suddenly, like thunder from a clear sky, comes the awareness of one's own mortality. And therefore of the inevitable end. The world created by the person will remain, but its creator will depart. Just as everyone departs when he has completed his earthly path. And neither the things created nor the meanings revealed will help. The thought of death is like the strike of a gong during the sacred dance of the Sufis: the dance of life stops instantly, everything freezes, and something else begins, something that cannot be seen or understood from here, from the world of the living.

But if so, what are all the efforts for? They were needed only so that life might acquire meaning. A meaning as eternal as this world itself. But what was found through creation and wisdom turned out to be by no means eternal. Eternity slipped away, and the meanings found and the things created will not remain in eternity. They will go into the past. Or into the future, and from the point of view of eternity there is little difference between past and future.

Neither the past nor the future has any relation equally to that Present by which a person lives. Working for an unknown future is just as meaningless as working for a well-known past. One is no more real than the other. What a person has created and made meaningful remains in the past when the person departs. It can return to the present in the future, but then in that future there must be someone who will let it into his life just as Ecclesiastes himself let meanings and things into his own life. An heir. A successor.

For him our future will become the present, and in it things will come alive and meanings will rise again. Or they may not rise again: no one can be sure of heirs and successors. And these will already be other things and other meanings, created and discovered anew. Another life. This is not eternity; it is again only swiftly flowing time. The future replacing the past. Without the Present. Again "vanity of vanities."