Kohelit part 1
Doing a deep study of Ecclesiastes (Kohelit) including reading sages has changed the way I think about everything!
Translations create problems because when we translate, the western mind suddenly tries to exclude all other meanings. In Kohelit there are two words to redefine or create additional meanings. It doesn’t have to be one meaning. The first word is Hevel (Able) heh, vet, lamed. What is it? Vanity is the way the KJV translates it and this is so limited and also misguides the reader. According to the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Hevel is a derivation from Able, the first one murdered in Berishet 4 and it means vapor or the word wisp or whisper or steam. Some have said “nothingness” but that’s not enough either because vapor is certainly not nothingness. JPS translates it as “futility” and again maybe there’s an element of truth in “futility”; but vapor is not simply futile.
Bruce Heitler defines “Hevel” as such:
The concept of hevel is central to the theme of the Book of Kohelet. Hevel is the vapor of breath on a cold day that quickly disappears. The author points to the essential quality of perception that it is not firmly attached to the underlying reality. As meaning floats above the shape of the letters on a page, so our perception points to but never exactly grasps reality. A change in our perspective can alter the meaning of a word or an event. Yet it is impossible to grasp reality more firmly than through perception and the meaning of things. This is not a condition which can be improved upon. It is the very nature of our situation -- we apprehend reality through our perceptions, and they are ephemeral like a mist that disappears. The notion of “hevel” is related to the observation that uncertainty is the most obdurate characteristic of human existence. This has been a theme of many of the defining works of science, mathematics and philosophy of the twentieth century. Compare: Russel’s Paradox; Einstein’s principles of Special and General Relativity; Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle; Bohr’s Argument for Complementarity; Godel’s incompleteness theorum; Mandelbrot’s Fractal Geometry, Von Neumann’s Game Theory, Frege’s Philosophy of Arithmetic; Claude Shannon’s Theory of Information and Entropy, Maurice Merleau Ponty’s Primacy of Perception; J.L. Austin’s Sense and Sensibility, the Boyd or OODA Cycle in strategic studies, and the notion of agile development in both computer coding and entrepreneurial businesses.
So my view of Hevel is that it is a mysterious concept that Kohelit used to express a variety of thoughts and ideas about existence. It is not simply one definition or translation. Is Abel vapor? Or is there an element of Abel’s life and death that remains even though he’s gone?
Is it true that “all is vanity” or “all is nothingness” or is it better to say that Kohelit means that all is vapor or all becomes vapor?
And then Kohelit adds the second part
Verse 1:14
After his dissertation on how all things turn into Hevel.
Veh - and
Reh—-oot = ?
Ruoch - we’ve seen this word in Bereshit 2: Ruoch Elohim “spirit” “holy spirit” “wind” “breath”.
As Rabbi Lord Sacks says further both Hevel and Ruoch are versions of some sort of breath or wind or invisible force … Along with nephesh and Nashama.
What about “Reh-oot” …
Longing, striving, vexing? Kohelit is the only place this form of the word appears in Tanakh.
Its verb form is first used- funny enough- Bereshit 4:2 Havel Roah the sheep
Able kept the sheep and Cain worked the ground. “Re-hoot Ruoch” is “Tending to the wind?”
The Remez here is obvious. Kohelit wants us to consider the story of Cain and Abel while we are reading.
Havel havelem veh reh-oot Ruoch
What does this mean?
I have suggested many meanings and they all are valuable
Worthlessness ?
Vapor?
Fleeting value?
a tending to the wind as a shepherd ?
An attempt to control the Holy Spirit?
What value is life if everything is Hevel veh Reh—oot Ruoch?
We shall discover as I continue my extrapolations of this Book
What is so fascinating is that Yeshua often quotes Kohelit as his words are recorded in the “Gospels”!
For example John 3:8. He gives obvious Remez to Kohelit “Ruoch blows wherever it wants and no one knows where it’s going or where it came from”
To be continued
Baruch HaShem
Gil