We are going to read the Gila Khohelat, this coming Shabbat. Why Khohelat is read on Sukkot is itself a bit of a mystery and that would be a shoe by itself. The common explanation for it is that Khohelat is somehow associated with the idea of Haqel and of gathering the people together and reading the law which of course is to take place on Sukkot. There are other explanations including that the other form of Gila to have sort of natural times that they fit and there was Khohelat and Sukkot so they kind of match them together. In any case we read Khohelat. Khohelat is an inscrutable book. It's a challenge to figure out what's going on in Khohelat and the passages contradict each other in not only in their sentiment but only also in the bedrock belief system that they're operating from. But instead of looking at the whole book and those problems in the book I want to look at a famous passage, a passage that was made even more famous by a song written by the weavers which has the lyric turn, turn, turn to it and I'm sure most of you remember it more from the birds rendition of it and that's what started as to everything, there was a season and the dot, dot, dot stands for turn, turn, turn, now you know what a dot means. In any case here is the text. It is the first eight verses of Khohelat and I have a personal connection to it because my last name comes from the end and my kids were trained as young when somebody said what's your last name and they would say, I ain't Khohelat, give him a hat and then walk away and leave the person in any case. La Kholesman, if I ate the jolchae fets, tachat the Hashemahim, right, for each thing there is a time and a season or a time for every purpose or every wish or every desire under the heavens. Now under the heavens is a phrase used several times and in Khohelat indicating all of worldly things which are just repeat in an infinite item from creation till the end and in Khohel tachat the Hashemahim is one of the lines near the beginning of Khohelat, there's nothing new under the sun literally. Here is the famous song and this by the way the way it is laid out in a Magilat Khohelat, it is laid out like a Shira, like a poem, but like the Shira of Hazinor, like the Shira of the 31 Kings of Khonan or the 10 Sons of Amman in two columns and that's what it looks like. Eight La Lettet, a time to be born or to birth really, Eight La Mouti, a time to die, eight La Tat, a time to plant and a time to un-uproot that which is planted. Now notice that the scheme here is consistent, the word eight which shows up 28 times here, 14 lines each consisting of two, a team, two times and of course number 29 is in the topic sentence, eight La Hochayfitz and one could ask the question what did these 28 verbs, how did they merit getting on this list and other things were left out, that's part of the question, but more grievous here is that the order seems to be willy-nilly between that which we would typically look at as being positive experiences and that which would look at being as negative experiences, in other words we might expect the author to talk about something sad like Eight La Mout and then followed with Eight La Lettet, time to be born, so that's happy, in which case we'd assume to follow some sort of a program like that where you'd point out that in life there are things that are sad, that feel sad and things feel happy, but watch the change. That's first of all is you go to the third line, it's Eight La Harog, they're Poe, a time to kill and a time to heal which is flipped because in the first two lines we start with what seems to be the positive and end of the negative, but we don't seem to be, it's clearly, being born is good, dying is bad, planting is good, uprooting that which is planted is bad, and then Eight La Harog is bad, and then Eightly froats to break down is bad and they know to build up is good, so it's kind of hard to figure out what the scheme is and what the structure is here, so we have two basic questions which is why did these twenty eight things get on the list, and also why is the order kind of Topsy Turvy, now by the way there are some people who say that's exactly the point, is that life is Topsy Turvy, and one day you're the bug and the other day you're the windshield, and so you have here times in which things are going well, things are not going well, but that seems a little bit weak, and there does seem to be some sort of a structure here because again there's the first two lines are positive negative, then the next four are negative positive, then the next four, the next two are negative positive, and then the next four are positive negative, and then the last two are positive and negative and negative positive, very strange. Now I'd like to suggest that in order to understand what's going on here, we have to look at the rest of Cohellet for a little bit of instruction, and if you take a look at this line which is from Paraxion, Paraxion which is really the second parashat of Cohellet, the