On Friday, we had a discussion in class about what "Hakol Hevel" could possibly mean. The three proposed translations were that "Hevel" means either ephemeral, worthless, or incomprehensible. We tried to predict what Shlomo might have said about wisdom, wealth, power, and fear of G-d according to each of these three translations. Mrs. Perl's facial expressions during our discussion clearly told us that we were all completely wrong. The reason we were so wrong was that we went into this analysis with our preconceived notion that any Torah book needs to have a good Torah message about coming closer to G-d and not sinning. This is the ideal. Sadly, reality is not ideal.
When Mrs. Perl told us to throw out all preconceived notions about what this book will be like, I immediately stated thinking about how people deal with loss. I mentioned in class that, although Shlomo's punishment would be administered to his children, he probably did feel betrayed by G-d and saddened by the future loss of his kingdom. As anyone who has ever lost anything knows, one of the first impulses is to either try to prove that you did nothing wrong or to shift the blame onto someone else. Shlomo may have written that trying to forge a relationship with G-d is ephemeral, worthless, and incomprehensible because G-d will betray and punish you in the end. Mrs. Perl told us that Kohelet is often extremely contradictory. Maybe the reason for this is that Shlomo was telling over his life experiences through the lens of the particular stage of grief that he was in at the time.
For me, nothing is sadder than seeing people with potential fall and never recover. Shlomo had the potential to be the greatest king ever. As a child, he asked G-d for a bit too much; he asked for the wisdom to correctly discern between right and wrong and the ability to be able to judge accordingly. G-d tested him by granting him this and more. By the end of his lifetime, Shlomo had completely failed the test. Even at that stage in life, he could have changed himself. When G-d told him that he sinned so badly that the kingdom would be torn away from his children, he must have been devastated and confused. From this vantage point, I can totally understand how Shlomo could have been mad at G-d. Having never studied Kohelet before, I can only hope that Shlomo eventually comes to the realization that trying to forge a strong relationship with G-d is not "Hevel" and wisdom, wealth, and power are all good in moderation. The proof that fear of G-d is not "Hevel" is the survival of the Jewish people for thousands of years, overcoming persecution and holocaust to become the nation we are today. We could not have survived if we thought that trying to be close to G-d is "Hevel."
I agree with Sarah. The fear of G-d being one of the only things that can never be hevel is what has helped the Jewish faith and people preserver throughout all these years. I, like Sarah, also see some excuses Shlomo could have had for being angry with G-d. At 12 years old, G-d basically sealed Shlomo's fate. And that fate was to fail and have his kingdom taken away from him. G-d gave Shlomo an impossible task, to remain righteous and on G-d's derech whle receiving a "gift" from G-d that is not meant for any human to have. As I asked in my blog post, how could G-d set Shlomo up so early in life for failure?
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