On Sukkot, which began last week, it’s customary to read Qohelet (Ecclesiastes). At first glance, the custom is strange, inasmuch as we’re commanded to be happy during this festival, yet few literary works offer so bleak a view of human existence. Qohelet repeatedly stresses the futility of human endeavor and the fickleness of fate. Several times the author tells us it is better never to have been born. The fate of man and beast, king and vassal, wise man and fool is the same – death. “The dead know nothing and they no longer have recompense, for their memory is forgotten. Their love and their hatred as well, their jealousy, too, are already lost, and they no longer have any share forever in all that is done under the sun” (9:5-6). The only reasonable course, the author tells us, is to enjoy what there is to be enjoyed, while one still has a chance to do so – good food and wine, pleasure in one’s work, and the companionship of a person one loves. “There is nothing better for man under the sun than to eat and to drink and to make merry,” (8:15) for these gifts of God are provisional, liable to be removed at any time. (Translations by Robert Alter, The Wisdom Books: Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. New York: W.W.Norton,2010.)
We're commanded to dwell in booths during Sukkot. These are flimsy, temporary structures, roofed with leafy branches which permit you to see the sky through their cover. You are exposed to the elements. Religiously observant Jews eat in them and sometimes sleep in them too, a reminder of our 40-year wandering in the desert, with its temporary, impermanent dwellings, before entering the Promised Land. Perhaps we read Qohelet during Sukkot as another reminder of our vulnerability during that wandering, since Qohelet stresses the fickleness of fate and thus the provisional quality of the good things in our lives.
But perhaps we read Qohelet now, because, after all, we're commanded to be happy during this period, and Qohelet admonishes us over and over again to enjoy ourselves while it's still possible to do so.
A few days before Sukkot began, my wife and I met four friends for dinner at a Park Slope restaurant noted for its good food and wine. The food and service were exemplary. I can’t judge the wine, for I no longer drink alcohol, but one of our party pronounced the Tuscan wine she had ordered as “lovely.” I won’t go so far as to describe our dinner party as “merry,” although we laughed a great deal, but it was convivial, intimate, and stimulating – not surprising in view of the other participants, two psychoanalysts, one clinical psychologist, and one political scientist, all distinguished in their fields and all gifted conversationalists. When it was time to consider dessert, our waiter described the restaurant’s four offerings. It’s common among persons our age to share a single dessert. But that night, the clinical psychologist told the waiter to bring all four. To this astonishing departure from the norm, no one made any objection, and when the desserts arrived, we made short work of them.
Despite the fragility of our health and the knowledge that death can no longer be so far away (let us hope those rich desserts haven't hastened it), we enjoyed an evening of good food, good wine, and the lively conversation of friends. It doesn't get much better than that. The author of Qohelet would have approved.
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