interesting that of all the holidays, it is on Sukkot, characterized as “zeman simchateinu, the time of our rejoicing,” that we read Ecclesiastes, the scroll of Kohelet. Sukkot is the pinnacle of a season imbued with the motif of cherishing life, with the meaning of life. Comes along Kohelet and at its very outset the author, King Solomon, asserts, “vanity of vanities, hevel havalim”: life is meaningless and ephemeral. While Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur imbue the reality of life with meaning and focus on how our fleeting life is lived, Kohelet, again right at the beginning, says: “ein yitron, there is no point to it all.” The irony of course, is that if there really is no point, if life is just a passing, […]
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