Jeremy Rosen
Ecclesiastes: The First Self-Help Bestseller

Jeremy Rosen | Ecclesiastes: The First Self-Help Best Seller | 07.19.22

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• So good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for logging in and we’re going to deal today with a book of the Bible, which is a very problematic book because it doesn’t seem anyway to be a religious book, a book you’d expect to find in the Bible. It’s called Ecclesiastes. If you have a version of the Bible in front of you that you want to follow, then you should go to the third section of the Bible. The writings, look for the four scrolls and you’ll find Ecclesiastes there. Similarly, if you cannot log onto Sefaria, S-E-F-A-R-I-A.org, and then in where you have the browse the library, you click the top left hand corner, you will see a list of subjects and the first one is called Tanach. And if you click on Tanach, you’ll see first of all, there is Torah, then there are prophets. Then you go down the prophets and you come to the writings. And when you go down the writings on the inside column, on the column, first column, you have Ecclesiastes and click on Ecclesiastes. And lo and behold, that’s where we’re going to be today. I’m not suggesting we’re going to cover the whole of the book, but we’re going to tackle it and certainly do parts of it.

Now, Ecclesiastes, start off with this famous phrase, (speaking Hebrew) the words of Kohelet, the son of David, (speaking Hebrew) the king in Jerusalem (speaking Hebrew). King James would say, vanity of all vanities, (speaking Hebrew) everything is hot air and empty. So what’s the point of life essentially is what this book is all about. Now let’s start first of all with the history of this book. The whole style of this book is cynical in a sense, it sounds like Greek cynicism. And therefore the question of when it was written, most people like to say it was written at about the time of the rise of Greek thought from Homer down on the way to Aristotle. And it really reflects that culture influencing Judaism. In other words, Judaism was always influenced by other cultures, and this is the sign of the Greek influence coming through. But if that is so, why do we call it the Book of Solomon, which we assume is who the son of David King in Jerusalem was, but it could be the son of David and it was David who was king in Jerusalem. It’s also the case that throughout history, people often attribute books that they have written to some more famous author because they think that will gain authority and sell the book better. So it needn’t necessarily have been the words of Solomon, the son of King David in Jerusalem. And indeed it’s interesting that in the Talmud itself, the Talmud itself does not say it’s the song or the book of Solomon.

On the contrary, they suggest the book was written by the much later prophets. Talking about prophets, to give an example of I, I’m sorry I, I’m just confused myself by this, trying to work out who the specific prophet was that was supposed to have written Ecclesiastes. But in fact, now that I remember it, it’s left open as to have been, if you like, a joint combined effort. And the fact that it’s a combined effort may well explain some of the anomalies of this book that we’re going to deal with. Then there is the problem of wording. What do the words mean? How do we translate these words? But I’m going to deal with that shortly. The reason I’ve picked this book is because I think it is the first example in history of a self-help book, a book intended purposely to help people cope with the questions, the troubles, the anxieties, the frustrations of life. And in doing this, I believe this book has certain messages that are as relevant today as they were then. And in fact, are no different to what all the self-help books that we can find on Amazon and elsewhere tell us about our options of life today. The Torah itself of course, is supposed to be a book of guidance, behavioural instruction, but doesn’t deal that much with ideas, doesn’t really deal with theology at all.

So it’s into the prophets we look for broader moral, theoretical and theological ideas. And so it is with this specific book. Let’s look at the text. First of all, the words of Kohelet. Kohelet literally means Kohelet, the community. So these are words that are intended for everybody, for the whole of community, not just for the priests, not just for the religious, but for everybody, for the community. And when speaking to community, we are saying, (speaking Hebrew) as I said, that’s translated normally vanity of vanities. But here the Sefaria translation is futility of futility. And that’s one of a series of possible words we could use for (speaking Hebrew) we could use, for example, the idea that it means hot air, breath. It could mean emptiness, it could mean purposelessness. So what I’m going to do now is to share my screen with you so that those of you who don’t have the text available can now see the text turning up on your screen. And at the top, the words of Kohelet, the son of David King in Jerusalem, emptiness of emptiness, pointlessness of pointlessness, confusion of confusion, everything is confusing. Life is extremely problematic. And verse three goes on to say, (speaking Hebrew) what is the benefit for a human being?

