Quotation על קהלת 1:14

Befriending the wind" is ra'ut ruakh. Ra'ut can mean either "friend of" or "badness of". Ruakh can mean wind, spirit or even inspiration. The language of the Book of Kohelet frequently plays with these kind of ambiguities. "Befriending the wind" could also be translated "bad spirit". Ethan Dor Shav suggests another interpretation and etymology for “ra’ut”: The root “ra” as in “re’ut ruach” may suggest meandering rather than either “bad” or “friend”. Compare, for example, Mishle 29:3 Ro’ah zonot, which could be translated as “one who is a companion of harlots”, or “one who wanders with harlots”. The association of wandering with a shepherd connects with Hevel as the name of the original animal herder (Cain and Abel/Hevel); see sources in Ethan Dor-Shav (Azure • AUTUMN 5765 / 2004): “. . . . the core meaning of this precise root verb [is], “to meander”; feeding, grazing, and herding are secondary transpositions. Critically, the Hebrew root ra’ah does not imply gathering, chasing, or herding-in; rather, it connotes the typical (outward-bound) movement of grazing over pasturelands. This is why the verb can easily apply to the roaming of a single animal, with no flock or shepherd about. Cf. Genesis 41:1-2; Song of Songs 4:5 and 6:2. Similarly, it applies where no feeding is involved; cf. Numbers 14:33. Hence, even if we knew no more than this, re’ut is to be understood as a fleeting movement of wind, or air, such as a gust or a breeze. This is cognate to tir’eh-ruah in Jeremiah 22:22 (“a puff of wind,” or “scattered by the wind”). Thus, a close approximation of the phrase hevel u’re’ut ruach, would be “vapor and a stirring of air,” or “vapor and a puff of wind.” In this light, the entire idiom stresses transient phenomena, of no material value. However, the etymology of re’ut itself may give us a clue to uncovering its original connotation; for its Semitic root had an additional meaning, one with a close affinity to the word “vapor.” While the Hebrew language lost this variant, it survives to this day in Arabic: The Arabic root of r-gh-w, as in the noun ragha—froth or foam—and the verb ragha—to froth. Like vapor, it is a potent metaphor of fleeting, passing phenomena. Froth and foam, of course, are made of air, which in the biblical Hebrew is always ruah, bringing us back again to Ecclesiastes’ idiom, “hevel ure’ut ruah,” which we may now render: Vapor and froth (cf. Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece: “What win I if I gain the thing I seek? A dream, a breath, a froth of fleeting joy”). “