What do you think?
Rate this book
Ecclesiastes and the Search for Meaning
Ecclesiastes (in Hebrew, Kohelet) has long been viewed as the great existential work of the Hebrew Bible, containing the famous cry "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." As part of a search for enduring meaning, it questions the nature of work, mortality, happiness, justice, goodness, and life itself. Kohelet is awash in contradictions, careful observations, disappointments, and insights, making it one of the richest and most complex books in all of Tanakh. This fresh and hopeful look at an ancient book synthesizes rabbinic commentary with modern scholarship, fine art, and poetry. It highlights expressions from Kohelet that have become common parlance while shedding light on its more obscure verses. Ecclesiastes and the Search for Meaning offers a comprehensive introduction to the book and includes three essays on each chapter, concluding with an epilogue on Kohelet’s liturgical use on the holiday of Sukkot - for Kohelet combines the frustrations and vulnerabilities of life "under the sun" with the temporal joys that make life worthwhile. All are regarded as a "gift from God."
- GenresJudaism
509 pages, Hardcover
Published May 1, 2023
3 people are currently reading
13 people want to read
About the author
Erica Brown
67 books23 followersLibrarian Note: There are more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 28, 2025
Brown hat in den ersten Kapiteln richtig stark angefangen. Ich habe sehr von ihrem Ausführungen profitiert. Ihre Auslegungen waren zu Beginn eine schöne Mischung aus heutiger Lebenswelt, rabbinischen Auslegungen der Gegenwart und Vergangenheit und praktischen Schlussfolgerungen. Im Lauf der Zeit hat die Qualität der Auslegungen nachgelassen. Am Ende war es häufig nur noch Textauslegung und Dialog mit rabbinischen Exegesen von früher.
August 24, 2023
Every year, the book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) is read on Sukkos. There are many reasons why it is read then. A theme of Sukkos is that everything is ultimately temporary, and nothing evokes that like our moving into a temporary dwelling.
Another reason is that Sukkos, occurring at the end of the harvest season, is a moment where a person may take somewhat of an irrational exuberance to their accomplishments. The crops stored for the following year may give the farmer an over-accomplished sense of permanence. To which the reading of Kohelet quickly brings them back to earth.
The running theme in Kohelet is that life is emptiness. In fact, it opens with the rather morose verse, "Everything is meaningless, says Kohelet, Completely meaningless." Even after a successful harvest, the grain will soon disappear, and the work must start again. All of the person's accomplishments are things of the past.
The fact that Kohelet is part of the Jewish canon was not a sure thing. The challenge of reading Kohelet is that it is fraught with misunderstanding. If life is really that of meaninglessness, why even bother? Perhaps take the words of 8:15 that "for the only good a man can have under the sun is to eat and drink and enjoy himself" and spend an endless vacation.
Yet life, contrary to a cursory reading of Kohelet, does have purpose and meaning. But deciphering Kohelet takes work. For those looking to understand and plum its depth, in Ecclesiastes and the Search for Meaning (Maggid Books), Dr. Eric Brown (Director of the Sacks-Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership at Yeshiva University) has written a masterful work of brilliant scholarship.
Kohelet starts with meaningless and progresses along that path for 12 chapters. Reading Kohelet is a roller coaster ride of emotions, contradictions, questions of justice, and more. Brown does a fantastic job of bringing out the depths of the text and the challenges it brings. This is an intense read of incredible depth. Brown does such a good job that, at times, reading of the misery and desolation of Kohelet, their soul is shaken to the core.
Her book is like a fine bourbon, best taken in sips rather than large gulps. Reading chapter after chapter of injustice and empty vanities can leave the reader in somewhat of a morose state. It's only in the last chapter that things turn bright.
Brown is a faithful student of the late great Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. There is a seeming tension between the existential and nihilistic Kohelet and the Kohelet who find meaning in life. Rabbi Sacks astutely notes that Kohelet does not find life meaningless, futile, or mere vanity. He feels that's an error in translation. Kohles finds and sees that life is short.
And in man's short life, the prospect of death threatens to rob him of all happiness until Kohelet realizes that mortality is the very condition of our happiness. Because life is short, every moment is precious. And the nature of human life, for Kohelet, is the reason for both the crushing pain and soaring joy.
The challenge with Kohelet is that he deals with numerous existential ideas and the complexities of human life. Kohelet asks plenty of complex questions, and the challenge is that in recent times, these questions have been answered with the various forms of "shut your mouth" or "only a heretic would ask something like that."