first six chapters are all one parashat, is the tove me section, tove me, the mem prefix in a word which we always think of as locative from somewhere, I mean me Los Angeles, but mem is often mem comparative, so here tove shame me, chev and tove, a good name or name is better than good oil. If you take a look at Passucat here, tove acharit davar me reshito, how do you explain that? So the end of a matter is better than its beginning which makes a certain amount of sense, you've completed the task or you've seen the end of the journey, on the other hand you may interpret it with a little bit of a twist as the mem being more not locative exactly but causative, tove acharit davar me reshito, a matter will be good if it comes from a good beginning, in other words that you can appreciate the end by looking at the beginning, but only when you're at the end. So I'd like to suggest that we might want to look at this song as a retrospective, meaning something that we're going to look back on things that have happened in life and appreciate their necessity and the fact that each one of them has a proper time, sad as they may be mourning as though, as they may be destructive as they may be, each one of them has a time. And so that it's only by being at the end of being able to look back. There is a multiplicity of opinions about who is the author of Cohelod, who is this mysterious Cohelod. Shlomo is one common explanation, his gao, and his entourage, and another common explanation is it may be several different people who added in to it, but the position that Shlomo is the composer of Cohelod itself is divided into two traditions. One tradition is that Shlomo is the author of three books, Shira Shireem Michelin Cohelod, and he wrote them all in his old age. The other one is that he wrote them at different points in his life. You see it here in Shira Shireem Raba, "Ribionatana Marv, near the bottom." "Shira Shireem shikatap tikil avah kakamis leva kakakak Cohelod." He wrote Shira Shireem first, "Then mis lei then Cohelod." Well, mighto, bionatana midera karats, bionatana, explain this as being the way of the world. Shaddam Naar, when he got man as a young man, Omer de Vrazemar, he says, "Things of song." And we could add to that also things of romance. He could deal Omer de Vrazemar Shalodi, gets a little bit older, he has some adages and some aphorisms to kind of explain how things should work in life. He's keen Omer de Vrazemar, when he gets old, he says words of vanity. It doesn't mean these words of vanity, but he looks back and realizes that a lot of the things that he engaged in his life were vanity. And therefore you have, of course, the phrase that repeats through Cohelod about how everything is Havel Havel, Havel Havel, Havel Havel, Havel Havel, seven havels and one pasuc, very, very powerful. So this, again, the entire Cohelod seems to be a retrospective, an old man looking back on his life, and sharing advice to the people who perhaps are younger and saying, "This is what I've experienced, hopefully you won't make the same mistakes." Looking at this song, though, that way, I'm going to add in a new feature. We've talked about this numerous times over the years. The Tanakh is both an oral and a written presentation. It's important to note that even though we refer Tanakh as Torashib Bhirtab, the written Torah, nonetheless, it started out as Torashibhal Pat. It started out as being things being told from one generation to the next or from teacher to student, or Moshe Rabin, which has been a Israel. Remember the most common phrases by the Babylon and Moshelemore, which is followed by the Barrow, Benesal, from Ritalium. Speak to Benesal and tell them. And it was oral. She's, by the way, when you read a text, you have to read it out loud and listen to it in here. How is the listening audience hearing it? And including things like alliterations and homonyms, even though they might be written differently, so your eyes won't catch you, and your ears will catch you. But in the same way, flipping it, since the final product that we have is a written record, therefore the way that it's written, including the order in which it's written, the structure of the text, is also part of the message. Also part of the message. We've talked about this a lot in the context of chiastic structure. The idea that the text will present one idea, and then a second idea, and then a third idea, and then move to something akin to, or perhaps a realization or resolution of the second idea, and then something of a resolution of the first idea. I'll give you a quick example of that. The story of Yaakov, Yaakov in Haran is one single story. It is the entire parashat phayyatsay, and if you look into the Torah, you will see there is not one single parashat break from the word phayyatsay until makhanaim, which is at the end. What happens at the beginning of that story? Yaakov encounters a place. At that place, he sees Malachim. He changes the name of the place as a result, and he moves