In this part of the chapter, Shlomo HaMelech continues his profound soul-searching. After examining joy, wine, building, and acquisitions - he turns to examine wisdom itself: Is it the ultimate purpose? Does it offer any real advantage? The major question hovering over this entire passage is the question of the end: If both the wise man and the fool die and are buried, what did I truly gain from wisdom? Let us follow the sequence of the verses.
הֶחָכָם עֵינָיו בְּרֹאשׁוֹ וְהַכְּסִיל בַּחֹשֶׁךְ הוֹלֵךְ וְיָדַעְתִּי גַם אָנִי שֶׁמִּקְרֶה אֶחָד יִקְרֶה אֶת כֻּלָּם׃ - The wise man's eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness; and I also perceived that one fate befalls them all.
Ibn Ezra explains: "The wise man's eyes are in his head" - he walks in the light, contemplating every single step. "The fool walks in darkness" - he closes his eyes from seeing. And about this, Shlomo says: "And I also perceived that one fate befalls them all." In other words, do not think that I believed there was a true, ultimate advantage in pursuing wisdom over frivolity and folly. Notice: the wisdom discussed here, according to Ibn Ezra, refers to general wisdom - all the secular and natural sciences that Shlomo attained, not Torah and mitzvot.
After all, I knew that one fate befalls them all: both the person who becomes wise in worldly affairs and the fool who walks in frivolity - the exact same fate happens to both. If you were to say that the virtue of one who engages in wisdom, in the sciences, is superior to that of one who engages in frivolity and folly, they ought to have different outcomes, to be distinguished from one another in what happens to them afterward. Yet, I see that this is not so.
וְאָמַרְתִּי אֲנִי בְּלִבִּי כְּמִקְרֵה הַכְּסִיל גַּם אֲנִי יִקְרֵנִי וְלָמָּה חָכַמְתִּי אֲנִי אָז יֹתֵר וְדִבַּרְתִּי בְלִבִּי שֶׁגַּם זֶה הָבֶל׃ - And I said to myself, "As the fate of the fool will befall me too, why then have I become so much wiser?" And I said in my heart that this too is vanity.
Ibn Ezra continues: Here Shlomo clarifies his intent. When I saw the superiority of wisdom in worldly matters, I thought this was the ultimate purpose and the essential goal. But I asked myself: If wisdom is the purpose, why are the outcomes of the wise man and the fool identical? In the affairs of this world, there is no difference between them. If so, why have I become so much wiser? In the end, the fate of the wise man is the fate of the fool, so how did my wisdom benefit me?
And if you were to argue: At least temporarily, the wise man is sought after by everyone - he is a professor, a doctor, a university dean, and in his lifetime he has utility and an advantage over the fool. To this, Shlomo says: If this wisdom of the sciences is not eternal - "this too is vanity." And hevel, as explained from the beginning of the book, is like vapor that rises and dissipates, something that lacks permanence. If it has no lasting existence, what remains? Only here in this world were you called wise, only here were you a doctor or a professor - and it vanishes. Is there any difference between the professor and the marketplace vendor one moment after they are in the grave?
Sometimes the reverse is true: the marketplace vendor is often in a far better state, for at least he was a simple person with simple faith, even if he was not a tzaddik or strictly observant. Whereas the academic, with all his intellectual prowess, denied the fundamentals of faith - so what did his wisdom profit him? Indeed, we see with our own eyes that much evil emerges precisely from institutions of secular learning: notorious figures in Gaza emerged from Birzeit; and those individuals appealing to foreign universities demanding boycotts against the State of Israel - who are they? Doctors and professors from universities here, petitioning for an academic boycott against their own country. Often, then, one who gained secular wisdom ends up in a far worse state. Shlomo declares: What advantage is there in mastering secular wisdom over folly and frivolity, if it pertains only to the fleeting span of this world and leaves nothing lasting behind? It is utter vanity.
Rashi explains differently from the first approach: Shlomo is speaking here about the wisdom of Torah and the service of Hashem. According to this, Shlomo says: Since both of them die - the fate of the wicked will befall me as well. The physical end of the wicked and the righteous appears identical; everyone ultimately gathers at "the house appointed for all living." Whether one was a great sage, a devout tzaddik dedicated to serving Hashem without end, or a thoroughly wicked person - all are buried, all descend beneath ten tefachim. "And I said to myself, 'As the fate of the fool will befall me too, why then have I become so much wiser?'"
