L’Ecclésiaste 1:13 Commentaire : Tze'enah Ure'enah, Rashi & Kohelet Rabbah

“I gave my heart” [1:13]. Solomon said: I have given my heart to the study of Torah and to search for wisdom and I have found and understood that the Holy One gave humanity one thing with which to conduct themselves. That is to say, the Holy One placed worldly commerce before the people. He can come to eternal life and can also come to much punishment from God when he does not engage in commerce properly and leaves the Torah.¹²Rashi, Ecclesiastes, 1:13.

The Targum writes that Solomon said: In Gibeon, God let ask for what I desired from Him. I desired from Him that He should give me great wisdom to know all the things that I have seen, all the deeds of God with which He torments people when they do not behave properly.¹³Targum, Ecclesiastes, 1:13.

And I applied my heart to search. In the Torah, which is wisdom, and to ponder over it concerning all the evil deeds mentioned above, which are committed under the sun, and I pondered over it that it is a sore task that the Holy One, Blessed Is He, set before mankind. “The life and the good, and the death and the evil.”⁴¹Devarim 30:15.

An evil thing. They have evil behavior.

To be afflicted with. To behave with it. “עִנְיָן” may be interpreted as an expression of an abode [=מָעוֹן and a dwelling, and it may also be interpreted as an expression of study [=עִיּוּן and thought, and the same applies [for the interpretation of] ‘לַעֲנוֹת בּוֹ.’⁴²Alternatively ‘לענות בו’ means “to be afflicted with.” (Metsudas Tzion)

God has given. Has placed before them.⁴³And they have been given the freedom to choose [=בחירה].