Perek 5

5:9

A person will never be satisfied with something to which he is naturally drawn. He can be sated by all other things in the world, but that thing he will not stop chasing. If a person loves alcoholic beverages he can't wait to sober up enough to find more. Someone who loves sexual relations will chase opportunities constantly. This is true when it comes to bad things as well as good things. A person may chase after opportunities to do kindness to others, or loves to study Torah and is never satisfied.

We need to keep in mind that just as someone who is drawn to physical things needs to learn self-control and to limit his involvement to what is appropriate, the same is true with good things. A person should not spread himself thin and incapable of taking care of himself because he is so busy taking care of others. He cannot study Torah all day and neglect his other obligations.

[I would add that anytime a person is doing something because he feels compelled to do it it is time to stop and wonder why he is doing it. This is true both for good things and bad. Anything we do should be as a result of a decision and determination to do it, a desire to do, not a compulsion. Mitzvos by rote are lacking in Kavanah (intention)
and are devoid of a spiritual component.]

5:10
Take a look during the summer when there is an abundance of "good" in the world as the earth provides its bounty with the ripening of the produce. Rodents emerge to eat of the ripe fruit as do locusts, and crawling and flying insects find what they like to eat. This is what the verse means that when there is "much good there are many to eat it." God wants everyone to be aware that everything is His; He provides an abundance to feed all of His Creations and does not permit the land owner to take it all for himself.
This is why we are commanded to tithe so that the owner should be aware that there is a master above his mastery.

The verse concludes ומה כשרון לבעליה כי אם ראות עיניו, what good is there for the owner other than that which his eye sees.
The word כשרון to indicate good is a bit unusual. It is indicating that if a person truly understands that his bounty of meant by God to be shared then it follows that he should share with a generous eye. "Do not permit your heart to be pained when you give to him, for this matter God will bless you."
The word כשרון shares the same Gematria (numerical value) as the word עושר, wealth. The true value of your worldly possessions is commensurate with your attitude when it comes to sharing them.
Just as God creates more than He needs for himself and shares it with every creature and enjoys the sight of His bounty being enjoyed so, too, we should learn to not be stingy but to give to others with great joy so as to emulate God.

Perek 4

4:6

Someone who studies something and takes the time to understand it will not forget it quickly. However, someone who tries to learn many things superficially will not understand any of them and quickly forget them. Superficial study does not remain with a person and will quickly fly away. The same is certainly true when it comes to Mitzvah performance. It is preferable to so one Mitzvah properly with understanding of the purpose of the Mitzvah than to do many in a haphazard manner without any Kavanah.

4:15

Even though Tzaddikim are generally under the control of their Yetzer HaTov (good inclination) they occasionally are influenced to do evil as well. Don't think that this is only true of modern-day Tzaddikim who are two weak to fight their impulses, but the ones in earlier generations did not sin at all, because this is simply untrue. We see that Noach who was a Tzaddik planted a vineyard and got drunk and created a situation that caused himself embarrassment. Yaakov acted in a deceitful manner. Moshe became angry. And if the great ones could err, surely the lesser Tzaddikim cannot completely remove themselves from the influence of the Yetzer Hora.

Perek 3

3:1-8

There are 28 “times” listed here, fourteen good times, fourteen bad times. Hashem guides the world with His two hands, the right hand symbolizing Chesed, the unbridled giving nature of Hashem, and the left hand symbolizing Gevurah, the need to set boundaries and limitations on the Chesed in order to make it usable.

A hand has fourteen joints which is why in Hebrew the word for hand is יד, which has the numericcal value of 14. It is for this reason that there are listed here fourteen times for good and fourteen for bad.

We learn from this section that there is a time for everything and you can't delay things or hurry them. If you push the timing it will push back. If there is no divine desire for something to come about at this time all the efforts will not bring it about.

3:22

A person should do things with joy and not with sadness and worry. Joy enables a person to connect to his spiritual self, whereas sadness created separation. Worry also comes from a wrong attitude. Who do you think you are that you should know the future and the results of your efforts?! Hashem does not want you to know in order that you should be able to exercise Free-Will.  

Perek 2

2:1

Oftentimes at the end of a workday people retire to bars to find happiness, restore their energy level and forget their hard work. We find our sages did something similar by finding a light or humorous topic to discuss before engaging in serious Torah study. While we find that Koheles calls this הבל (emptiness) he does not call it רעות רוח (breaking to the spirit). This is because it has value, but is just not something in which someone should become overly involved.