on. What happens at the end of the parashat? Yaakov encounters a place. He sees Malachim. He renames the place in response, and he calls it makhanaim. So Beethel on one side, makhanaim on the other side. What's the next thing that happens to Yaakov after Beethel? He gets to Haran, and he negotiates with lavan, and the negotiation is about his work and about the marriages. What happens at the end of the parashat before he gets to makhanaim? He has an encounter with lavan, and they negotiate their separation. And it builds up. By the way, if you look at it, it builds like a ladder, where it's sitting on the top of the ladder as the birth of the children in Haran. Remember what Yaakov's vision is in Beethel, and they put it all together. But the idea is that the structure of the presentation is also part of the message of the presentation. So I'd like to suggest that that's what's going on here, because since this is a retrospective, since this is the sort of thing that at the end of your life you look back, I'd like to suggest that the author, Colin Shlomo, if you want, put the topic sentence where it doesn't belong. Normally, it belongs to the beginning, it belongs to the end. Here it's at the end. In other words, La Coles Mountbain, the whole time it's talking to Shamayim is in its seduction. Okay, we'll call the topic sentence, but the beginning of the presentation is not eight bloodlet, beginning of the presentation is at the bottom. All right, let's take a look at the last four lines. Eight, the last two lines, the last four, etim, et lejove, the time to love, vatly snow, the time to hate. And now it flips, et milchamah, the time of war, the echalomatime for peace. All right, so notice, there's already been an inversion here. I'd like to suggest that these become the core categories of experiences in life. Let's think about the difference between war and hatred. On one hand and peace and love, am I going to add an understanding there? Peace and love, on the other hand, any Elvis Costello fans pick that up? Okay. Anyhow, what's the difference is that war and peace are things in which the individual is almost, almost always thrust without his own choice. He's put into a situation of war, he's a soldier, he is an innocent victim, he is an evacuee, he is a looter, it doesn't matter, it does matter, but he has somebody who's put in the position, he didn't instigate it and he really can't control it. There's a war going on and peace is, if we will, the absence of that or the opportunity to live without that. What about eight lejo vatly snow is the direct opposite of that, which is you can choose to love or not to love, you can choose to hate or not to hate. And so immediately we're given at the beginning of this, which is at the bottom, the two poles of the personal and the two poles of the national or the communal or the tribal or the universal experience, one in which you have a choice because it's up to you, it's your personal relationship with another, if you borrow from boober, I thou, and the other is something which you are drawn into when you really have no choice and you can't choose, well, it's war time, but I'm going to be in peace, it doesn't work, and vice versa, hopefully is I'm not going to do it. So take a look at eight mil chama, let's start with that. Now we're going to look at this in a chaotic fashion and look from the very bottom, eight lejo mama, see it at the bottom, you know what, I'll show it to you, take a look. And this took a lot of time to make, okay, easier to see, even better, okay. It's that eight mil chama leads to two things, eight lemout and eight la cornatua, you see the arrows, eight mil chama, the time of war, what happens in war? So two things happen in war, first of all people die and we don't need to interpret nearly any of these things allegorically or metaphorically, they're real, a time of war is a time people die. It's not only a time people die, it's also a time of uprooting that which is planted, meaning in wartime societies, institutions, regular life, things that have been developed get destroyed. It's sad, but that's what happens in war. Now flip it and look from the other side, eight shalom, what does that lead to? Let's do things, eight la legette, a time when you can begin life, and also eight la tat, the time when you can renew building institutions, latat doesn't just mean to plant trees, it means to plant things, to plant your life together, put it together. Now, if you look at the next slide, eight la hove, eight le snow, we're going to do this quickly just to show, and then go back to it, eight la hove takes us much closer, which is eight leet for an eight little bear. You see how the arrows work, eight leet snow is eight there, lee corove, eight la chashot, but we'll analyze those in the second half. The first half is all eight milkha maw versus eight shalom. Now, notice when you talk about eight la muth, let's start with that, a time to dying. What is dying lead to? Dying leads to the profound