Brown quotes Michael V. Fox of the Department of Hebrew and Semitic Studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who notes that the final chapter of Kohelet grants permission for intellectual exploration as long as it does not undermine a life of faith. And Kohelet allows the reader to probe the ways of God and man, wherever this may lead, so long as we make the fear of God and obedience to the Commandments the final standard of behavior.
Finally, it's easy to conclude that Kohelet was an unhappy person. Brown shows that's far from the truth. He is not dissatisfied with his life or his wealth. He enjoyed his wealth but understood its limitations.
Brown has done an utterly incredible job of bringing the many dimensions and complexities of Kohelet to light. Her sources run the gamut from the traditional commentaries of the Rishonim to modern poets such as Yakov Azriel and the paintings of Thomas Cole and others. It's a brilliant mosaic of insights that shows that while everything may seem meaningless, there's much beauty in the world.
Brown concludes that she tried to write an optimistically oriented commentary to a book often assumed to be pessimistic and even, at times, nihilistic. Kohelet lays bare some of life's hardest confrontations with our insignificance and ephemerality. And to that, she's written a most remarkable work.
Another reason is that Sukkos, occurring at the end of the harvest season, is a moment where a person may take somewhat of an irrational exuberance to their accomplishments. The crops stored for the following year may give the farmer an over-accomplished sense of permanence. To which the reading of Kohelet quickly brings them back to earth.
The running theme in Kohelet is that life is emptiness. In fact, it opens with the rather morose verse, "Everything is meaningless, says Kohelet, Completely meaningless." Even after a successful harvest, the grain will soon disappear, and the work must start again. All of the person's accomplishments are things of the past.
The fact that Kohelet is part of the Jewish canon was not a sure thing. The challenge of reading Kohelet is that it is fraught with misunderstanding. If life is really that of meaninglessness, why even bother? Perhaps take the words of 8:15 that "for the only good a man can have under the sun is to eat and drink and enjoy himself" and spend an endless vacation.
Yet life, contrary to a cursory reading of Kohelet, does have purpose and meaning. But deciphering Kohelet takes work. For those looking to understand and plum its depth, in Ecclesiastes and the Search for Meaning (Maggid Books), Dr. Eric Brown (Director of the Sacks-Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership at Yeshiva University) has written a masterful work of brilliant scholarship.
Kohelet starts with meaningless and progresses along that path for 12 chapters. Reading Kohelet is a roller coaster ride of emotions, contradictions, questions of justice, and more. Brown does a fantastic job of bringing out the depths of the text and the challenges it brings. This is an intense read of incredible depth. Brown does such a good job that, at times, reading of the misery and desolation of Kohelet, their soul is shaken to the core.
Her book is like a fine bourbon, best taken in sips rather than large gulps. Reading chapter after chapter of injustice and empty vanities can leave the reader in somewhat of a morose state. It's only in the last chapter that things turn bright.
Brown is a faithful student of the late great Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. There is a seeming tension between the existential and nihilistic Kohelet and the Kohelet who find meaning in life. Rabbi Sacks astutely notes that Kohelet does not find life meaningless, futile, or mere vanity. He feels that's an error in translation. Kohles finds and sees that life is short.
And in man's short life, the prospect of death threatens to rob him of all happiness until Kohelet realizes that mortality is the very condition of our happiness. Because life is short, every moment is precious. And the nature of human life, for Kohelet, is the reason for both the crushing pain and soaring joy.
The challenge with Kohelet is that he deals with numerous existential ideas and the complexities of human life. Kohelet asks plenty of complex questions, and the challenge is that in recent times, these questions have been answered with the various forms of "shut your mouth" or "only a heretic would ask something like that."
Brown quotes Michael V. Fox of the Department of Hebrew and Semitic Studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who notes that the final chapter of Kohelet grants permission for intellectual exploration as long as it does not undermine a life of faith. And Kohelet allows the reader to probe the ways of God and man, wherever this may lead, so long as we make the fear of God and obedience to the Commandments the final standard of behavior.
Finally, it's easy to conclude that Kohelet was an unhappy person. Brown shows that's far from the truth. He is not dissatisfied with his life or his wealth. He enjoyed his wealth but understood its limitations.
Brown has done an utterly incredible job of bringing the many dimensions and complexities of Kohelet to light. Her sources run the gamut from the traditional commentaries of the Rishonim to modern poets such as Yakov Azriel and the paintings of Thomas Cole and others. It's a brilliant mosaic of insights that shows that while everything may seem meaningless, there's much beauty in the world.
Brown concludes that she tried to write an optimistically oriented commentary to a book often assumed to be pessimistic and even, at times, nihilistic. Kohelet lays bare some of life's hardest confrontations with our insignificance and ephemerality. And to that, she's written a most remarkable work.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews