The book of Ecclesiastes, or Kohelet in Hebrew, wrestles with this very feeling. And Kohelet Rabbah, a rabbinic commentary on Ecclesiastes, dives even deeper.

It all starts with the verse, "As he emerged from his mother's womb, so he will return naked, to go as he came, and he will take nothing for his toil that he can carry in his hand" (Ecclesiastes 5:14). Pretty bleak. But the Rabbis don't leave us there. They offer a story, an analogy, to help us understand.

Geniva, one of the sages quoted in Kohelet Rabbah, tells a story about a fox. Imagine this fox finds a vineyard, ripe with delicious grapes, but completely fenced in. There’s only one small opening, too small for the fox to squeeze through normally. So, what does it do? It fasts for three whole days, becoming thin and weak enough to slip inside. It feasts on the grapes, gets fat and happy, but then… disaster! It can’t get back out. It's too big! It has to fast again, another three days, until it's as thin and weak as it was before. Finally, it can escape.

Now, here's the kicker. As it leaves, the fox turns back to the vineyard and says, "Vineyard, vineyard, what good are you, and what good are the fruits that are in you? Everything that is in you is good and excellent; however, what benefit is there from you? Just as one enters into you, so he emerges.”

Heavy. The vineyard represents the world, and the fox represents us. We enter the world with nothing, we strive and accumulate, and in the end… we leave with nothing. We’re back where we started.

But wait, there’s more! Kohelet Rabbah doesn't stop there. "As a person comes, so he will go," the text continues. We enter the world with noise, and we leave with noise. We arrive with weeping, and we depart with weeping. Affection surrounds our entry, and affection surrounds our exit. We come with a sigh, and we leave with a sigh. And perhaps most poignantly, we come without knowledge, and we leave without knowledge.

Rabbi Meir adds another layer to this idea. He says that when a person is born, their fists are clenched tight, as if to say, “The entire world is mine! I will inherit it all!” But when they die, their hands are open, empty, as if to say, “I inherited nothing.” This, Rabbi Meir says, illustrates the verse from Kohelet perfectly.

So, what are we to make of all this? Is it all just futility and despair? Maybe not. Perhaps the point isn’t that our efforts are meaningless, but that we shouldn’t become overly attached to the material world. Maybe it’s about focusing on what truly matters—relationships, kindness, and leaving the world a little better than we found it. The things that can't be measured in possessions or wealth. The things that do leave a lasting impact.

It's a challenging thought, a humbling one. But maybe, just maybe, understanding this can help us live a more meaningful life, even if we can't take any of it with us in the end.