And immediately - "and I spoke in my heart that this too is vanity." We have already noted the distinction between "I said in my heart" and "I spoke in my heart": "I said in my heart" refers to something that is not true, whereas "I spoke in my heart" refers to the truth. That is to say: I said in my heart something untrue - that as the fate of the fool, so it will happen to me, that in the end everyone dies; but then I spoke the truth in my heart - that this thought too is vanity. And what is the vanity? The vanity is thinking that the same fate will befall both of them, for the remembrance of the wise man and the fool are not equal after death: the one is remembered for good, and the other is remembered for ill.
כִּי אֵין זִכְרוֹן לֶחָכָם עִם הַכְּסִיל לְעוֹלָם בְּשֶׁכְּבָר הַיָּמִים הַבָּאִים הַכֹּל נִשְׁכָּח וְאֵיךְ יָמוּת הֶחָכָם עִם הַכְּסִיל׃ - "For there is no remembrance of the wise man along with the fool forever, seeing that in the days to come all will have been forgotten; and how can the wise man die just like the fool!"
Why do you say, "As the fate of the fool, so it will happen even to me"? It is futile to say so. It is vanity to think their condition will be identical, for for eternity the difference between the wise man and the fool is fundamental. In this world, you are right - everyone walks the same path, everyone dies, and everyone is buried. But know that forever there is no remembrance of the wise man along with the fool: the wise man's memory is for a blessing and he has an eternity of eternities in the World of Truth, the World to Come, while the fool will die, his name will perish, and that is the end of the matter. Even if you do not see a difference here in this world, afterward and for eternity there is an enormous difference. The world does not end here, and if it does not end here, the fact that both die in this world means nothing at all.
Rav Saadia Gaon explains: "There is no remembrance of the wise man along with the fool" - they will never be remembered in the same likeness, for the former is remembered with praise, and the latter with disgrace. Even here in this world, they are not remembered identically: the righteous person is remembered for praise, and the fool and the wicked for disgrace - whenever his name is mentioned, he is cursed.
And in Pesikta Zutra it is stated: "There is no remembrance of the wise man along with the fool" - the Holy Spirit proclaims and says: Do not say, "As the fate of the fool, so it will happen even to me," for there is no remembrance of the wise man along with the fool forever. For the merit of Avraham Avinu endures forever, while Nimrod has perished and is gone. This is the Midrash we mentioned earlier, that each one said, "As the fate of the fool, so it will happen even to me": Avraham was great in his time and Nimrod was great in his time; Moshe was great in his time and Bilaam was great in his time. The Holy Spirit says: Do not be mistaken. Avraham's merit endures forever while Nimrod vanished and is gone; Yaakov's merit endures while Esav has no remembrance; Moshe's Torah endures forever in his name while Pharaoh went to everlasting contempt; David's merit endures forever, and Achitophel's memory has been forgotten.
"Seeing that in the days to come all will have been forgotten" - all the wickedness of the wicked is forgotten. And how can you say, "The wise man dies just like the fool"? Even though this one is called "Rebbi" and that one is called "Rebbi," when both enter one place - one is asked and he answers, while the other sits in silence. The end of the matter, when all has been heard: their memory is not equal; this one is remembered for a blessing, and that one, the fool, is remembered for a curse.
The Imrei Shefer continues along his line of interpretation, that the entire discussion here concerns natural sciences - people who are wise in general secular wisdoms. And concerning this, Shlomo says, "Why then was I more wise? And I spoke in my heart that this too is vanity" - there was no purpose in my having become wise, for my wisdom in general sciences gives me no real advantage over the rest, and in the end everyone dies. And if you argue: but we see a major difference, that one who is wise in natural sciences is remembered favorably while the fool is remembered disparagingly or not at all! To this Shlomo responds: know this, upon their death, everything is forgotten. Who today remembers the scholars from one thousand or two thousand years ago?
And if you say that some of them still remain, the Kol Efraim notes that we do indeed find remembrance for some sages of the nations - Aristotle, Plato, Newton. But these are the rare few. Were these the only thinkers throughout the generations? And not only are they few, but what actually remains of their wisdom? Their theories, which we now have scientific tools to evaluate, turn out to be nonsense in ninety percent of cases. True, they accomplished a great deal relative to the tools available to them: they did not have the Hubble Telescope; they looked through a tube with two lenses like a pirate, so what could they possibly see? But today, with spacecraft and advanced instrumentation that measures waves, light, and distances from distant stars, all their conclusions are completely primitive, and we know things entirely different from what they knew then.