personal sense of loss on the part of the people who are close to whoever died. It also leads to communal death, especially in war, it leads to communal agonizing. Take a look at what emanates from eight la muth. You have eight leet of coat, a time to cry, that's personal. And eight sifod. Now sifod in rabbinic Hebrew means to eulogize, but in tanach means to mourn. So another morning, which is a communal experience, is a reaction to death. And mourning, by the way, can be much more powerful because it's a lot of people together. On the other hand, it's much more temporary. It's an outburst at a particular time of tremendous pain, but eight-leaf coat that crying inside is something that we all know can last for years. Now, look at the flip side of that. That's we talked about a time to die. What about a time to be born? Look at this. It leads to eight-leaf spoke, a time for laughter, and eight-recorded time for dancing. Laughter is that personal response that someone has when a baby is born. That trend is happiness, that inner smile. And eight-recorded time to dance is, of course, the communal celebration. So you have, on one hand, when someone dies, it leads to both individual sadness that can last forever and is expressed individually and privately. And it leads to communal mourning, which, by definition, is a passing thing, but more powerful. On the other hand, when somebody is born, the result is both laughter and smiling, which is internal, and you can have a child named Yitzchak, whose name is Yitzchak for the rest of his life, the Avaram and Sara. And on the other hand, it's a time of dancing, you know, there's a dancing which is, in a sense, more powerful, it's communal, and yet it's temporary, okay? Now, move to the next piece, eight-law, a time when you uproot things. What does that lead to? It leads to eight-law-rogan, eight-leaf-frotes, uprooting things, happens in two ways. It's both killing, and it's also breaking through. What's the difference between the two? One of them is taking that which is alive and killing it, and the other is taking structures that are there and breaking through those structures, the structures that were built up early are broken through. Take a look at eight-latat, a time to plant, has two components also, eight-lirpo, a time to heal. What does healing mean? It means that you're healing someone who is ill, and one of them is eight-leaf note, and that is a time to build. So notice how the author is guiding us, if we know how to look at this properly, into seeing that there are essentialist experiences in life, each of which have subsets, and each of those subsets have subsets, and everything that we're experiencing is part of a larger picture that ultimately grounds itself in either something really good going on that is happening out of our control, or something very bad going on that even more is happening out of our control, and these things are all playing out. But now take a look at the second-to-last line, which provides the second-topic sentence. These are the things in our control, a time to love and a time to hate. So you take a look at how it structures up, eight-latat hove moves to here, eight-latat four, eight-latat bear. Now let's think about what those mean, a time to sow or mend, and a time to speak. Love takes both care and protection, and in a relationship which is a love relationship, there are inevitably going to be challenges, and the one who's committed to it is going to mend. He's going to take that which has perhaps been threatened and fix it. But there's also a time for just reaching out and making that connection, that first connection, eight-latat bear. Now look at the opposite, eight-latat is, eight-latat, eight-latat, a time to tear, the opposite of to mend, and eight-latat, a time to be silent. Sometimes hatred is expressed by silence. Person doesn't like someone else, they just avoid them, they ignore them, and eight-latat bears they're reaching out. And so again, these two criss-crosses present us with these two different ways to express either love or hate. Now you move further up and you see that eight, let's start with eight-latat-latat, a time to mend, to mend, is both eight-latat, eight-latat, eight-latat, eight-latat, eight-latat, eight-latat. What is the location? It means to seek things out. You're in a relationship, it's a loving relationship, you know that you have to guard it. Sometimes that means you have to proactively look for something which needs to be helped in this relationship or added to this relationship. And eight-latat-latat, let's protect the status quo and not let it go down. And on the other side, eight-latat-latat is eight-latat-latat, where you take that which is there and you deliberately get rid of it, you lose it. And eight-latat-latat is just to not hold on to what's there. And now you look at the last red line, eight-latat-latat-latat bear, time to be silent. And look at it, eight-latat-latat-latat, eight-latat-latat-latat, eight-latat-latat-latat-latat. What