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  • Essay / The true human experience in Ecclesiastes

    As a philosophical treatise in which the author considers the meaning of man's existence on earth, the Book of Ecclesiastes is an exceptional section of the Tanakh which differs from the traditional didactic stories that surround it. The Preacher of Ecclesiastes is concerned with the idea that no matter how a man chooses to live his life, his actions are ultimately in vain and have no lasting consequences because the world itself remains unchanged and essentially static. In light of this observation, the driving question of the work becomes “What does man gain from all the labor he accomplishes under the sun?” (Ecc. 1:3.) At the end of the book, the author does not provide a traditional, concrete answer to this question, but the ambiguous solution can be found throughout the text. Consistently, the preacher's reasoning is based on what can be seen as the inherent duality of life, which man is able to recognize and contemplate but does not fully understand, and the inability to resolve this fundamental uncertainty leads the author to the simple conclusion that "There is nothing better for a man than to eat and drink, and to find pleasure in his work" (Ecc. 2:24). The dialectical argument of preacher is as circular and static as the world he observes, and from this parallel we can deduce that life is meant to be ambiguous, and that every human being must do the best they can with what they are given while taking advantage of the environment. present.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get an original essayIn the text, dichotomies arise from what appear to be contradictions in the claims of the author as he makes statements such as: “I hated all my work. " (Ecc. 2:18) and then goes on to say that the pleasure of work is the best for man. This apparent leap in logic is the result of the fact that the preacher's thought process does not can escape the dichotomy of life He must consider hating work before he can love it, because one emotion is born from the other, “for it is the sadness of the face that rejoices the heart” (Ecc. 7). : 3). Light cannot exist without darkness, just as wisdom cannot exist without madness, because they complement and define each other. Happiness and contentment would be inconceivable without the alternative of sorrow and difficulties. To demonstrate this idea, the author makes unconventional statements such as: "Sorrow is better than laughter" (Ecc. 7:3). Sorrow is not necessarily better than laughter, but laughter is not. nor can it be better than grief, because they depend on each other to exist and are both inescapable features of life. During his stay on earth, a man cannot change the nature of existence; he must therefore accept good and evil in turn. The opening verses of chapter three express this concept eloquently as the preacher explains that "to everything there is a time...a time to be born and a time to die" (Ecc. 3:1-2). because work “lasts forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken away from it” (3:14). This inherent dichotomy is what makes the preacher's job enjoyable, for he is a philosopher whose work takes place in the mind, and the ambiguity he sees as God-ordained is what gives substance to his thoughts. Near the beginning, in chapter four, verse two, he concludes that the dead are luckier than the living, but in chapter nine, "a living dog is better than a dead lion" (v. 4). His arguments are nuanced, just as life and death go hand in hand.Recognizing the value of the couple, the Preacher translates the concept of duality into human relationships. A rich man who does not have a companion with whom to share the fruit of his labor will only know misery during his lifetime since: “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their work” (Ecc 4:9). As God's creation, humans are naturally dichotomous and require a complementary partner, whether a close friend or a spouse. According to the preacher, a man cannot be safe alone: ​​“if two people lie together, they are hot; but how can you be hot alone? » (Ecc. 4:11). Alone, a man is easily defeated, but with the companionship that reflects the inherent nature of life, adversity can be overcome. This logic supports the idea that monogamous marriage is the foundation of human community, as opposite sexes support each other and are able to build a strong family unit through that support. Although human relationships are easier for us to understand, the preacher comes to the conclusion that, on the whole, humanity only has the ability to recognize the presence of duality, but not to fully understand its meaning. or its purpose, because only God knows the true truth of duality. its creation. The ambiguous nature of life makes it by definition uncertain, and man must learn to live with this uncertainty, “for you do not know what evil can happen on earth” (Ecc. 11:2). Since the preacher believes that all existence is God's will, he sees beauty in doubt, but he is also troubled by his inability to come to firm resolution. He declares: “(God) made everything beautiful in its time; He has also put eternity in the mind of man, so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end” (Ecc. 3:11). . From a philosopher's point of view, these dilemmas are like clay to a potter, for they provide infinite material with which to speculate and debate, but they can also be a troublesome burden for the curious human intellect, "For in much wisdom there is much vexation” (Ecc. 1:18). Once again, man is confronted with contradictory ideas. On the one hand, human beings occupy a unique position among animals because we have the ability to reason, but this ability has limits, so that we “do not truly know the work of God” (Ecc. 11 : 5) and remain, essentially, as ignorant as the beasts. Overall, the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes fights against the idea that man's knowledge is limited, but he also praises the ambiguity of life as the will of God seen as the creator omniscient. Ultimately, the faithful preacher comes to the conclusion that life is neither good nor bad, it just is, because one side of the coin cannot exist without the other. Life would lose some of its value if existence were only one-dimensional. There would be no happiness, for there would be no sorrow, and there would be no joy in liberation, for there would be no oppression. It is difficult for humans, as conscious beings, to accept the harsher and more bitter aspects of the world, and this is one of the preacher's main concerns at first, but he seems to have resolved them by itself in the end. Ironically, his final resolution is that there is no real answer as to why human existence seems pointless and fleeting. Man must accept his fate or condemn himself to mental anguish. On several occasions, the preacher declares that "all is vanity and chasing after the wind" (Ecc. 1:14), but at the end of,.