The (speaking Hebrew) for all the work that he or she works under the sun. And the Hebrew word for the first two words, (speaking Hebrew) what is the benefit is the same as value, the same as purpose. Your tear is something extra. What’s in it in a sense for me? And that word (speaking Hebrew), what, opens up the whole question of we don’t know. People keep on telling us that they know what’s best for us. They keep on coming up with this good advice, with this statement that I know the truth, I have the true religion, but do we know, can we know? And how are we supposed to deal with this idea? So the question is, where do we get the benefit? What’s a problem? Well, problem number one in verse four is (speaking Hebrew), generations come and they go, (speaking Hebrew), the earth remains the same, but it’s generation after generation. This is so boring, going round and round and round. And where do we get, have we gotten anywhere? Are we any different to where we were a hundred, a thousand, 10,000 years ago? And the world functions according to its own routine that we have no control over, which is an interesting topic nowadays. (speaking Hebrew) in verse five, the sun rises and the sun sets and to where the sun goes, so the sun continues to go round and round.

Obviously this is the time when he thought the sun went round the earth instead of the earth going round the sun. And this is a debate you might often hear, did they really not know? Some did. But that was the common knowledge. And remember, even at the time of poor Galileo, he was nearly burnt at the stake for suggesting otherwise. (speaking Hebrew) in verse six, the sun goes round to the south and then to the north and it goes round and round. (Speaking Hebrew) round and round. Now I’m going to come to the famous psalm, which are, I’m sure you are familiar with, with the birds, which is based on Kohelet, a time for this and a time for that and a time to read and a time to plough and a time to love and a time to hate. That’s coming in the third chapter. But that song is called “Turn, Turn”, going round and round. So the title of the song “Turn, Turn” actually comes from this part of Kohelet, going round and round and round. Verse seven, (speaking Hebrew) the rivers go down to the sea, (speaking Hebrew), the sea is never full. They didn’t talk about evaporation of course. (speaking Hebrew) where the rivers go, they continue to flow. And of course that’s not true anymore. (Speaking Hebrew) everything around is frustrating. The term (speaking Hebrew) can mean I’m weary of it. It’s frustrating. (speaking Hebrew) Nobody can explain everything.

The word says nobody can state what is. But you know, it means nobody can talk about everything there is. (speaking Hebrew), No eye can see everything there is in the world. (speaking Hebrew) no ear can hear everything. There’s much more going on around that we are capable of grasping and understanding. And here’s a line that is always brought trouble to me. (speaking Hebrew) what was will be. (speaking Hebrew) what’s been done, (speaking Hebrew), this is what will be done. (speaking Hebrew) There’s nothing new under the sun. In verse 10, (speaking Hebrew) a guy will come along and say, this is new, (speaking Hebrew) for believe me, it was always there. (speaking Hebrew) Now he can’t have thought that literally, what about the wheel? What about even the primitive invent? I mean, what about sort of building pyramids with engineering that didn’t exist before? So I don’t think this could possibly mean that there is nothing new at all in what humans can create and do. But I think it is saying that we are essentially exactly the same as we were. In every generation, a baby is born and we have to have nappies or diapers to stop it making a mess.

So each one of us when we’re born, we are born with the same natural physical phenomena that have always been there. Our emotions are the same. You think you are the first person to fall in love? Somebody’s fallen in love before. You think you are the first person to make a lot of money? Somebody else has made a lot of money. You think you are the first person to be the ruler and the big chief and the big boss and so powerful, you are going to die and there’s going to be somebody else who’s going to come instead of you. And so the fact is that on an emotional level, on a level of basic human ingredients, we are the same now as we’ve been for thousands and thousands, millions of years in many respects. And so in verse 11, he clarifies what he or she could be is saying, he says, (speaking Hebrew),we don’t remember those who came before us. The odd one or two in a generation, the odd Napoleon or to the odd Winston Churchill or whoever you want to choose. We remember them. But what of all those we’ve forgotten, and particularly in our era, I mean somebody can be a great film star one moment, a great soccer player one next moment, a great influencer on the internet one moment and within a year or so they’re gone and forgotten. So the truth is that by and large, we don’t remember individuals so much anymore.

Those that were once are not remembered anymore, any more than those before they remembered. We remember in our short span. And of course nowadays it’s true that with all the access we have to our genealogy, we can trace back and remember and we remember and we produce books about and write about those people who came before, but frankly in the end, they don’t have that much of an impact on us. So he goes on to verse 12, (speaking Hebrew). So this was my problem. My problem was what’s the point, what’s the point of life? So in verse 13, now tactically I decided I was going to try and find out, I was going to try to explore and see if I could answer this question. What is the point of life? So first of all, I thought, let me try wisdom. Let me get more and more wisdom, more than I can possibly, than anybody else has acquired. And I find out that way to explain what goes on. But believe me now that’s a frustrating thing. It’s a gift in a sense or a curse that God has given us to oppress us with because we can never know, which simply implies we can never know God either. It’s interesting the idea that the first thing he turns to is wisdom.