does konosabatatat mean? It means you're bringing your rocks in. That one has to be run into metaphorically and has all said, eight-latat-latat-latat-latat-latat-latat-latat. You don't speak, you don't teach, you keep your wisdom to yourself. Sometimes there's a time to be silent. Now seen out of context, this can be an appropriate approach. There's times that you find yourself in a situation where the only thing you can do is say nothing. But within the context here where it's an expression really of hatred, and as a result of that, your choice is not to actively hurt Lee Crowe, but just "latat-latat" to be silent. Eight-latat-latat can be done in one of two ways. It can be done as a time of just bringing things in. In other words, I'm not going to share information with you. And one is Eitlechok Mechabek, which is when there's an opportunity to hug, to avoid that. And now on the other side, when you talk about Eitle du Baer, it's the opposite of that. Eitlach thees al-barim, you send rocks out meaning you share your wisdom out, and Eitlechabok a time to hug. Now seeing this whole structure is all very confusing. So I put this together, which makes it a lot of these here. You see basically two kinds of experiences. The top half is those experiences in life, which you're thrown into, you're thrust into. And then you have a way to react to them. And the bottom is those experiences in life, which you can choose to take on. They're much more personal, much more individual, and much more up to you to, they're much more voluntary. So you take a look at the top half, and we'll just be going through this again. In a time of peace, there's both a time to be born, to start new life. And Eitlach thees start to building things up. To be born leads to both communal celebration, and it should be Lisshok, not Lisshok, at a time for internally, for celebrating. A time of planting can be both healing, and it's fixing that which has been hurt, and Eitlach starts building something new. When you talk about a time of war, you have Eitlamut, which itself death leads to, again, those two reactions, both the internal sadness and also the public mourning. And to uproot that which was planted, time to kill, destroy, and Eitlach time to break through the barriers, meaning to destroy that which has been built, both on the human level and on the institutional level. And then we're going to come into the area of personal life, your own life, the things that you can choose to do. So there's a time to love, which can be expressed both as a time to speak, where you interact with the other. You generate an interaction, you share your wisdom with them, and sometimes the relationship of love demands not you're reaching out, but you're mending that which has been broken. And that's to seek out, and Eitlach mourned to guard the status quo. And of course, Eitlach snow has the opposite pieces there. So now when you look at it, suddenly you realize that this list, which hops back and forth between what we would pretty conclusively consider to be the positive and the negative, first to positive, but then the negative, then the negative and the positive, et cetera. And seems to suddenly become very big at the bottom is because the bottoms really begins, because the whole thing begins at the end of your life. It begins when you look back at the end of your life and say, I can see now that all these different things that were happening in my life were all part of a larger picture. And they all emanated really from those things that I was thrust into and those things that I chose to do. And I could have gone this way or kind of gone that way. And in the case of things that I was thrust into, this was somewhat inevitable. That was somewhat inevitable. And of course, I had a choice. I've had to handle it. What happens here in this beautiful song of the 28th Eitim, as we call it, the Chafret Eitim, is that the author, Colin Cohellet, whatever you like to call him, says, I want you to see what I see, which is I want you to see what life looks like from the back end. And when you get to the very end, you suddenly look back and realize that there is a whole complexity, which actually can be broken down and identified, but understand that there are things, there are circumstances that you can control, some of the circumstances you can't, and that within each circumstance, there are all sorts of tributaries that come off of them, each of which is as an own place in its own time. And the wise person, which of course is what Cohellet's all about, the wise person is somebody who knows how to choose which time to accentuate in any particular circumstance in order to do what's right at that time and to promote his goals, and they may be goals of war, they may be goals of killing in some cases, but to promote those at the proper time and in the proper place, and hopefully with that wisdom, he's able to navigate all of the vicissitudes of life properly and successfully. [BLANK_AUDIO]
