“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years arrive when you will say: I have no desire in them” (Ecclesiastes 12:1). “Remove anger from your heart” (Ecclesiastes 11:10) – Rabbi Levi said: Every lad is hot-tempered, and every hot-tempered one is a fool. Solomon said: Since “childhood and youth are vanity” (Ecclesiastes 11:10), therefore, “remember your Creator [in the days of your youth].”
We learned: Akavya ben Mahalalel says: Reflect on three matters: From where you came – from a putrid secretion; to where you are going – to a place of dust, maggots, and worms; and before whom are you destined to give an account and a reckoning – before the King of kings, the Holy One blessed be He. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi of Sikhnin said: Akavya expounded the three of them from one word: Borekha, be’erkha, boraakha.1All these are expounded from the word “your Creator [bore’ekha]” in the verse.
Borekha, your pit, this is a putrid secretion; be’erkha, your well, this is maggots and worms;2In the Jerusalem Talmud (Sota 2:2) this statement is reversed to read: Borekha, your pit, this is maggots and worms; be’erkha, your well, this is a putrid secretion. and boraakha, your Creator, this is the King of kings, the Holy One blessed be He. That is why it is stated: “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth” – when you are still in possession of your strength; “before the evil days come” – these are the days of old age; “and the years arrive [when you will say: I have no desire in them]” – this is suffering. Rabbi Ḥiyya bar Neḥemya said: These are the messianic times, when there is neither merit nor liability.