So too with Darwin: he proposed a theory that generated such excitement in his time that nobody bothered to examine it properly. Yet after a few decades, not one stone was left upon another. One needs a feverish imagination to think that an entire, complex human being developed from a single living cell; today we know that a single cell's DNA is more complex than an entire city, and a human being possesses trillions of them. How could it cross anyone's mind that all of this created itself and evolved over time? Clearly, this is utter vanity. Likewise in psychology: Freud - almost nothing remains of his theory besides psychoanalysis. Every fifty years everything is overturned, because suddenly everything is understood in an entirely different way, and whatever was previously accepted turns out to be vanity.
And who today discusses medicine in terms of humors? Black bile, green bile, red bile, and if the green bile predominates, he will suffer this or that - all the books of the ancients approach medicine through the four humors and which of them gains dominance. Today, not a soul speaks in these terms; these are concepts born of complete incomprehension, for we have equipment that can see what is happening inside and understands things in a completely different way. If so, even if a scholar's name is remembered, his wisdom is no longer relevant, and I can apply only isolated fragments of it. "There is no remembrance of the wise man along with the fool forever, seeing that in the days to come all will have been forgotten."
Therefore, the Imrei Shefer explains, if the wise man truly possessed enduring superiority, it would have been fitting that he not die as the fool dies - yet we see that there is no difference between them. And the Kol Efraim adds: most of the reward that such a wise man anticipates is to leave a mark. Not only a sage - even a politician, who does not need to be especially wise, wants to leave a mark: to have people say he brokered a peace treaty. And even if the agreement is as full of holes as Swiss cheese and will bring thousands of casualties - it does not matter, as long as people remember that I won a Nobel Prize and that a municipal center is named after me. Are people really willing to send others as cannon fodder just for this? Such is the power of the desire to leave a mark. And about this Shlomo says: in the end, he has no remembrance of his name and no benefit from his name. All the wise men who lived throughout history have perished, and those still mentioned are few and far between. Furthermore, even if your name is remembered - what does Plato gain from people remembering his name today? What does Aristotle gain, while he is consumed by worms, from the fact that his name is remembered; what pleasure does it give him? Thus, I came to see that increasing general wisdom, the wisdom of nature, is not the ultimate purpose.
וְשָׂנֵאתִי אֶת הַחַיִּים כִּי רַע עָלַי הַמַּעֲשֶׂה שֶׁנַּעֲשָׂה תַּחַת הַשָּׁמֶשׁ כִּי הַכֹּל הֶבֶל וּרְעוּת רוּחַ׃ - So I hated life, for the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, because everything is futility and a vexation of the spirit.
Shlomo says: Now, having observed this, I hated life. Which life? The temporal life in which I was engaged, the pursuit of general wisdom into which I had invested my time. For I saw that the work done under the sun was distressing to me, as it became clear to me that everything is futility and vexation of the spirit - nothing will remain of it, it will grant me nothing, and ultimately, as the fool dies, so dies the wise man in all those disciplines. "Re'ut ruach" (vexation of the spirit) denotes brokenness of spirit, related to the word ra'ua (unstable or broken): not only does nothing come of it, but one is left with a broken spirit, to the point of depression.
וְשָׂנֵאתִי אֲנִי אֶת כָּל עֲמָלִי שֶׁאֲנִי עָמֵל תַּחַת הַשָּׁמֶשׁ שֶׁאַנִּיחֶנּוּ לָאָדָם שֶׁיִּהְיֶה אַחֲרָי׃ - And I hated all my toil for which I had toiled under the sun, which I must leave to the person who will succeed me.
Here Shlomo explains his words. I said, "I hated life" - for in this life, I am meant to acquire eternal life; in this world, I acquire the World to Come. Yet here I see that I toil in this life over matters that I will ultimately leave behind to the person who comes after me. Such a life is to be hated. A life in which you accumulate for eternity is a life to be loved, through which one will merit to bask in the light of life. But a life where everything you did, acquired, built, and created - all your toil under the sun - is left to someone who comes after you and receives it all on a silver platter, and who knows what he will do with these things?
וּמִי יוֹדֵעַ הֶחָכָם יִהְיֶה אוֹ סָכָל וְיִשְׁלַט בְּכָל עֲמָלִי שֶׁעָמַלְתִּי וְשֶׁחָכַמְתִּי תַּחַת הַשָּׁמֶשׁ גַּם זֶה הָבֶל׃ - And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will have dominion over all my toil in which I have toiled and acted wisely under the sun; this too is futility.