Just want to sort of comment that my father told me quite early on in my life when he encouraged me to read Bertrand Russell and he loved reading Bertrand Russel, the English philosopher, the man who claimed I’m an atheist and I’m not interested in religion and it is a waste of time, but a great philosopher. And my father pointed out that Bertrand Russell was known as a man whose sexual standards were pretty low. He had a very bad reputation. And his response to that was to say, you know, sometimes the higher the brow, the lower the loins, there is absolutely no correlation between wisdom, knowledge, and morality. And remember this book and these books of the Bible are concerned with what we call morality, the right way to behave. But nevertheless, wisdom, everybody says, you got to be wise. The more wiser you are, the more you know, the better you’ll be able to cope people think, doesn’t work that way. Another example, I think of Arthur Kistler. Anyway, we’ve seen in verse 14, I saw when I looked at all this, everything that’s done under the sun and everything to me is pointless. Same words, (speaking Hebrew) pointless and meaningless. (speaking Hebrew) In verse 15, when things go wrong, they go wrong.

You can’t always undo what’s been done. You injure somebody or kill somebody, they’re dead. (speaking Hebrew) and difficult expression to translate. But if something is missing, it is missing. It’s not there. You can’t conjure it up out of nowhere. So verse 16, I spoke to myself and I thought, look me wasn’t a modest guy, whoever this guy was, (speaking Hebrew) I added on more and more wisdom, (speaking Hebrew) over more than anybody else in Jerusalem before me. And I saw all the knowledge there was accessible to me. And I kept on working away, not only at wisdom but at riddles, intelligence tests and all kinds of ways of testing my mind to see if I could answer this question. And all I discovered was that the more I added, the more angry and frustrated I got, you know, the famous stray phase the more I know, the more I realised I don’t know. And that basically is what he’s saying. So having tried wisdom in chapter two, he then goes on to say, okay, maybe the answer isn’t wisdom. The answer is what most young people seem to think nowadays, having fun. So I thought what I want to do is have fun. I want to rejoice and see good things. But I saw that in itself is not enough because sometimes we have to deal with sad things and bad things and you can’t expect everything to be joyous all the time. And this raises a very important question of what do we mean by (speaking Hebrew) joy?

The truth is it’s not happiness. Happiness is a late arrival on the cultural and etymological scene. There’s no word for happy in the Torah, the word (speaking Hebrew), which is rejoice. Rejoice means essentially do things that are valuable. So we talk about doing an act that might be unpleasant, might make you unhappy going to a hospital to visit somebody who’s sick. But we know it is valuable, it is positive, it is worthwhile. And so when we talk about festivals, we don’t just talk about festivals like when you get drunk and you have an orgy, we talk about all the time, a time for (speaking Hebrew), a time for first of all looking at how fortunate you are, looking at the positive things and enjoying it. But that is not the same thing as kind of entering into a door of happiness when you are happy all the time as opposed to entering a door when you are sad all the time. So in verse two, (speaking Hebrew) I thought making jokes, treating life as a joke is pointless. It’s crazy. But at the same time I realised that (speaking Hebrew), just being joy in itself is not an end in itself.

So neither of these in themselves can be the answer anymore than wisdom is the answer. It’s important, it’s valuable. And so verse three, I started to drink and to enjoy everything as well as keeping up my intellectual activity because I wanted to see what is the right thing for a human being to do under the earth, under the heavens, through the life, through his life. What is the purpose? What is the aim of a person? How to live? In other words, the self-help book, the Tony Robbins of three and a half thousand years ago. And so I tried other things. I tried the achievements, the achievements of building houses, of architecture, of huge, big urban systems. I built gardens and orchards, I planted all kinds of things. I thought in nature I might find the answer to my question. I made pools of water, irrigation. I acquired slaves and servants, not a relevant subject nowadays, but remember a long time ago and I had lots of assistance at home. I had lots of flocks and herds. I gathered more than any before me Jerusalem. I had all that. And not only that, I gathered in silver and gold and all the sort of things that kings delight in and are proud to have. And I also was interested in music and I had people who sang and musicians, whatever it was possible to have, I did not hold back.

Whatever in verse 10 my eyes wanted, I allowed them to have, I had everything. I was happy in one sense you might say, but I still didn’t have the answer. And I worked at this and I saw again in verse 11, all I get is for, is frustration. And I yet in verse 13, I’m not saying everything’s the same. I’m not saying there are no preferences. I still believe that it’s better to be wise and stupid just as it’s better to have light than dark. At least a wise man has eyes in his head, should be able to see where he is going. But a fool still (speaking Hebrew) randomly gropes in darkness. But here’s the fact, they both end up in the same place. They both die. So what’s the point? I said what happens to the wise one? What happens to the fool? It’s going to happen to me. I’m going to end up in the dirt. So what am I benefiting from being so wise? And nobody remembers one anymore than they remember the other. And therefore, as I went round and round and round, I came nowhere. I saw that there are people who work and I saw that people who devote themselves to building an empire, but you still don’t know who you’re going to leave it to. And with a short space of time, they may destroy everything you’ve built. How many cases do we know of institutions and empires and businesses that the next generation just rode into the ground? And so I didn’t know what it was that a person should do.

