“I said in my heart: Like the fate of the fool, so will befall me; and why did I become wiser? I said in my heart, this too is vanity. For there is no remembrance of the wise man with the fool forever; with the passage of the coming days everything is forgotten. How can the wise man die like the fool?” (Ecclesiastes 2:15–16).
“I said in my heart: Like the fate of the fool, so will befall me…” – I am called king45This is presented from the perspective of Abraham. A midrash (Bereshit Rabba 42:5) asserts that after Abraham defeated the four kings in battle (see Genesis, chap. 14), the surrounding nations referred to Abraham as their king. and the wicked Nimrod is called king. This one dies and that one dies; if so, “why did I become wiser?”
Why did I sacrifice my life for the sanctification of the name of the Holy One blessed be He, and I cautioned [others] and I said: There is no god like Him in the heavens and on the earth? I then retracted and said: “For there is no remembrance of the wise man with the fool forever…everything is forgotten.”46Solomon counters that the similar fate of the wise man and the fool will be forgotten, because the wise man will be remembered on his own, whereas the fool will not be remembered.
Why? It is because when the Israelites encounter times of trouble, they say: “Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob your servants…” (Exodus 32:13). Do the nations of the world say: Remember the action of Nimrod? That is what is written: “How can the wise man die like the fool?”47It cannot be that the wise man’s death would be like that of the fool. They are not comparable, as demonstrated.