Remarks at Temple Emanu El of Westfield — Sukkot Day 1
In the Amidah this morning we recognized that today is a zman simchateinu, a time of our rejoicing, but some call Sukkot The Festival of Insecurity.
On one hand we’re told to be joyful and festive. And on the other, we’re to dwell in temporary and insecure huts, as a reminder that God made the Israelites dwell in booths after leaving Egypt.
But there’s little in the way of insecurity in our current observances of Sukkot. Some actually do spend the entire holiday eating and sleeping in their sukkot, whatever the weather and regardless of inconvenience or discomfort. But most of us don’t. We focus on the joyous aspect of the holiday.
But the issue of insecurity, or maybe better of impermanence, is clearly expressed in the special reading for today, the Book of Ecclesiastes, or Kohelet.
Now Kohelet was written by King Solomon. And he also wrote the Book of Proverbs and The Song of Songs. In fact, though, while he is identified by name in Proverbs and in Shir HaShirim, he is not identified by name in Kohelet. In Kohelet he is just Kohelet.
We know that it’s Solomon, though, because the text identifies him as the son of David, king in Jerusalem. So, if he would put his name on the other books, why not on this one?
I think its because he was secure in both his position and his message in those other books, but that in Kohelet he is expressing a different aspect of himself. One that is not sure, not secure and not particularly kingly.
The word Kohelet is often not translated, but when it is translated it is most often given as Teacher or Preacher.
The word Kohelet is from the same root that gives us kahal, to assemble, or kehillah, congregation or assembly. This is Solomon as one of the congregation, Solomon as everyman, as ben adam, as a human being rather than as a king. And as everyman, he can be free to say what he really feels.
And what does that sound like? Well it sounds like the speech of a person suffering from existential angst, someone who has maybe been off his meds for a while.
The translators of the King James Bible created from the words of Kohelet some wonderful song lyrics. But they did us no favors in their treatment of the famous opening verses. You all know them…
“Vanity of vanity, saith the Preacher; vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”
Language changes over time and vanity has taken on a much more superficial and narcissistic tone to the modern ear than it might have had 400 years ago, and so that message doesn’t convey to us what those translators might have actually intended.
A more modern translation from the Jewish Publication Society uses the word futility, rather than vanity, and the phrase ‘utter futility’ rather than ‘vanity of vanities’.
Both of those meanings are legitimate according to the most widely used dictionary of biblical Hebrew. But neither is the primary definition given.
The Hebrew word used in the opening statement of Kohelet is Havel.
Havel, havelim amar Kohelet.
The first definition of Havel is breath or vapor. Not vanity, not futility, ….breath.
Havel havelim. Breath of breaths, maybe.
But the idea of vapor gives us a real sense of faintness, and the dictionary entry also uses words like evanescent and unsubstantial. So havel havelim might be something more like the shallowest of breaths, the faintest or most essential breath. I think this is the kind of respiration that just barely separates life from death.
If we understand the opening of Kohelet in that way then I think we can better understand the connection of the book to notion of fundamental insecurity.
At Sukkot the last harvest of the agricultural year is in, the heaviness and seriousness of the Days of Awe are over. There is freedom to leave home and journey to Jerusalem for the festival that is known as HaHag, The Festival. In Israel the early fall rains are coming to refill the cisterns and the aquifers. Life is good. It’s a wonderful time to be in Israel if you’ve never had the chance.
And, life was good, or it appeared to be, for Kohelet in his role as Solomon. He had completed the Temple, which was dedicated on Sukkot. He had thousands of horses, he had thousands of wives, he had great treasure and magnificent wealth. All of which, by the way, a king of Israel was not supposed to possess.
But with all that, Solomon the human being, Solomon as Kohelet, knew that none of those things provided security.
He wrote: “Another grave evil is this: Man must depart just as he came. As he came out of his mother’s womb, so must he depart at last, naked as he came.”
All that Solomon had, he knew, hung on the most ephemeral, the shallowest of breaths. Solomon, during the day, was the mightiest of kings.
But he wrote: “No man has authority over the lifebreath – to hold back the lifebreath; there is no authority over the day of death.”
So in the dark of night, when he was alone, Solomon was not ben David, he was ben adam, and he was afraid to die.
But even as Kohelet, Solomon could experience joy. He did recognize that human life, no matter how tenuous, can provide moments of gladness, of joy and of purpose.
He writes: “How sweet is the light, what a delight for the eyes to behold the sun. Even if a man lives many years, let him enjoy himself in all of them…”
But this is the joy of simple experience. The joy of the warm sun and gentle breeze. The sounds of children. The touch of a loved one. It does not come from possessions or power.
And then, towards the end of his long and conflicted meditation on impermanence, he comes full circle with a reprise of his opening.
“The dust returns to the ground as it was and the lifebreath returns to God. Havel havelim amar Kohelet. Ha col havel.”
All is supported by but the shallowest of breaths.
But he shakes himself out of that and he makes the statement that we’re told is the reason why this book is a part of the bible.
Sof davar, he says. The end of the thing or the last word or, as JPS puts it, “the sum of the matter, when all is said and done, Revere God and observe God’s commandments. For this applies to all mankind.’
Et HaElohim Yirah. He writes. Revere God. The word used is more often translated as fear. The end of the matter he says is: Revere God.
In traditional prayerbooks, before we even recite the blessing for putting on the tallit in the morning, we say:
Reshit chochma yirat Adonai. The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God, or the reverence for God.
We begin our day reminding ourselves of the thing that the wisest king in all Israel came to understand only at the end. And that is that because God is permanent nothing else needs to be.
As Douglas Harding writes, “The issue is not what God is, the issue is that God is”. And that is the beginning of wisdom. And in that Kohelet found a solution that made the essential insecurity of man tolerable.
So may we all.
Hag Sameach