And so I want to turn to verse 24, verse 24:2. And this is a phrase that is going to come up more than any other phrase in this book. Seven times it’s going to recur. And the phrase goes like this (speaking Hebrew), which you can either translate as there’s nothing worthwhile for a person or you can read it, the only good for a person is that he or he should eat and drink and show themselves the good in what they do. (speaking Hebrew) the good, be positive. So there you have an answer. The answer to this book is rather like Eric Idle at the end of “The Life of Brian”, always look on the bright side of life, focus on the positive, focus on the good things that you can do. And if you do that, you are going to be able to cope with whatever life throws at you. In itself it’s not an answer, but it is a method, a method of coping, which is in many ways just as important as the simple answer. But, and here comes the kicker. The second half of verse 24 says, (speaking Hebrew), but I realised (speaking Hebrew), this is a gift of God.

Not everybody can have that mental attitude. Not everybody is capable of overcoming adversity. Not everybody is capable of looking up the bright side or the good side. Some of us are depressive, are depressed and we can’t help it. And therefore in a sense this is an ideal, but it’s still not applicable for everybody. So we still haven’t answered what the answer for everyone is. We are saying the best thing you can do is be positive. Think how grateful you should be that you’ve got food, that you’re alive, that you’ve woken up this morning, that your body functions. There’s a lot to be thankful for, a lot to be grateful for. So (speaking Hebrew) in verse 25, (speaking Hebrew). Who feels, who eats other than me? I’m the only person who know what I’m feeling. Even those closest to me may see me in pain but they don’t feel the pain. You can’t feel another’s pain you, you can empathise, you can try to help. You can try to be supportive, but you can’t actually feel their pain. That’s simply not possible in the sense, we are like a stone being dropped into the water that sends out ripples. But it’s the stone in the middle that’s sending out the ripples. And we ourselves can only know for certain what we feel and what we are thinking and what we are experiencing. And therefore in verse 26, I agree that (speaking Hebrew), what’s good and what’s helpful for a person, that can involve wisdom and joy.

But for the person who doesn’t want to take advantage of the positive, who wants to be destructive, who wants to gather and gather in the hope that he is doing something that is right is really in fact wasting his time. Until we come to the famous chapter three that you’re probably familiar with, there is a time for everything. There’s a time for every kind of action underneath the heaven. This is an important idea ‘cause it raises the idea of good and bad. And really in the Jewish tradition, we don’t have what Zoroastrianism had or what gnosticism had. The idea that there is a force for evil and a force for good. Those systems believed there were two if you like, forces in the world, the positive and negative. Even the idea of Satan as being bad in the Hebrew tradition, Satan is just somebody who blocks people who gets in the way, a negative influence but not a force for evil in the world, that there is evil in the world. And so in this situation we are saying everything has its place. Nothing is intrinsically bad, the body is not intrinsically bad. It can be used well. It can be used badly. It’s how you use it that counts. And therefore the challenge to you is to make use of what you have, your talents, your abilities, whatever they are.

However strong, however weak. Some have better brains, some have weaker brains, some have stronger bodies, weaker bodies. So there’s a time for it, a time to give birth and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to get rid of plants, uproot plants either to make way for better ones or to remove those that are diseased. There’s a time to kill and a time to heal. So this is not a pacifist, there’s no pacifism here. Sometimes you have to kill. If guys come towards you to kill you, you have to try to defend yourself. Sometimes evil has to be tackled head on, even if you are losing. And this is what we’re seeing in Russia at the moment and in Ukraine, you see evil triumphing and the world incapable of or unwilling to react to it appropriately. And so yes, this would be a time to assassinate, to kill the bad guy, if one could. A time to heal. On the other hand, even the worst person can be healed. And so we have to try and heal if there’s a possibility. Eight lift rocks is a time to pull down, if not a time to build eight lift, cut a time to cry and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to throw away stones and a time to gather stones.

