Pensamento Judaico sobre Eclesiastes 3:1

Since the effort expended on creating anything that is known not to endure is wasteful, (compare chapter 58) and since we cannot ascribe activities to G'd that are wasteful or vain, we are faced with the problem why G'd extended Himself to take the Jewish people out of Egypt, lead them to the holy land, had them build a Temple by Solomon and achieve unheard of glory, only to let it all collapse four hundred years later. Philosophers offer two explanations. One is that G'ds prescience, foreknowledge, was inadequate, and that G'd involved Himself in all these efforts because He had not foreseen the end. The second explanation is that G'd lacked the power to forestall certain events. Since either of these explanations assumes a lack of perfection on G'ds part, they are inadmissible. Some Jewish philosophers including Gersonides, wish to describe G'ds foreknowledge of events as limited to the type of events which are not subject to decisions made by humans. They claim that G'd knows human decisions before they have been made, only when the latter correspond to the laws of nature as formulated at the time of creation. In other words, those human decisions that are only apparently free, such as the food intake necessary for survival, sleep necessary in order to function normally, wearing of protective clothing against the rigours of the weather, are things G'd knows all about in advance. Decisions of man which are truly free however, G'd does not know about until such a decision is actually made. In this way Gersonides explains why Moses wanted to refuse the appointment to lead the Jewish people out of Egypt, since he felt that the ultimate success could not be known beforehand. He thought that this had been the reason G'd had had to bring the deluge or to destroy Sodom. Following this line of reasoning, we could understand why G'd is described as vayinachem, He reconsidered. This kind of philosophy however, is opposed to our traditional concept of G'ds perfection. Maimonides teaches that G'd has full knowledge of the Past and the Future, being fully aware of any combination of events that will or might occur. Any other view would conceive of G'ds perfection being flawed somehow. If a deluge became necessary at a certain moment in human history, this was not due to inadequate foreknowledge by G'd, nor to inadequate planning by Him, but was inherent in the character of man himself. G'd had constructed man in a way that makes attainment of his ideal state an extremely difficult task. It is only through the passage of time and the lessons learned from history that man will ultimately achieve the ideal state that is his purpose. The Zohar Parshat Lech Lecha, 125, states that the reason the tzaddik, righteous person is compared to the date palm (Psalms 92,13) is, that once it is cut down it may take seventy years for another palm tree to replace it. Similarly, the righteous are not easily replaced. Also, since both a male and a female palm tree are needed in order for that tree to produce fruit, a tzaddik unless matched with a tzaddeket, i.e. a suitable wife is not really a tzaddik at all. Abraham and Sarah are classic examples of such a well matched pair, of course. What this means concerning our problem is that only in the fullness of time will man and woman reach the goal the Creator has set for them. Setbacks in their progress toward that goal are not due to any shortcomings by their Creator. If we conceive of mankind as a pool of raw material from which the best is to be selected and nurtured, then we get an idea of early mankind. The generations until Noach were predominantly earthy in their orientation, and only a very few were capable of that refinement of mind and spirit that enabled them to become the strain through which all mankind would ascend towards its goal. G'd had been aware of course, at the very outset of that situation. The word vayinachem means to rue something one knew beforehand would happen if the premise on which one had based one's thinking changes. It does not imply a change of thinking on the part of the subject, rather it reflects a change of circumstances on the part of the object of one's thinking. Since it was man that had changed, G'ds decision to prune mankind radically in order to refine the best strain was not a change of heart on G'ds part. Again, from Noach to Abraham no one was found from whom this strain could be refined still further. When Isaiah 51,2, proclaims "look upon Abraham your progenitor, and upon Sarah who suffered your birthpangs," the prophet wants us to know that our origins do not go back any further than to that pair of human beings. Inasmuch as creation itself had served little purpose until the advent of Adam, the first human being, the early generations of man found their real justification of existence only in the fact that they somehow produced a Noach and an Abraham. Abraham is told by G'd "I will make you a great nation," not "I will appoint you, or I will place you etc." In order to become a Jewish nation further changes have to take place before they can qualify for that task. Even when the Jewish people are described as "hail you Israel, a nation saved by the Lord," they are still not yet in their final mould and will have to undergo further refinements with the help of forty eight prophets, sufferings and tragedies. In the fullness of time the ultimate fully refined product will emerge which will represent the objective towards which G'd had striven all along. Israel as a nation, and mankind as a species, are being subjected to a program G'd Himself has set up, although the freedom of the individual is not being impaired thereby in the slightest. Midrash Rabbah Ruth section five on Ruth chapter 4,12, "may the Lord repay your labour and may your wages be complete from the Lord your G'd under whose wings you have come to find protection," says in the name of Rabbi Bunim, that we know the earth has "wings", that the sun has "wings", that shachar, morning has "wings", that cherubs have "wings" and that seraphim, angels have "wings". See how great is the power of the righteous, since they do not rely on the "wings" of any of the above mentioned, but on the "shade" of the One who has said "let there be a universe," as is written in Psalms 36,8, "how precious is Your favour o Lord, human beings can find protection under Your wings." (The Midrash lists scriptural proof for the five "wings" described) Our sages have listed five domains to which men turn for help in securing their needs when they feel the Lord has turned away from them. The "wings" of the earth represent nature and our knowledge of natural law, described by our sages also as "Prince of the earth." When king Assa consulted doctors instead of praying to G'd, he committed a grievous error. (Chronicles II 16,12) Already previously, when engaged in fighting Basha, king Assa had relied on a gentile ally rather than ask G'd for help. This is why he was punished. The "wings" of the sun, refers to the knowledge of astrology. Those who rely on such knowledge to plan their lives, are equally contemptuous of G'd. Solomon who describes people as "under the sun," refers to the kind of people who put stock in their knowledge of astrology. The "wings" of the cherubs refers to those who feel they receive guidance from invisible spirits who control the orbits of the planets. The "wings" of the seraphim would refer to the disembodied power that controls all movement, in short to "time" as a determinant in the universe. The "wings" of the morning, (Psalms 139,9) would refer to the domain which our sages call "the prince of the day."

