As I was preparing Divrey Torah on Megillat Kohelet, that is to be read this coming Shabbat Chol Hamoed, the devastating news of the animalistic behavior of some deranged, sick person, shooting indiscriminately at a crowd of innocent men,women and children at a concert in Las Vegas brought anguish and pain to America and the entire world.
At that moment Kohelet spoke to me;
הבל הבלים, vanities of vanities. A thesis that negates life. He saw that we live in a world of cruelty, of hatred and instability. He sees life as futile, vain and useless.
Then I read a Midrash, that sees this idea of הבל, in a different way. The Midrash does not see, so much, the futility of life, but rather views our modern day world as changing and unstable, resulting from the excessive materialism, that is overpowering our society.
This weeks horrific episode and our very own pursuits, are suggesting that we need not deny our materialistic needs to survive in our world. However, this is not the essence of man, סוף דבר הכל נשמע את האלוקים ירא ואת מצותיו שמור. The upshot of Kohelet is that he made us aware of the pitfalls of life and we are to take it into our hearts and change our course.
As the world changes, in so many different ways, it becomes incumbent upon all of us to walk out of our comfortable homes with roofs that are separating us from the heavens above and enter the spiritual world of the Succah and sit under the open skies of G-D. As we look up we utter the words;
ופרוש עלינו סוכת שלומך, coming closer to the שכינה, and placing our entire being under His direction and His G-Dly protection. With this act our world is no longer one of הבל, now it becomes a world of ברכה and אהבה.
Then we can say, as we look out at our broken world, הרחמן הוא יקים לנו את סוכת דוד הנופלת, May the Compassionate One restore our fallen world and once again may humanity stand upright under the shade of our Almighty G-D.
חג שמח שבת שלום
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