That could be metaphorically, it could be agriculturally, removing stones in order to plant. It could mean removing barriers in order to proceed. But it can also mean to build barriers. Time to have (speaking Hebrew) and time to hold off and don’t rush into (speaking Hebrew). The time to look for things, (speaking Hebrew) and sometimes you’ve got a ability to lose the junk you don’t need, to get rid of what’s superfluous. (speaking Hebrew) the time to keep a time to throw away. (speaking Hebrew) a time to tear, not necessarily in mourning any other time. Time to tear and a time to sew. (speaking Hebrew) time to be silent. Rare nowadays. (speaking Hebrew) and a time to speak. (speaking Hebrew) A time to love, (speaking Hebrew) and a time to hate. (speaking Hebrew) There’s a time for war, you have to go to war sometimes. But (speaking Hebrew) and there’s a time for peace. So this magnificent phrase, basically you’re saying there’s nothing intrinsically bad. It depends how and where you use it. If some dirt gets into your eye, it’s out of place and it irritates. But if the dirt is the soil which is producing food, then it’s very good. It all depends where it is, how it is and how it’s used. Now that is if you like the core message, this moment of this book, the rest of this book in a sense repeats these broad ideas in more specific ways.

So for example, if you like, verse 11 goes on, (speaking Hebrew) everything has its place, has its time. (speaking Hebrew) God in a sense has put the world into our palms. (speaking Hebrew) Even if humans don’t understand the ways of God, why did God make this world? We don’t understand. We don’t even understand if it was God who made this world, in many cases people don’t. So we don’t have to understand everything and know everything to have to find a way to be able to go forward. And so once again, repeat this thing, this message that I said before is repeated seven times. Verse 12,(speaking Hebrew), the only good is to be positive and enjoy the good in life and that a person should eat and drink and see the good in life, but realise that this is a gift and be grateful for it 'cause many people can’t. And so I knew in verse 14, (speaking Hebrew) whatever God has done, he’s done forever. In other words, to use the words the phrase in the (speaking Hebrew), this world (speaking Hebrew), this world functions according to certain systems, rhythms, the way it was designed like a spinning top and you keep it going on and on and on and on. So the world functions according to a system. It’s nothing bad in it. Volcanoes may cause death, earthquakes may cause death, typhoons, rising water levels, these all things that can be negative and destructive, but they’re part of the function of the world.

Now we would look at this and say, ah, yes, but we are destroying it, and in certain respects we are destroying it. Whether the earth itself can in due course heal itself is another matter and it’s open to doubt. But nevertheless, if we can see we are doing something bad, whether it’s to a person or whether it’s to an environment, we have to do something about it. So we don’t know how this world was made necessarily. We can speculate and we keep on arguing about speculation, but it does function according to some sort of system and that explains things and that’s why in a sense we can never go. But, what worries me about this, is in all these things, there is a clear difference in verse 16 between a good person and a bad person between (speaking Hebrew) evil and (speaking Hebrew) and justice. I say to myself (speaking Hebrew) verse 17, both the good and the bad are going to be judged in the end, because everything in a sense goes round in a circle. (speaking Hebrew) So people I said to myself, have to distinguish themselves from animals, even though humans are animals, we are the same as animals. And this is a highly problematic issue that the text is saying. In verse 19, (speaking Hebrew), what happens to humans, (speaking Hebrew), happens to animals. (Speaking Hebrew), one thing happens to them. One dies, the other dies. (Speaking Hebrew), one spirit in all living beings. (speaking Hebrew)

Why, in what way is man better than animals? (speaking Hebrew) it’s all pointless if you think that there is some sort of explanation for this. (speaking Hebrew) They all go to the same place. (speaking Hebrew) Everything came from dust (speaking Hebrew) and everything goes back to dust. And here’s a highly controversial line, (speaking Hebrew) does anybody know, (speaking Hebrew) if the spirit of man, of humanity or (speaking Hebrew) goes up when he dies, (speaking Hebrew) and that of the animal goes down (speaking Hebrew). What happens? There’s no difference between animals and humans in the sense that physically, we all go to the same place. But look how it challenges the question. Who knows? Now our religion, all religions are full of answers. They all know . I’m telling you there’s a heaven and there’s a hell. You go to heaven. Either you sit, you study the Talmud all the day, or you have some virgins all the day, or you sit enjoying the presence of all the holy monks and spirits that have gone before you. Whatever it is, he is saying very clearly, I don’t know if there’s a difference. In other words, he has the guts to say, I don’t know. All religions keep on pumping I know, I know and I’m right and I’m right here in our middle of our religion, you have a guy who says, I honestly don’t know. I’m not going to try and foist on you some solution that I don’t actually have the answer to. And that’s why, since we cannot know, we have to live in the moment.

