Commentary: On Ecclesiastes

Be not rash with your mouth, and let not your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and you on earth; therefore let your words be few. (Ecclesiastes 5:1)

Therefore let your words be few: So that you do not endanger yourself, just as the High Priest on the Day of Atonement would “pray a short prayer” [m. Yoma 5:1] and come out of the Holy of Holies.

Says Abraham the author: I have taken upon me to speak (Genesis 18:27). Seeing that the glory of the Omnipresent fills each place and a human being cannot be on his guard in every place, a place has been prepared for Him that should be a permanent place for prayer to Him, and a person is obligated to respect it. A person is likewise obligated to thank and praise his God at every moment—for His kindness is with him at every second, keeping him alive and letting him enjoy sense perception. But because a person is always occupied with worldly occupations, a time has been set for him at which he can pray, that is, the known times of evening, morning, and noon.

For whoever has eyes knows when the sun comes up and when it begins to decline toward the west and when it sets. So, a person is obligated, when he prays, to guard the doors of his mouth (Micah 7:5), and to consider in his heart that he is standing before the King of the kings of kings, in whose hand is the power to put to death and to bring to life. It is therefore forbidden for a person to pray and bring into his prayer poetry whose meaning he cannot understand. Nor should he rely on the original author. For there is no one who does not sin (1 Kings 8:46)—or the copyists may have made a mistake.

In general, I would say that in the liturgical hymns of R. Eleazar be-Rabbi Qillir there are four difficulties.

One

The majority of his poems are riddles and parables. Let me mention just one, written for the Additional [Musaf] service for Rosh Hashanah:

Some take the root of li-r’i to be yud-resh-alef “to fear” and interpret the phrase to mean that He will fold up the earth in front of the messiah [the one that fears me], and va-ḥadashim yakhpil means that he will double up the months [ḥodashim] of the year to speed his coming. Others say lir’i comes from resh-alef-heh “to see” and explain this phrase to mean “he will let pass,” taking r’i as in See your way in the valley (Jeremiah 2:23) [i.e., He will let the rebuke of the Jeremiah verse pass]. As for va-ḥadashim yakhpil, what he is doing to the “new ones” [ḥadashim] is hiding them. The “new ones,” of course, are idols, as in new ones recently arrived (Deuteronomy 32:17). But contemporary scholars explain li-r’i yakpil to mean that He is rolling up the sky, which metaphorically is a r’i, a mirror, and say that va-ḥadashim yakhpil is an allusion to the new heavens of Isaiah 65:17. This, too, is incorrect. For what the poet writes here can only mean the following: “He transfers a mirror and doubles the new [things].” Perhaps they are ropes? And he doubles them so that the blow he delivers with them will be harsher? [ . . . ]

Why should we not learn from Solomon, since whom there has been no one as wise as he? The prayer that he prayed is quite comprehensible; everyone who knows any Hebrew can understand it. It is not made up of riddles and parables. So, too, the prayer of Daniel, who was perfectly able to explain riddles and solve problems (Daniel 5:12). Each of them prayed in words that were clear and wise, even though he was praying for many people, not all of whom were wise. And the same is true of every prayer, for a workday or for a festival, that our ancestors established. Nowhere are there riddles or parables.

What point is there in “doubling the new heavens”? Would there be two of them if He doubled them?

Now, to say of the Omnipresent, le-yom zeh pur hippil—“He cast lots for this day”—cannot be correct. The one who casts lots does not know what will happen. The poet should have fled from the expression “He cast lots,” an expression you will find in the Bible only with regard to the foe of all the Jews (Esther 3:7). Moreover, once He “transfers” the heavens and the earth, how is He going to “reign from Zion,” which is part of the earth?

One contemporary scholar has declared: He had to say pur hippil in order to rhyme with yakpil. I responded: We do not find the prophets using rhyme anywhere in their prayers. And of course he could have used another rhyme: “Why does He ride on an elephant [pil]? It would toss Him to the ground [yappil]!” [ . . . ]

Two

His poems have talmudic language mixed into them. As is well known, there are several languages in the Talmud other than Hebrew. The sages themselves say: “biblical Hebrew is one thing and talmudic Hebrew is another” [b. Avodah Zarah 58b]. Who has gotten us into this trouble, that we pray in foreign languages? Did not Nehemiah reprove those who were speaking Ashdodite? [See Nehemiah 13:24.] All the more so at the hour of prayer. Why should we not learn from the standard prayer, the Amidah, all of which is written in beautiful Hebrew? Why should we pray in the tongue of Persia or Media or Edom [Christendom] or Ishmael?

Three

Even the words that are in the holy tongue are full of mistakes. [ . . . ] Now, we are under an obligation to know the grammar of the language well so that we do not make mistakes. [ . . . ]

Others have said: “The Merciful One seeks the heart” [b. Sanhedrin 106b]. If so, why must we even speak? For He knows the secrets of the heart (Psalms 44:22). Did not the sages of ancient times write into the prayers for Yom Kippur, “Be with the mouths of those whom Your people Israel send to represent them, and let them not stumble with their tongues”?

Four

All his poems are filled with legends and midrashim—but our sages said: “No scriptural verse departs from its straightforward sense” [b. Shabbat 63a]. It is therefore not appropriate to pray except in straightforward language, not according to some secret meaning or allegory, or in some nonhalakhic manner or in some way that might be misinterpreted. Do we not know from Song of Songs Rabbah 3:10 that everywhere in the Song of Songs that the name Solomon [Shelomoh] appears, it is to be treated as a divine name, Shelomoh meaning “the King to whom peace belongs [ha-shalom shelo]”? So would it be all right for a person to say in his prayer, “Save me, King Solomon”?

R. Se‘adya Ga’on was very careful about all four of these things in his two petitionary prayers (the like of which no other author has composed) in the holy tongue, the language of the Bible, and in grammatical language—without riddles and parables. And no midrash! [ . . . ]

I cannot explain even one in a thousand of the errors of these liturgical poets. I think it better not to pray with them at all—just the standard prayer. Let our words be few, that we be not punished on the Day of Judgment.