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.