That sounds very unpopular sometimes to think living in the moment. Living in the moment means sometimes indulge every desire. But living in the moment can mean value the moment. Use the moment valuably, which is what he is saying. And therefore, again, time number three, (speaking Hebrew) the only good is for somebody to rejoice in doing good things. (speaking Hebrew) this is his lot in life. (speaking Hebrew). Who’s going to be able to tell him (speaking Hebrew) what’s after him, but I can tell you what the best way to do now is on life. And so he carries on with the snippets of information and of wisdom that run right through this book. I’m going to give you just a few little statements that indicate the ambiguity of his position. For example, if you were to go to on in chapter three, you’ll come to this famous statement which says, having said who knows if everybody goes up and everybody goes down, he then goes on to say, (speaking Hebrew) I praise those who are dead. They’re lucky, (speaking Hebrew), they’re gone. They’re (speaking Hebrew) who are still alive. They don’t have to struggle with life the way we do. They don’t have to cope with pain and suffering and illness and sickness. They’re dead. They’re dead and they’re better off than we are. Or for example, a phrase that we have come across before or (speaking Hebrew).

Anybody who loves money, I’m not saying you shouldn’t pursue money for a good reason, but if you are so in committed to loving money, you’ll never be satisfied. And we’ve all come across people with more money than could possibly use and still struggling and fighting and grappling in order to make more money. And then you have another phrase which sounds unreasonable within the context of the Bible. (speaking Hebrew) A good name is better than the finest oil. A good name is the most valuable thing that you can have on this earth. (speaking Hebrew) but the day of death, (speaking Hebrew) is better than the day when you were born. Very, very negative and destructive. And once again, he keeps on reiterating this idea of what the purpose of life is to enjoy and delight in. As we get to the end of this book, a few more, my favourite one, there is no end to making books, people like writing and publishing and writing and publishing and there’s no end to it. But I want to conclude like this. (speaking Hebrew) the final word in which I conclude the book of Kohelet is this, (speaking Hebrew) when we’ve heard everything, (speaking Hebrew), respect God, (speaking Hebrew) keep his commandments. (speaking Hebrew) This is humanity.

Now what does that mean? I think that how I understand this is that it’s saying that it’s all very well to give advice. Think before you act. It’s all very well to say take advantage of what you have, be positive, be constructive, do all these things. But the fact is words themselves are empty. You need, one needs a way of life, a structured life, a structured life that gets one to be involved in good deeds, in good work, in considering other people in leaving a regulated, meaningful, considered life. The only way to do this says Kohelet at the end is if you have a structure, if you get up in the morning with a purpose and you know what to do, that’s one of the big problems with people who are depressed. They can’t get up in the morning, they can’t do things. And it’s one of the benefits of having a routine, even if sometimes people think the ritual routines get on your nerves, is they give you a structure. A structure every day, a structure every week, structures during the year that gets you to keep on thinking about your purpose and what you should do and how you should be better today than you were yesterday. And so essentially what this book is saying is that it’s important to explore, it’s important to have knowledge, it’s important to have pleasure.

But don’t think that any of these things is an answer to the question of life in itself. Sometimes that cannot be answered. We have to go on looking. But in the process of looking, we have to have a structure, which is why the first Jewish philosopher, a man called Saadia Gaon who lived in Iraq in Babylon, round about 900. And I don’t count Philo of Alexandria as a philosopher in that sense for other reasons. He said the whole of one’s life, one has to go on looking for better ways of living, looking for truth. But if you wait until you found the answers, you may never find it. And so in the meantime, you stick with your tradition, you follow your tradition. That gives you a framework and that’s a framework on which to build, but it’s not an answer in itself. It doesn’t automatically answer the problems, it just leads you in that direction. Now there are some people who say, and I have some sympathy with what they say, that this line was tagged on at the end because when the traditional leaders that came to be known as the rabbis were compiling the canon of holy books in which some were included and some were left out, there was an argument about two major books in the Talmud, the Talmud talks about as to whether they should be included.

One of them was the Song of Songs, another book attributed to Solomon, which is basically a beautiful love poem. And Rabbi Akiva rescued it by saying, ah, it doesn’t mean a love between a boy and a girl. It means a love between God and Israel or God and a human being. The other one was this (speaking Hebrew) Ecclesiastes, which people said, no, this is, this is Greek, this Greek wisdom, it’s got nothing to do with Judaism at all. And so at the end, those who wanted to include it had to put in some positive line at the end which says, don’t worry, this is kosher and follow the Torah. And that solves your problem. Those of you who are familiar, some of you will be no doubt is with Chaucer, and with Chaucer’s famous long poem, “Troy and Cressida”. And “Troy and Cressida” is all about Greek romance, mythology and love and lovely sentiments and beautiful sentiments, right at the very end. And the last couple of lines, Chaucer has to suddenly put in out of nowhere something which says, and I sort of roughly translated, I mean the actual words are low pagans, cursed rights. Look at these horrible things that the pagans do. They’re terrible, they’re disgusting. We can’t rely on them. I’m just here just to show you how terrible they’ve been.