It is a necessary mechanism in the pursuit of Torah study in order to keep the יצר הרע (Evil Inclination) from interfering by keeping it sated. The יצר הרע wishes to draw the person towards a full-time pursuit of spiritually devoid practices. Feed it something it wants and you can distract it long enough to accomplish something of value. We find this when Eisav said to Yaakov, “Feed me some of this red stuff.” Yaakov fed it to him in order to acquire the ability to have the בכורה, the birthright which enables one to primarily serve Hashem. Once Eisav was sated he would not prevent Yaakov from doing what he had to do.

2:10

If a person owns many homes he can only live in one of them at a time. He can build beautiful gardens and orchards, but he can only stroll in one of them at any given moment, he can't see or enjoy the others right then. He can only be in one place at a time. This holds true for all physical pleasures – they have time and space limitations. A person may be happy because of the knowledge of all that which is in his possession at a given time, but he is unable to enojy everything at once. If a person overeats he will be unwell. He can be offered the tastiest foods in the world, but there is a limit to how much he can eat. There is a limit to the pleasure that a person can have from physical things, but there is no limit to the joy.

2:11-13

When Koheles realized the futility of his pursuit of the foolishness of this world he began to wonder why Hashem decided to create all this foolishness that only drags a person downwards and impairs his ability to be in touch with his spiritual side? Hashem create foolishness at Creation at the same time as He created wisdom. He certainly didn't created with no purpose, what, then, is its value?

The answer, as explained in the Zohar, is that just as without darkness we would not appreciate light, so too, without foolishness we would have no appreciation of wisdom. We need these opposites in order to discern the distinction between them.

But why is it necessary to appreciate this distinction? Let the world just have wisdom, which is beneficial, and let's do without the damaging foolishness?!

The answer is that it is this distinction that forms the basis for Creation. Man was created in order to choose between good and evil. Without these two choices there would be no place for Free Will.

Perek 1

1:3

All the efforts that a person expends towards change and improvement that are focused on this-worldly changes, are not truly going to effect change. True change only comes about when a person raises himself out of the mundane world and gets in touch with his spiritual self and effects change there.

1:5

A superficial glance at the world, indeed at the Universe from the perspective of a person would seen to show that things never change. There are cycles, day-night, winter-summer, the cycle of the constellations, but they all follow a predictable pattern that seems to never change. It takes a broader perspective to learn how to discover the changes that take place within the orbits and travels of planets and stars.

So, too, it is very easy to go through life borne along by the tides of the times, reacting to circumstances, confused about why things are as they are, and not seeing the opportunities and subtle changes. It takes a broader perspective to sense them, to take advantage of them, and even more so to see them coming and to facilitate them.

1:8

ולא תמלא אזן משמוע

As long as a person's primary pursuits are focused on satisfying himself on in the realm of the physical there will be no satisfaction. This is because the physical is not what is real and therefore it cannot bring about true satisfaction. That is why the first letters spell out the word אמת, truth. There is no fill of what is true there is, consequently, no satisfaction.

1:9-10

Our sages refer in a Midrash to Moshiach crying over the suffering of the Jewish Nation. How can Moshiach be crying if he has not yet been born and does not yet exist?

The answer is the Moshiach (the ability to transcend the physical world) as well as all that which is good and beneficial has been implanted in the world from the time of Creation. All good is awaiting the right person to come along and discover it and actualize the good.

[Take as an example all of the scientific discoveries that have changed the world over the past two centuries. There was nothing new to be found. It was all there from the time of Creation and waiting someone to come along and find it and harness it. It is no different when it comes to spiritual realities. There are many truths out there that are still waiting to be discovered, examined and implemented for the good of mankind. CL]

1:14

רעות רוח

This is conventionally translated as a broken spirit. However we can understand the word רעות as sharing a root with the word רועה, shepherd. Things go wrong in life when we allow ourselves to be shepherded by something else. Sometimes it is other people, in this case it is our involvement in the physical world which is taking control of the person and leading him to places which are not beneficial to him. Rather than getting in touch with his essential self to discern what is best for him, he is following the masses or what seems to bring the most immediate payoff, rather than connecting to his spiritual side and finding what is best for himself.

Introduction

My favorite commentary on Koheles, which is read in many shuls on Shabbos Chol HaMoed Sukkos is written by Rabbi Moshe Dovid Valle, the foremost student of Rabbi Moshe Chayim Luzatto. I am sharing here some of his commentary.

Please keep in mind that this is not a literal translation. Rather, I am sharing some comments that are meaningful to me and presenting them in my words, which may not be exactly what he had in mind.