Students Write on Kohelet

Seniors in Rabbi Segal's Navi course wrote literary analysis papers on Kohelet. Read excerpts of some of their papers below.

Ecclesiastes by Jacob Magid

The book of Ecclesiastes is one that epitomizes complexity, but deep within that complexity are buried some of the most important lessons life has to offer. King Solomon writes on the eve of his death and final moments as king of the Jewish people to remind them to not lose track of what is truly important in life. In doing so, he answers the question that he rhetorically poses in the beginning of the work: “What profit has man in all his toil that he toils under the sun?” (Ecclesiastes 1:3) In chapter one, Solomon looks back on his life, on all of the wealth he acquired, and all of the accomplishments he made as king. Even though he materialistically had everything, he still felt equally unfulfilled and dissatisfied as if he had nothing. He uses a variety of rhetorical strategies to relay the message that he learned from his own life experiences. Through his utilization of metaphor, antithesis, and repetition Solomon demonstrates how one can live a meaningful life.

The Contrast of Torah and Everything Else by Jacob Weinger

Shlomo uses potent imagery to convey the vanity of the world (excluding Torah). In the fifth pasuk of Koheles, Shlomo is still establishing his claim of “futility.” The pasuk reads (when transalted) “And the sun rises and the sun sets‐ then to its place it rushes; there it rises again.” Here the image of the sun, which to some equaled the glory of a god, is employed to stir awe from the reader. Immediately though, the glorious image of the sun is coupled with monotony and, furthermore, an image of the sun “rush(ing)” to its shade. Shlomo means to bring down the reader’s impression of worldly splendor with the image of a sun rushing away over and over again. Shlomo asks what splendor can exist in the world when even the sun shies away from it. The many commentators of Koheles link this verse to the one before it, which focuses on man’s
fleeting nature. With the image set, Koheles will soon impart the beauty of the eternal: in this case, the Torah.

Kohelet Rhetorical Analysis by Ari Lowenstein

The repetition of the word “hevel” in the first pasukim serves to stress the importance that mankind understand that everything physical is in the hands of God. In the second pasuk alone, the word “Hevel” is mentioned four times. The Ramban explains that this word “Hevel” means “temporary.” He continues to say
that “Hevel” is something that if you do not use it, it will disappear. He brings in an example of rocks that light flax seeds, the spark needed to do so only lasts for a short moment in time. A member of Bnei Yisroel understands that Hashem is responsible for everything that exists within the physical world. Shlomo’s repetition of the word “temporary” (according to the Ramban) stresses the fact that he wants people to
understand that not only is God responsible for creating the physical world, but that he also has the power to take it away. Thus, a man’s desire to accumulate physical wealth over Torah knowledge will in the future mean nothing because materials things such as money are all temporary and in the hands of God.

Vanity: Consumption of All but the Ideal by Chanan Bell

A human being as an individual, no matter the substance of his life, is given the opportunity to decide what is eternal. He is faced with a question to which no answer can be known: what, in a life, endures beyond a life? In the first chapter of his philosophical work Kohelet, King Solomon illustrates this vexing dilemma. He suggests, through personal editorial, philosophical allusions and the unique affiliations in the structure of
the Hebrew language, that all that might viscerally be assumed to be everlasting is but dust in the wind. Corporeal forms fade. The sole survivor of the material realm is that which is intangible-- that which cannot be born, for nothing is new under the sun, and that which cannot die, because its existence transcends mortality. As he writes, generations may come and go unremembered and unheeded, but the ideals and the values they represent are eternal. Ideals and values persevere; and the only possibility of legacy, afterlife, or, in short, eternity is through affiliation with the ideal.