A Provincial Who Married a Princess

The Book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) is arguably the most challenging of the Five Megillot. Almost nothing pertaining to it is free of uncertainty and controversy — neither its author, place, nor time of composition, nor its message.¹ From both the standpoint of style and content, the book is burdened by sweeping statements, fragmented sentences, and apparent contradictions. Even if one reads through the entire book, one would have difficulty stating conclusively with what attitude Kohelet would have us face life. The reader who has just sampled a few pages of Kohelet comes away sad and even depressed after reflecting upon repeated phrases such as All is vanity (Eccl. 1:2-8, 14),² and What profit remains for the worker from his toil (Eccl. 3:9; see also Eccl. 3:19-22).

With the passage of time, the tradition mined the text for individual verses seen as wise sayings expressed in a pithy manner. For example: For one who loves silver (money), silver is not enough (Eccl. 5:9), Better not to vow than to vow and not pay (Eccl. 5:4), and, famously, For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose (Eccl. 3:1).

In this essay, I present a midrash³ in which a sage from the Talmudic era offers a fascinating parable to explain a rather obscure verse in Kohelet that may be of significant relevance to contemporary times.

The verse, All the labor of man is for his mouth and yet [ve-gam] his appetite [ha-ne’fesh] is not filled (Eccl. 6:7),⁴ is expounded in the midrashic collection Yalkut Shimoni:⁵ “R. Levi said:⁶ [The matter may be compared] to a man from the provinces who is married to the daughter of kings, and although he feeds her from all the delicacies of the world, he does not fulfill his obligation. Why? [Because] she is from Above [mi’lema’alah]. So, too, all that man does with the soul [ha-nefesh] does not fulfill his obligation. Why? [Because] she [the nefesh] is from Above.”

We see that Rabbi Levi finds analogous features between the situation of a man married to a princess and man’s relationship to his own soul. In both cases, there is a failure to meet one’s obligations: the provincial husband, to provide his wife with proper food; and man in general, to fulfill the needs of his soul. Also, in both cases, the reasons for failure are similar. The princess is accustomed to the formal grace, pomp, and ceremony of the palace and will never feel at home in a bourgeois setting. Similarly, the soul comes from some spiritual realm and feels a need for spiritual nourishment, which the person does not provide due to his earthly preoccupations.

The assumptions that Rabbi Levi makes as to the nature of the soul are clearly to be found in the Bible: first, the divine origin of the nefesh — And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul [nefesh ha’ya] (Gen. 2:7). Secondly, the Bible’s many references to man “thirsting”⁷ for God, and “seeking”⁸ God, can readily be seen as related to the soul’s yearning to return to its origin. That is, the touch of the divine in the soul of man is not a static fact but rather a dynamic felt presence.

How Rabbi Levi Read the Verse

How did Rabbi Levi read verse 6:7 so that it evoked this particular analogy? The English translation above certainly does not give any hint of this. Evidently, Rabbi Levi based his interpretation upon a different, more literal reading of the Hebrew text, which I have divided into two parts:

(a) All the labor of man is for his mouth; (b) . . . and also [ve-gam] the soul [ha-nefesh] is not filled

Note the crucial difference in the translation of the Hebrew term ve-gam — the Soncino translation reads “and yet,” whereas the literal translation would be “and also.” This single difference radically changes the relationship between part (a) and part (b) of the verse. Whereas the Soncino translation connects (a) and (b) into one sentence, the literal translation, chosen by Rabbi Levi, separates the two phrases.

Note a second difference: the Soncino edition translates ha-nefesh as “his appetite,” whereas the literal translation identifies ha-nefesh as “the soul.” Again, this single word difference changes the subject of (b) from the appetitive part of the soul to the soul itself.

Both translations can find support from among the numerous ways in which gam and nefesh are used throughout the Bible. I believe that the answer to why Rabbi Levi chose the separated reading is that for the Soncino translation to make sense, the Hebrew text should have read nafsho, “his soul,” whereas the term that actually appears is ha-nefesh, “the soul,” with the definite article — offering a general statement about “the soul” of collective man, just as “man” in part (a) also refers to collective humankind. Thus, Ecclesiastes 6:7 contains two separate but connected statements: the first, a typical Kohelet-style general observation that all of man’s labors satisfy only his immediate material needs; the second, a metaphysical assertion about the human soul that Rabbi Levi’s parable is meant to illuminate.

Fulfillment and the Whole Man

Essentially, the interpretation of the midrash provides new insight into the soul of man which is consistent with the Biblical world-view. I would add as a sort of fillip that perhaps Kohelet, in the penultimate phrase of his much unappreciated ending,⁹ For this is the whole man (ki zeh kol ha-adam, Eccl. 12:13), provided a response to future critics who would claim that his concept of the “unfilled nefesh” would result in a conflicted and marginal personality. “On the contrary,” responds the author of Kohelet, “it is precisely this (‘zeh’) that characterizes a whole man — one who by understanding his origin can actually achieve a sense of fulfillment.”

An Anticipation of Existentialism

If our interpretation of the parable is correct, then Rabbi Levi, and possibly the author of Kohelet himself, are precursors of Existentialism, a philosophical movement that arose in Europe after the Second World War. One of its central tenets is that the persistent feelings of anxiety, alienation, and profound loneliness reported by authors and artists were not just a post-war phenomenon or a consequence of economic dislocation caused by modern technology, but rather an inherent, natural feature of the human condition. The Existentialism of that period was a purely secular philosophy; however, several Christian thinkers incorporated its basic approach into their theology.¹⁰ In Jewish circles, Existentialism received a mixed reception: liberal Judaism generally rejected it as too pessimistic, yet some Jewish writers, much more aware of the complex strains within Jewish sources, found many of its emphases to be quite consistent with traditional religious thought.¹¹

Among these discussions, special attention focused on the teachings of Rabbi Joseph Ber Halevi Soloveitchik (1903–1993), author of The Lonely Man of Faith (1957),¹² who links man’s existential loneliness to having been created in the “image and likeness of God” (Gen. 1:26). In Halakhic Man (1944), Soloveitchik writes: “Haven’t we been told that Lord our God, the Lord is One [echad]. God’s oneness means his uniqueness, his total transcendence, and otherness. Man, too, is unique in nature, so that he may have vague feelings of estrangement or loneliness or simply of being out of place.”¹³