Musar do Koheleta 1:2

In the first chapter we shall speak about the quality of pride. How good it is that it occurs at the very beginning of all the chapters because of the obligation of man to separate himself from it! For pride is the doorway to many evils and we have seen nothing as evil as arrogance in all of the qualities. Therefore, a man must be wise and lead pride along paths that are worthy, and thrust it away from the place where it is not proper for it to be.

And King Solomon, peace be upon him, essentially composed the book of Ecclesiastes in order that man put to his heart that the world is a vanity of vanities and [that] he only use it for the service of the Creator, may He be elevated. And he made his intention known in his introduction and his conclusion: For he opened and said, (Ecclesiastes 1:2), "Vanity of vanities, said Kohelet, vanity of vanities - everything is vanity." And our Rabbis, may their memory be blessed, said (Kohelet Rabbah 3:13), "If another man had said this, we would have said, 'Maybe he has not gathered two small coins in his entire days; therefore the world is considered like vanity in his eyes.' However it is appropriate for King Solomon - about whom it is written (I Kings 1:27), 'The king made silver as plentiful in Jerusalem as stones' -to say that the world is vanity of vanities." And he concluded his book and said (Ecclesiastes 12:13), "The sum of the matter, when all is said and done; revere God and observe His commandments, for this is all of man."

In order to explain the nature of this התבודדות, isolation, let me first quote a passage from the Tikkunei Ha-Zohar concerning הבל which is rampant on earth: "It happened on a Sabbath eve that someone who could only walk on crutches encountered two scholars whom he addressed as "masters of the generations" [foremost scholars of their time] and "masters of wisdom." He greeted them cordially, inquiring where they were headed. When told the place the scholars were travelling to (on horseback), the man on crutches mentioned that he was headed for the same place and could arrange board and lodging there for the scholars in the event the latter were in need of same. Upon hearing this, the scholars asked how it was possible that they would not arrive ahead of the man on crutches seeing that they were on horseback whereas he did not even have his own legs. While saying this they turned their heads and observed that the cripple suddenly ran like a rod of lightning. He arranged for the two scholars to experience a contraction of the distance to be covered so that they too arrived simultaneously with the cripple at the entrance of a cave. The cripple asked the scholars to enter the cave. The Rabbis followed him and climbed inside the cave until they arrived at an orchard where they found the cripple divesting himself of his former body and assuming an entirely new body. The former cripple's face shone like the sun and he was seated on a Royal throne surrounded by three hundred disciples at his feet. The disciples were engaged in reciting the first verse of Kohelet: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." The disciples kept on repeating this verse innumerable times. The "leaders of the generation" turned to the disciples inquiring if there was no other verse in the Book of Kohelet that they kept repeating the same verse all the time. Upon hearing this, the man on the throne [who had first appeared to the scholars as a cripple] immediately arose and took hold of the hands of the two scholars and transported them to seven palaces. Each of these palaces was inscribed with the first verse of Kohelet, i.e.: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." When they came to the seventh palace the entrance was decorated with the likeness of an eagle and a crown. On the crown there was the image of a dove. On the crown was inscribed the following: "Anyone who is not conversant with the meaning of the seven vanities in the first verse of Kohelet is the subject of the verse in Numbers 1,51: והזר הקרב יומת, 'And any stranger (non priest) who enters will be executed.'" Thereupon the two scholars turned to leave.

This is the mystical dimension of the first words of Kohelet where Solomon cries out: הבל הבלים הכל הבל, that in this world everything is no better than הבל! He bemoans the fact that in this world Divine guidance must be based on the attribute of חסד! a testimony to man's inadequacy. Solomon clearly implies that the way G–d deals with the present world is הבל, totally inferior to the way G–d will be dealing with the world of the future when He will be able to employ the yardstick of גבורה. This is what our sages meant when they said in in Midrash Kohelet 11,12 "the Torah (insights) which man studies in this world is הבל when compared to the Torah of the Messiah." What our sages had in mind is that the Torah which we learn in this world is based on the intelligence of the emanation associated with הבל, whereas the Torah of the Messiah will be based on the wisdom garnered from the emanation of גבורה, i.e. the domain from which Cain originated. Our own eyes behold regularly that a person whose origin is in the domain of גבורה is apt to be strong and valorous whereas people whose origin is in the domain of חסד are apt to be sensitive and weak. The relationship between חסד and גבורה is not unlike the relationship between silver and gold. Even among the קליפות, the spiritually negative forces, we find that the force גבורה equals אריה=216, whereas the force חסד is equivalent to חמור (donkey, symbolic of all that is earthly). This is the mystical dimension of Genesis 22,3: ויחבוש את חמרו, where Abraham is described as saddling his donkey on the way to the binding of Isaac. The word חמרו is spelled defective (without the letter ו) to indicate that by the act of saddling the donkey, symbol of everything material, Abraham assumed dominance over it. The numerical value of the letters in the name of אברהם is the same as the numerical value in the letters of the word חמר, =248. Abraham had to establish his authority over this קליפה so that it should not hinder him in executing G–d's command to offer Isaac as a sacrifice. He arose early in the morning (Genesis 22,3) in order to "awaken" i.e. to anticipate the emanation חסד and to subdue the קליפה aspect associated with it. Rabbi Akiva represented the type of personality based on גבורה, the domain Cain came from after the emanation גבורה i.e. had already been "sweetened." This is why Moses had suggested to G–d that, since He already knew there was going to be a man of such caliber, it would be appropriate to give the Torah to the Jewish people by means of a man such as Rabbi Akiva. Thus far the Arizal. Since Cain represented darkness it is no more than appropriate that light when it comes should originate in darkness.

ומותר האדם מן הבהמה – When the author of our prayer refers to the advantage man enjoys over the beasts as אין, the equivalent of Hiyuli in the Celestial Regions, he is telling us that in those Regions there is no-one who can help us (except G–d, as indicated by Isaiah 63,16). Hence all the salvations that we experience in this world are ultimately futile. This is what Solomon, in Kohelet 1,2, referred to when he exclaimed: הבל הבלים, הכל הבל, "vanity of vanities, all is vanity." A different approach to this line in the prayer understands it as a reference to Adam's two sons Cain and Abel. Cain has long ago ceased to exist and only Abel, or his גלגול, is still around, only because G–d accepted Abel's sacrifice. We have stated that Moses (after שת) was the re-incarnation of Abel. Since no one ever arose who could compare to Moses, the author of our prayer refers to this as the מותר האדם, the surviving remnant of original אדם.

Midrash Kohelet, quoting Rabbi Yehudah bar Simon, is of the opinion that the seven days of impurity a woman experiences in connection with menstruation correspond to the seven times Solomon referred to הבלים, futilities, in Kohelet 1,2. [When the word הבל appears in the singular it refers to a single "futility," whereas when it appears in the plural it refers to two "futilities." Ed.] This means that in view of the sin committed by Adam and Eve everything which was created during the seven days of Creation is futile. Creation experienced another damaging blow when Cain murdered his brother הבל. Man indulged in the pursuit of futile objectives, וילכו אחרי ההבל ויהבלו, "They went after delusion and were deluded" (Jeremiah 2,5).