"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success." - Henry Ford.
I think that no other quote embodies Kohelet as well as this one does. When we started to learn Kohelet, we are introduced to Shlomo HaMelech in our studies of Melachim for background information. Once we delved into Kohelet itself, which is believed to be written by Shlomo, we were introduced to 4 subcounscious characters that Shlomo, himself, personisfied.
As the book goes on, we learn about each character, and what they find "hevel" in the world. We could understand this as worthless, or ephemeral. Throughout the book, each character came to their final realization, in which 3 out of the 4 of them got "were voted off the island." The fourth character gave his final speech in the last couple perakim and finally taught us what the meaning of life is. He said that the meaning of life is have a faith, and belief in a higher power.
While reading the book, I kept telling myself that all the characters would somehow come to an agreement by the end and find the meaning of life. While only one character told us the true meaning of life, I believe that there was a little bit of every character in that fourth character. The four of them represented four very important parts of life. The neheneh represented our weak spots that all of us have. We can all easily fall into a depression and just "eat, drink, and be merry," like the neheneh. Next, we had the Amal who works towards perfections. I think at times in our lives we all work towards perfection and when we can't reach it we get frustrated. The third was the chacham, who embodied wisdom, but haughty wisdom. I think that all of us have pretentious side to us in which we think that we are smarter than everyone else, and because of that we can rule the world. But, once we reach the fourth character, the Yirei Elokim, we all have that faith in G-d that we must include in our lives. No matter if you embody the neheneh, the amal, or the chacham, we ALL embody the Yirei Elokim.
Through this we can see that coming together is a beginning because it gets everyone thinking, staying together is quite hard and is progress. We saw this through the characters giving up, but lastly, they all worked together in the end to achieve success and find the meaning in life.
I completely agree with you, Sophie, I think each of us has a little of the Neheneh, the Amal, the Chacham, and the Yirei Elokim inside of us. Sometimes it's hard to keep all together in harmony and we can be overcome by our need to be perfect or our need to know everything, but just like in Kohelet, when we can find that balance, we can find meaning and purpose in life.
ReplyDeleteI agree with both you and Shani. I find a little bit of each of the characters in myself. I also found myself categorizing other peoples' words into each of what the characters would say. Also, I would find other people from other Megillot classes telling me that the things I say are something that one of the characters in the Sefer would say.
ReplyDeleteI found your post really insightful and very interesting. I think that quote really defines Kohelet as well. Personally, I think it makes sense for just about every person (like Racheli, Shani, and you said). For me, I think a person starts out life thinking they have it all, all the different parts of them 'coming together.' Then through time keeping those parts together is hard, different pieces of yourself start to fall away and then you have to make progress to keep them together. But in order to successfully and meaningfully go through life, all of our different pieces have to work together.
ReplyDeleteGreat quote! I see what you mean when you say that there's "a bit of every character" in the fourth one.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with your statement about us all embodying the Yirei Elokim, though. I think that it's easy to embody the neheneh, amal, and (to a certain extent) the chacham, but it is the hardest to be like the Yirei Elokim. In the ideal we are all like him, but life is different in the reality. I don't know, what's just my observation. :-\
A sad one at that.