Let’s look at the moaning and groaning of an old wise man, King Solomon. He had seen everything, both the righteous and the wicked, man and woman, and he reached the conclusion that all is vanity, there is nothing new under the sun. Whether you live in mirth or misery, whether you are poor or wealthy, man or beast, you all end up the same way; and in any event, all of it was futile. You could get the impression that these are whimpers coming from an old grouch who can no longer enjoy life. That is, if you superficially skim over Ecclesiastes (for the new generation, that’s a book in the Old Testament). However, if you take a deeper look, King Solomon, who is considered the wisest of men, reveals that, from an external point of view, everything has the same value, which is no value. This reminds me of what SHET said: that from the point of view of “Consciousness” there are no values, and thus we are no more valuable than a piece of discarded orange peel. Just as value is not in the object but in our way of relating to the object, neither is meaning or purpose in the object, but in our way of relating to the object. Whether the object is my ego, my life, or the universe, there is not even one gram of purpose to be found in it. However, I can choose to attribute meaning or purpose to something from my point of view and then, it has meaning and importance for me.
From that point of view, “Vanity of vanities, says Qohelet, vanity of vanities: all is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 1:2). And King Solomon goes on to describe the many vanities and the meaningless state of affairs throughout this book in the Bible. He begins with the description of cyclical scenes - reminiscent of the loop - taking place both in space and time. Then through the most beautiful poetic phrases with deep wisdom and many encoded secrets, he describes how fixed relations to substructures are meaningless, how clinging to wisdom, riches, honor, etc. is meaningless. Yet at the very end of the book, something exceptional happens: instead of pain and despair, King Solomon reveals his tremendous loving strength in few words, giving hope. This phrase is repeated twice in the original Hebrew Bible, the second time presented as follows:
“The end of the matter, when all is said and done:
Be awed by God,
and his commandments
keep:
for that is
all what man is.”[/i]
(Ecclesiastes 12:13)
I took the liberty of translating the original Hebrew text as is, without the interpretation of the usual translation, which reads: “The end of the matter, when all is said and done: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for that is the whole duty of man.” Fear is the translation of YIR’A (יראה), which actually means “Awe”, not fear. YIR’A (יראה) comes from RE’E (ראה), which means “see.” When one sees the manifestations of God, then he feels awe, which can also include some fear, yet fear is not the main “Significance” of awe. Interpreting the text with a focus on fear instead of on awe creates an entirely different connotation emanating from a worldview that pictures a humanized, angry and vengeful God who will punish you if you don’t do what he says. YIR’A (יראה) means to be connected by seeing the exalted and the astounding, and by reacting to it with wonderment. This is the ineffable experience of merging the Immanent with the Transcendent, experiencing the inner language that is our essence.
Awe is Recognizing “Quality” in “Quantity”, which is our Means to be Connected to God and thereby to all of Creation.
The Hebrew text does not say that the whole duty of man is to do God’s commandments, but it states that doing God’s commandments is what man is. There is a huge difference between these two: if that was man’s duty, then man must be considered as something separate from God, and God - although more evolved - must be considered to be like a human - a humanized God. The inability to grasp an abstract God often ascribes human qualities to God, and even a human body. As Moses Ben Maimon (1135-1204), commonly referred to as Maimonides or RAMBAM, the leading Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages put it in his “The Guide of the Perplexed”:
“People think that the word TZELEM (image) in Hebrew refers to the outward shape and contours of a thing. This has been a cause of crass anthropomorphism because of the verse: Let us make man in Our image after Our likeness (Genesis 1:26). They think that God is the IMAGE of man, i.e. his shape and outline, and thus fall into unalloyed anthropomorphism, in which they firmly believe. It appears to them that by abandoning this belief they would deny Scripture, nay, the very existence of God would be called in question unless they imagine Him as a body with face and hands like themselves in shape and design, only - as they deem - bigger and brighter, and its substance not of flesh and blood. That is the highest degree of incorporeality they are prepared to grant to God… Since man is distinguished by a very remarkable function… because of this function, the divine intellect bestowed upon him, it is said of man that he is in the image and likeness of God, not because God is a body and therefore possesses a shape.”
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