Who knows who will come after me and rule over all my toil? For all that Shlomo built, created, and accomplished through his tremendous wisdom all the days of his life - who will come and take control of it? The Imrei Shefer notes: There is no doubt that Shlomo performed supernatural feats through his vast wisdom. An example is the palace of Shlomo, and another is the throne he made, which possessed such astonishing ingenuity that people could not decipher its structure or the manner of its construction. This is comparable to a craftsman who fashioned a unique vessel and an exquisite golden fork, and another person - a senseless fool who did not understand what it was - came along and took that precious utensil to shovel garbage, thinking it was a pitchfork. Could such a thing be? It is a magnificent, invaluable item! But he was blind to it. In the same way, a fool might succeed me who will not appreciate anything I have done at all.
Yet "this too is futility" - the very thought itself is futile. For what does this thought argue? Who knows what will be done with this after my death. But ask yourself: Is that supposed to matter to you? Do you really believe that after you die, you will care what was done with what you left behind? Who drives the car, who lives in the apartment, who took the assets - will that interest you in the least?
There is a story told about Count Potocki, who, when taken to be burned at the stake in an auto-da-fé following his conversion to Judaism, walked with song and the recitation of Ani Ma'amin. The priests said to him: We know that today we mock you, but up above you will take revenge on us and laugh at us. He replied to them - see what clarity of mind he possessed in his final moments: Let me tell you something from my childhood. When I was a boy, I used to build sandcastles, magnificent palaces. And I had spiteful friends who enjoyed tormenting me - I was the count's son, and apparently seen as privileged - and they would come after I built them, stomping on and destroying everything I had labored to construct. And it pained me terribly. Rabbi Yisrael Salanter once observed that destroying a child's sandcastle causes the same depth of pain as sinking an aircraft carrier would cause an adult - precisely the same anguish, even though to an onlooker it seems like nothing.
The Count continued: I told myself back then that when I grew up and attained status and power, I would take revenge on them, show them what I was capable of, and make them all pay the price. And do you think that when I grew up, I even remembered the children who destroyed my sandcastles? Did it interest me at all? And do you suppose that when I am up there, beholding the Divine Presence after giving my life in Kiddush Hashem - the loftiest achievement to which a Jew can aspire - that I will care about some mindless priest who burned me? Is that what will occupy my mind up above?
This is precisely what Shlomo is saying: I thought to myself, all this anguish - for whom are you toiling here, what will they do with it, what will become of it? And I said: This too is futility. The very thought of what will happen to it afterward is a futile thought, for up there, you truly will not care what was done with all that you achieved or what became of all you left behind. The interest of the departed in what happens down here in this world is minimal at best: if he is wicked, he is far more preoccupied with his heavenly judgment than with what occurs down below, for he is standing trial there; and if he is righteous, he beholds the Divine Presence and dwells with the Holy One, Blessed be He - could he possibly care about the apartment down below or the real estate? Such matters simply do not concern him in the least.
Midrash Tehillim relates: Rabbi Meir was a lavlar, that is, a scribe, who wrote Sifrei Torah, Tefillin, and Mezuzot, toiling and earning three sela'im a week. With one sela he bought food and drink, with one sela clothing, and with the third sela he supported Torah scholars. His students said to him, "What will become of your children, since you are leaving them no inheritance? You ate with one sela, you clothed yourself with one sela - what will you leave for them?" He answered them, "If they are righteous, they will have sustenance from Hashem, blessed is He, as it is said, 'I was young, and now I am old, yet I have not seen a righteous person forsaken or his children begging for bread.'"
And this is what is stated here: "And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool, yet he will rule over all my labor." Why should I leave wealth behind? If I leave it, who knows whether the one who comes after me will be wise or a fool, and rule over all my labor - perhaps with the money I leave, he will commit sins! I know what I do with my money: for mitzvot, for spiritual merit, for Torah study - which is wonderful. But the one who comes after me, who knows? And if you say, "Yet one must leave something for him so that he has what he needs" - if he is worthy, he will have; and if he is not worthy, he will not have.
