ייִדישער מחשבֿה אויף קהלת 2:15

In order to identify anything correctly, one needs definite answers to four basic questions. These are 1) What? 2) From what? 3) From whom? 4) Why? The answers to these four questions will reveal 1) the form, shape of the object of our inquiry; 2) the material it consists of; 3) who has created it; 4) what is its purpose, its function. Once we have been supplied with these answers, and proceeding from the simplest phenomenon, one can advance step by step to more sophisticated phenomena, identify them, understand their function and purpose, and eventually divine their ultimate Cause, i.e. the Creator of the universe. Since, however, we frequently fail to identify some phenomena correctly, and since the answers to all the four questions listed may not have been available, many people have resigned themselves to consider the universe as being the result of some cosmic accident, a mere coincidence. Aristotle already has disproved such a philosophy, employing three arguments. 1) Accidents are by definition exceptions, not norms. How can nature be an "accident" then? 2) Even when accidental happenings do occur, the result is rarely perfection, rather a pronounced lack of perfection. A similar idea is expressed in Solomon's song about the eyshet chayil the woman of valor (Proverbs 31). He asks, "Who can find such a woman?" The emphasis is on the word "find". Such a woman is not the product of some "accident", but the result of a process of very careful cultivation. 3) The fact that almost everything we observe serves a well understood purpose, is surely evidence that it is the result of the most careful planning. It is not accidental, but the work of a Creator, the result of a will. The predictability and order of most natural phenomena both on the ground and in space, prove that they are not products of accidents but of a monumental intellect. Any unexplained phenomenon merely points to the fact that the intellect of its Creator is far superior to that of His creature. There is no compelling reason that the creature must understand everything its Creator has done.

It is the object of this chapter to show that the words “speaking” and “saying” are synonymous terms denoting (a) “Speech”; as, e.g., “Moses shall speak (yedabber)” (Exod. 19:19); “And Pharaoh said (va-yomer)” (ib. 5:5); (b) “Thought” as formed in the mind without being expressed in words; e.g., “And I thought (ve-amarti) in my heart” (Eccles. 2:15); “And I thought (vedibbarti) in my heart” (ib.); “And thy heart will imagine (yedabber)” (Prov. 23:33); “Concerning Thee my heart thought (amar)” (Ps. 27:8); “And Esau thought (va-yomer) in his heart” (Gen. 27:41); examples of this kind are numerous; (c) Will; e.g., “And he said (va-yomer) to slay David” (2 Sam. 21:16), that is to say, he wished or he intended to slay him; “Dost thou desire (omer) to slay me” (Exod. 2:14); “And the whole congregation intended (va-yomeru) to stone them” (Num. 14:10). Instances of this kind are likewise numerous.