The book of Ecclesiastes, or Kohelet, wrestles with this feeling constantly. And the rabbinic commentary on it, Kohelet Rabbah, dives even deeper into the fleeting nature of, well, everything.
There's a verse in Ecclesiastes (6:11) that asks a pretty blunt question: “As there are many matters that increase vanity, what remains for the person?” The Rabbah really latches onto this idea of “vanity” – hevel in Hebrew, often translated as "vapor" or "breath." What's the point of all this striving, all this accumulating, if it's all just… gone in a puff?
The Rabbah then gives us some wonderfully vivid examples. Imagine someone who breeds exotic animals – monkeys, cats (yes, cats!), porcupines, even chimpanzees and seals. Sounds like a quirky zoo owner, right? But what good does it really do them? According to the Rabbah, they'll likely get a bite or a sting. An injury. A wound. And if these creatures escape and cause harm? The owner is liable! It's a recipe for trouble, a lot of effort for ultimately…nothing.
It’s like that old saying, “No good deed goes unpunished," only applied to exotic pet ownership.
Then, the Rabbah shifts gears to a story. A pious man (well, a future pious man, as the commentary points out) is moving stones from his field and dumping them in the public domain. Another, already pious, man confronts him. He asks, “Why are you taking stones from a place that isn’t yours and putting them in a place that is yours?" He means that private property can be sold, but the public space belongs to everyone, forever. The stone-mover just laughs.
But, wouldn’t you know it, a few days later, the first man falls on hard times and is forced to sell his field. While walking in the public domain, he trips over a stone. The penny drops. He realizes the pious man was right. He had, in a way, harmed his own future. He had made his own path harder.
The story drives home the point: even seemingly small actions, driven by short-sightedness, can have lasting, negative consequences. As the Rabbah puts it, "What benefit does he get from engaging in vanity?"
So, what’s the takeaway? Is the Rabbah telling us to avoid exotic pets and to be really, really careful about where we put rocks? Maybe. But it's also about something deeper. It's about considering the long-term impact of our actions, about recognizing the hevel, the vanity, in chasing fleeting pleasures and neglecting the things that truly matter. It’s about realizing that sometimes, the things we think are benefiting us are actually setting us up for a fall.
The Zohar, the foundational text of Jewish mysticism, often speaks of the importance of aligning our actions with the divine will. This story in Kohelet Rabbah, in its own way, is nudging us toward that same goal. Are we building something lasting, or just rearranging stones for a momentary, ultimately unsatisfying, gain? Something to ponder, isn’t it?