Just as we find with Akavya ben Mahalalel, who was placed under a ban on account of four rulings. The Mishnah in Eduyot relates that he instructed his son to retract those four matters, and in the end the son asked him, "Father, perhaps you could recommend me to your colleagues so that they draw me close, so that they will be willing to accept me?" He said to him, "Your own deeds will bring you close, and your own deeds will keep you away." The Ya'avetz explains that he told him: On the contrary, I do not want to recommend you, for if I recommend you, they might draw you close even if you are not worthy, and I do not want that. Rather, if your deeds are not good, let them cause you to be distanced, and through that you will improve your ways. In other words, I want your own deeds to be the measure of your standing. And this is what is said here: Why should I leave money behind? If he is worthy, he will already have it on his own merits and Heaven will provide for him; and if not, let him do teshuvah and draw close to Hashem, and then they will provide for him. And if he does not, then on the contrary, I prefer that they do not give it to him. But to leave him wealth when I do not know what he will do with it - that I do not want.
וְסַבּוֹתִי אֲנִי לְיָאֵשׁ אֶת לִבִּי עַל כָּל הֶעָמָל שֶׁעָמַלְתִּי תַּחַת הַשָּׁמֶשׁ׃ - And I turned about to cause my heart to despair concerning all the labor that I had labored under the sun.
When a person ponders, as in the previous verse, who it is that will control the fruits of his labor, this thought plunges him into deep despair. A person who labored over his palace for thirteen years, who built the Beit HaMikdash, whose throne was unique in all the world, to say nothing of all the immense treasures and the splendid glory of his majesty - if he contemplates what will become of all this after his death, he will immediately fall into great sadness and depression. Shlomo says: How did I cope with this? "And I turned about to cause my heart to despair."
This may be compared to a parable: A person had something precious stolen or lost. As long as he remains immersed in his grief and all his thoughts are consumed by that loss, he sinks deeper and deeper into melancholy. But if he tells himself, even though the item was precious to him and he worked hard for it: "That is it, it is over; it is no longer mine, I was not destined to have it, it was decreed from Heaven that it be taken from me, and as far as I am concerned it is history; I will dwell on it no longer." It is not easy to do this, but whoever makes this mental shift will find it far easier from that moment on to cope with whatever comes his way, because he no longer views the item as a loss that pains him at every moment, but as something whose departure he has accepted, and which for him no longer exists.
This is what Shlomo says: "And I turned about" - I turned my heart in the opposite direction. At first, my heart ached: Who will be the one to rule over my achievements, a wise man or a fool? Who will rule over all that I labored and acted wisely under the sun? But then I turned my heart the other way, "to cause my heart to despair concerning all the labor." From the very start I told myself: Whatever becomes of it, let it be; I have given up hope on it, like a person who lost an item and experienced ye'ush (relinquished all claim). And then at least the pain will not continue to encompass me, for I have already given up on all my labor, and whoever takes it, takes it.
כִּי יֵשׁ אָדָם שֶׁעֲמָלוֹ בְּחָכְמָה וּבְדַעַת וּבְכִשְׁרוֹן וּלְאָדָם שֶׁלֹּא עָמַל בּוֹ יִתְּנֶנּוּ חֶלְקוֹ גַּם זֶה הֶבֶל וְרָעָה רַבָּה׃ - For there is a man whose labor is with wisdom, with knowledge, and with skill, yet to a man who did not labor for it he must give it as his portion; this too is futility and a great evil.
It would be one thing if it were a person of whom it is said, "He who amasses wealth unjustly will leave it in the midst of his days" - if he conducted all his business through fraud and shady maneuvers and ultimately lost everything, you would say: Fair enough, he deserves it; from the outset he was not entitled to that profit, and in the end the loss is well deserved. But here we are speaking of a person whose labor was conducted with wisdom, with knowledge, and with skill, who toiled personally with all of these - and in the end, who receives it? "Yet to a man who did not labor for it he must give it as his portion." The Imrei Shefer observes: It is over this that the heart aches most of all, that I am handing over my very own portion; not something of which you can say, "You did not deserve it, you obtained it dishonestly and therefore lost it," but his rightful portion. And if a person meditates on this, he will arrive at immense heartbreak. Therefore Shlomo says: This is what brings me to cause my heart to despair - it is better for me not to invest my thoughts in this, for if I continue to brood and dwell on these thoughts, they will provoke me, pain me, and grieve my heart unto depression. Therefore, "This too is futility and a great evil," and I banish this matter from my mind entirely.
The holy Alshich explains this verse in a very fascinating way, based on the reality of reincarnation (gilgul) - a subject explored extensively in dedicated works. The doctrine of gilgulim deals at length with the fact that a person is not in this world for the first time, and it is very possible that the first, second, and third bodies will not rise at the Resurrection of the Dead, and only the final body - after a hundred, two hundred, or a thousand years - will be the one to rise. There is a major dispute concerning this, and the question of who actually rises at Techiyat HaMeitim is discussed at length in the relevant works. It is universally agreed that someone who committed a sin with his body for which there is no resurrection, such as lending with interest, will certainly not rise. But if he did not commit such a sin with his body, the tradition from the Arizal teaches that each body will rise with the portion of rectification (tikkun) it achieved - for the soul is divided into many sparks, and each body rises with its share. The Vilna Gaon, however, held otherwise: only the final body, which completed the rectification, will ultimately rise.