But really it’s only by accepting Christ and by being a good Christian that you can live. So don’t pay attention to all the earlier business. Now why is Chaucer saying that? Because he was frightened of the church, he was frightened that he would get into trouble and the church was very strong. They were as orthodox as orthodox could get. And so it was very common for a long, long time for people to add at the end something to justify themselves. And so there are people who say that this extra thing tagged on at the end is an example of this kind of justification. I don’t know, the answer is. One can’t know. I wasn’t there at the time and I had no evidence one way or another. All I can say is it does make sense to me because it is in a sense answering the question of how do we live our lives? And answer number one that Solomon gave was don’t look for perfect answers. There are no answers. By all means go on looking, go on searching, exploring. But there are no perfect answers. Life is tough. You have to cope with it. And the best way with coping with it is being positive. And the best way of being positive is by having a structure.

None of this will guarantee anything as we know, plenty of people who came to proclaim to be religious are not. And plenty of people who claim not to be religious are. So nothing is a guarantee. But this is guideline and advice, which is why I consider it to be the first self-help book in literature. And so at this stage, I’m stopping to share my screen and I’m now going to deal with the questions that have cropped up. And as long as I can keep going, I can keep going.

Q&A and Comments

So at the beginning I was playing some music, those who joined in and the music was actually Bloch. Bloch was not a Jewish composer. In fact, he was the son of a pastor. He did compose , which is a famous, he didn’t compose it, he adapted it orchestrally. But this is Bloch’s “Romance” for violin. So that’s what I was playing at the beginning of today. So excuse me, let me just take a little. Thank you Rose. Elliot. Dear Rabbi, of all the holy literature that I know about, Kohelet is my favourite most meaningful. Oh, I’m glad you think that way. I mean, I like it too.

Q: How many of the holy texts would you classify as self-help texts or bear some clear relationship to the idea so powerfully presented in (speaking Hebrew)? Why is it initially rejected by the rabbis from being part of the holy canon? A: Well, I think I’ve answered why it was rejected, because it sounded too much like Greek wisdom. But on the other hand, I think that it is the only one that sets out to be this self-help in the abstract as opposed to self-help like love your neighbours yourself, be good, and so forth and so on. So that’s why I call it the self-help book and I know now anybody, any other book quite like this, Leonard, reminds me of the Beatles of Fool on the Hill.

Yes, thank you Leonard. That’s right, that’s a nice nod in that different direction. Clara, thank you so much. And Esther, what I like about Bertrand Russell is the saying there’s nothing more irritating to intellectual than a common man making more sense than him. Oh, there’s so many great things that Bertrand Russell said. So that’s why I still like reading him. In fact, I am rereading at this very moment “In Praise of Idleness”, “In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays” by Bertrand Russell. So despite the nasty thing I said about him, and I’m not an admirer of him as a person, I love reading his books.

Q: So we, Karen Adrian, was it between (speaking Hebrew) and a mitzvah? A: Good question. A mitzvah is a commandment, it’s an action. So (speaking Hebrew) mitzvah. The joy of a mitzvah is the joy of doing something good. And I’m glad you mentioned that, because this is a fundamental issue in this book, that there is doing the right thing and sometimes that doing the right thing is invariably a mitzvah, even if it doesn’t say so in black and white being kind to somebody is a mitzvah, even though it’s not specified what kindness is. So (speaking Hebrew) is celebration, mitzvah is a good deed. Indeed.

Thank you Nurit. (speaking Hebrew) Happy as a person. Well you know, I don’t know that (speaking Hebrew) means happy, it’s translated as happy. But (speaking Hebrew) something actually means to validate. To validate a document. And therefore I think it’s saying the person who acts in this way is really validating his (speaking Hebrew), who he should be. “Turn Turn” written by iconic Pete Seeger 59. Actually you are right. I thought it did. I really thought it did. And when I was going to check it up, I googled him and they came it up with the birds. Maybe I don’t know why, but you are right. I remember now it is Pete Seeger. So thank you Janet for reminding me of that.

Q: How do you judge when time to do positive or time to do negative? It’s, is it in the intelligence that varies? A: Well, it can’t be intelligence, 'cause intelligent people do horrible things. Look how intelligent so many Nazis were. So that’s why I don’t think we can rely on intelligence alone to decide what is right and wrong. It can give some guidance but in the end, and this is my strongest reason for my rational, religious validity, why I believe I am adhere to a religious structure is because I think sometimes we need guidance and that’s what religion offers. We might not always want to accept it, but that’s what it offers. Because I don’t think we can rely, people think there’s certain natural morality. I’m very sceptical about it. And the more I look around the world today, the more sceptical I become.

