Ecclesiastes - Episode 2 - Hevel, Sukkot, Justice and Joy!

How To Love Lit Podcast

Hi, I’m Christy Shriver and we’re here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.

And I’m Garry Shriver. This is the How to Love Lit Podcast. This is the second episode of our two-part series on Qoheleth, otherwise known as Ecclesiastes, a Sacred Text from both the Christian and Jewish traditions. Last week we explored the challenges of reading a text so old, the challenges of understanding a translated text from any language language as well as the rhetorical situation of this particular book. We situated the book by claiming it was either written by King Solomon of the Old Testament or at least in the tradition of King Solomon- a man who is revered as a prophet-king in the traditions of all three monotheistic traditions. We also claimed that it is a book of philosophy. It is not historical book or a narrative like many other books in the Old Testament nor is it primarily a book of poetry, although we will read a poem from it today. It discusses difficult things- contradictions innate in the human experience, dualities. These dualities as they read in the text make the work appear as if it contradicts itself, and in some sense it does. But, that is the paradoxical wisdom of it, humanity is the contradiction. One example of this is when Qoheleth claims All the labor of man is for his mouth, and yet the soul is not satisfied, but then in another chapter claims there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own work. These two passages on the surface do contradict each other, and yet, this seeming contradiction makes sense as we follow Qoheleth’s full line of reasoning through the text. Today,we are going to try to find at least one big common theme that brings this and other dualities into a manageable focus.

Exactly-- contradictions and dualities- life doesn’t make logical sense- why not- this is at the heart of understanding Ecclesiastes and the first of these dualities is the problem the writer references 38 times, the problem of hevel. A phrase Qoheleth introduces in verse 2- Hevel havalim, saith Kohelet, hevel havalim- all is hevel. Or as the King James states it, “Vanity of Vanities, saith the preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. The whole of life is vaporous. It is in a constant state of flux, it dissipates, it is a dynamic unsubstantiality. Everything is unstable; everything is fluctuating- existence itself is incessant change…and yet our heart yearns for the opposite- for the eternal. Qoheleth claims that Eternity is written in our hearts by God…and no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end…and this too is hevel because hevel also means absurd- the logic does not follow cause and effect as we understand it. The ways of God are hevel.

You know, Christy, we stated last week, that unlike other Sacred Texts, according to Jewish tradition, Qoheleth’s audience was not solely a Jewish one- that Qoheleth was a speaker to an assembly- a message about life under the sun for all peoples. And as such, he confines his wisdom to earthly wisdom, wisdom to be applied to life on earth. This is not a book that looks to the afterlife. Tradition suggests this advice is for a broad audience, many of whom likely were not monotheistic. Perhaps even atheistic.

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