Before creation, the term "Time" was meaningless, since it can only assume meaning in relation to events prior and after creation. As long as there was only G'd, there had been no need to create "Time." Once the process of creation had begun, we find "evening" and "morning." These are pivotal points against which events can be measured, can be timed. The concepts of "before" and "after" came into existence once there had been a bereshit, a "beginning." The term zeman, season, refers to time as a general framework for events, the term eyt, "time" as a specific time frame for clearly defined happenings. The term "under the heavens," is applied to all that occurs in our cosmos, which is by definition a mobile one, in constant motion. The same does not hold true for the supernatural. In that abstract world, there is no motion, therefore neither progress nor regression. When the Mishnah in Avot 4,22, states that "one hour of repentance in our world is worth more than the whole of the future world," the meaning is twofold. A) Even a short time frame is extremely precious. B) When such time is spent constructively, it can double and triple its value, since it represents the entrance fee to a world of permanence. For this reason, Rabbi Meir advises people to minimise their earthly activities, and to maximise their Torah study, since "Time" was granted for the purpose of busying oneself with Torah study. "You shall be preoccupied with it by day and by night." (Joshua 1,8.) Should one ask how it is possible to attain worldly goods, seeing that they require much toil and time to amass, the answer is "be of humble spirit before all men." (Avot ibid.) Should one spurn Torah in favour of the acquisition of transient values, one's own end will be as finite as that of the commodities to acquire which one spent so much time and effort. The reverse is true if one concentrates on the acquisition of Torah values. To counteract any possible feeling of despair arising from the monumental nature of the task, Rabbi Tarfon adds: "it is not up to you to complete the task, yet you are not free to desist from it." Should someone not feel adequately rewarded for the effort, Rabbi Tarfon adds "your employer is faithful to pay you the reward for your work, but know that the reward of the righteous will come in the hereafter." This is based on the verse "which I command to you this day, to perform them." (Deut. 7,11) The Talmud Avodah Zarah 3, interprets the meaning as "to perform them today but not to receive the reward today." Since man is apt to lose sight of the swift passage of time, and the brevity of his stay on earth, the Torah commands us to count seven year cycles and fifty year cycles to remind us how quickly the time allotted to us passes, and to alert us to use such time wisely. "Man worries about the loss of his money, but fails to worry about the loss of his time. His money does not really help him, whereas his time is lost irretrievably." (Sefer Hachayim, 10,1) When the Torah legislates the counting of the cycles, (even of forty nine days ) it says "you shall count for yourself," meaning for your own benefit. The seven year cycles are symbolic of different stages of the average man's life cycle.

Since G'd in His wisdom saw fit to make man a mixture of matter and spirit, He had to make the earth and the Heavens to provide a home for the spirit. This is expressed in Isaiah 45,12, by the words "I have made earth and Heaven and created man on it." The meaning is that earth and Heaven were needed for the sake of man. We have to conceive of rakiyah, the horizon as the dividing curtain between the purely spiritual "upper" regions, and the "lower" physical part of the universe. That this is so can be confirmed by the motion that we observe in the part of the universe inhabited by our bodies. For this reason Solomon in Kohelet, keeps referring to the state of things as "under the sun." By this he wants us to understand that he speaks only about the physical part of the universe. Since spiritual beings are not subject to time, they are also not subject to motion, since motion is measured by time. Not only are spiritual beings not bound by time, but, on the contrary, time and its "carrier" are subservient to them. Celestial bodies, (sun and planets) are in a category in between. Inasmuch as their very function is motion, they are affected by it; they are, however, not dominated by time. Their motion commenced before a time frame had been established, but ever since such time frames exist, they exist side by side with time. On earth, things are different, as Solomon said: "everything has its time and season under the sun." (Kohelet 3,1) Man is subject to the dictates of time. Israel the nation, assured as it has been by G'd of arichut yamim, a timeless, i.e. infinite future on holy soil however, can demonstrate by its history that there are aspects to its existence which set it above and beyond the limits imposed upon man by time. All this, providing Israel acts as Israel should. When Kohelet refers to eyt lechol chefetz, "there is a time frame for every desire," the reference is to an intellectual achievement. The message is that since we are in a human shell, a body, the workings of the mind are somewhat impeded. If we did not have a body to contend with, our mind would comprehend immediately things which require time for us to be able to understand them now. The body acts as a brake for the intellect.