Q: What do you mean God as an agnostic? A: Well, yes, you know it’s, I don’t, an atheist they say is somebody who denies the existence of God, which I think is as ridiculous as somebody who says they can prove the existence of God. You can’t prove and you can’t deny something which is not subject to that kind of criteria of testing. But an agnostic says, I don’t know. Now the guy who wrote this book didn’t say, I don’t know, he talks about God all the time. So God is there all the time. But I think what he’s saying is I don’t think God answers our questions, all of our questions. There are some questions which can’t be answered. God set up the world to function according to certain rules. But the role of God is not to answer every question. We have to answer our questions. We can’t, nowadays everybody expects some rabbi or some priest or some guru to answer their questions. And what he’s saying is, don’t waste your time. They can’t answer your questions. They might be able to give you emotional support. They might be good friends. They can’t give you the answers, because you have to find your answer. I was told one can’t measure happiness but one can measure pleasure.

That’s a very good point Galaxy, very good. I’m not certain you could measure pleasure either. And I think one person’s pleasure, zone of pleasure is different to another’s. So I don’t see how you can objectively measure it. You can see what lights up in your brain when something is pleasurable as opposed to something that’s painful. But the actual experience itself, I don’t see how you can do that. Since all eventually remains the same, Lawrence says, social workers and politicians are awaiting the time and trying to change or improve the world, but surely some reforms are to be applauded.

Q: And will you benefit for those who have abolished slavery? A: Yes, indeed. So I don’t know why you think that I said that there was no point to social workers or anybody trying to improve the world. I think we should all try and improve the world. We should all try to help people become better people. That’s what kindness, (speaking Hebrew), what loving your neighbour is all about. On the other hand, we’re not to think they always are right. Very often they do more harm than good. And this applies to rabbis and priests as well. And of course I think reforms are necessary, but there are different kinds of reforms of different subjects. Law is constantly in a sense progressing in certain directions, if not in others. So I’m very much in favour of reform. The question is, where do you reach the point where change destroys completely what was there before? When you throw out the baby with the bath water? So I’m all for throwing out the bath water, I’m not in favour of throwing out the baby.

Thank you, Saul. Elliot, researching psychology supports significant positive relationship between an individual sense of that purpose and longevity. Yes, I’m sure that’s right. Purpose does very much help. And that’s why people who retire very often go downhill. Thank you Olivia. That’s really sweet of you. Jennifer. Whirlwind two for (speaking Hebrew). Thank you. Yes, that’s what I was trying to be, a whirlwind rabbi. I call your structure the third source of development along with nature and nurture. That’s interesting. That’s interesting. If you don’t mind, I’d like to think about that. I think that makes a lot of sense. Thank you Martin. Thank you Stephen. Myth of Sisyphus. Yes, yes I do. And it’s impossible to know what came first, this was before Solomon.

Q: How does the author know that death is better than life? A: That’s faith too. Well yes, in a way it is. But what he means is when you die, you know you’re not going to be in pain anymore. But I think what this author shows is he didn’t believe in hell. He didn’t believe that people think there’s a place of hell where you suffer after you die. That’s an interesting point there, that he thought that when the physical pain is removed, that’s a better state to be in without allowing for whether there’s a spiritual state. It’s been part of Jewish literature read on site in the synagogue.

Yes it is. It is on the Festival of Sukkot. So on the three festivals, (speaking Hebrew) festivals on Pesach, we read the Song of Songs because the song of songs is all about spring and about love. And the beginning, also attributed to Solomon. Then in the Shavuot, the Book of Ruth, because it’s the harvest and it’s come the I, coming to Judaism, kindness. And then in Sukkot at the end we read Kohelet. It’s rather like the autumn, things are getting ready for winter. We are more serious. And that’s when we read that one.

Renee, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you Carla. Robert, thank you for joyous wisdom. The meaning of life is to strive to live a purposeful life. Yes, I believe that sir, very much so. We can argue about what the purpose is, but we can argue even more about how do we get there. Does it have to be one way or another? Can there be many ways of getting there? And I subscribe to that, that there can be different religions trying and different systems, some not religions, trying to improve the world. Some do a better job than others. The trouble is all of them have failed to some degree or another. That’s why must keep on looking. Thank you, Liliana. Thank you Nanette.

Q: And what is Ecclesiastes in Hebrew? A: Kohelet. Kohelet, which literally means the community. The message for the community. Ecclesiastes, Ecclesiasticus is Tam, you’ll know from the church is the Ecclesias. The Ecclesia is the system of religious behaviour.

So there we are everybody. Thank you very much. See you again next time.