And over this, says the Alshich, Shlomo laments: "There is a person whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill" - yet who will ultimately receive all that he labored for during his life to add rectification? "Yet to a person who did not labor for it, he must give his portion" - the one who finally completes the rectification, who did not toil in all those earlier mitzvot, is the one who will receive it. The soul will return to that final body, and that body will receive the portion of all the preceding ones. This follows the Vilna Gaon's principle that only the final body rises; or alternatively, in a case where there were reasons why an earlier body could not rise at Techiyat HaMeitim, and the soul underwent successive refinement again and again, so that the later bodies will rise while the earlier ones will not for specific reasons - the result is that the earlier ones toiled, labored, and exerted themselves for someone else.
And what is the meaning of "This too is vanity"? For who is a person, in truth? The soul. To say, "I did not receive it; he received it" - what is "I" and what is "he"? Both are you; both are the very same soul, and the essence of man is the soul. Therefore, the very thought that someone else received it is itself vanity - a futile thought. Yet from a superficial perspective, there is indeed "a great evil" in its own right: a person exerted himself in this specific body, yet ultimately this body will not rise at the Resurrection.
The Me'am Lo'ez cites in the name of the Kehilot Yaakov an explanation based on the Chovot HaLevavot, which has been mentioned several times: a person who speaks lashon hara about someone else transfers some of his own mitzvot to that person. Not necessarily all of them - there are slightly conflicting formulations regarding this, and the more widely accepted view is that he transfers a portion of his mitzvot to the one he spoke about. Concurrently, from the person spoken about, the speaker takes on a portion of that person's sins. It is written that when a person ascends to the Heavenly Court, he will stand bewildered: "I never performed these mitzvot, nor did I commit these sins!" They will reply to him: "Indeed, you did not perform these mitzvot - people spoke lashon hara about you, and these are their merits; and as for these sins - you spoke lashon hara about others, and these are now your sins." He will search for his own mitzvot and find them gone, because he spoke lashon hara and forfeited his merits.
This is why the verse states: "This shall be the law (torat) of the metzora on the day of his purification." The question is asked: Why does it say "the Torah of the metzora"? It should have said "the purification of the metzora"! Rather, a metzora is a motzi ra - one who produces evil speech, who spoke lashon hara. And what did he actually do? He transferred all the Torah he had studied until then to the person he spoke about. Thus the verse tells us: When he repents, on the day of his purification, "this shall be the Torah of the metzora" - the Torah he learned will return to him. Everything you transferred through your evil speech will return to you on the day of your purification.
Based on this, one can understand King David's lament: "Those who sit at the gate talk about me, and I am the song of drunkards." David laments: Who is talking about me? The lowliest people, patrons of taverns and drinking houses. One might wonder: Who did you want to speak about you, the greatest of the generation? Surely it is better that base people speak about you, whose words carry no weight! But David explains: If a great person had spoken about me, at least I would have gained something from it - I would have received his merits. But drunkards, people who possess no merits at all - what did I gain when they spoke lashon hara about me? I received not a single merit.
According to this principle, the verse is explained: "There is a person whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill - yet to a person who did not labor for it, he must give his portion." To a person who never exerted himself in all this, but about whom you spoke lashon hara, you surrender your portion. Is this not a great evil? Is it not an immense loss that you toiled and labored so hard, only to hand everything over to someone else? And it has already been noted from the book Maggid Meisharim that the Maggid angel told the author of the Beit Yosef: Know that what is written in Chovot HaLevavot regarding the transfer of merits and sins is literally true in Heaven. Do not imagine this is mere stringency or exaggeration meant to frighten a person; this is precisely how the Holy One, blessed be He, calculates a person's standing and merits.
The Me'am Lo'ez brings another explanation in the name of the Divrei Chefetz, addressing a topic discussed extensively on several occasions throughout history, as also noted in Mishnat HaChalomot: people who sold their merits, who sold their Share in the World to Come, or who sold their Torah. The halachic authorities deliberate whether such a sale is legally valid and whether it creates a reality in Heaven. Several accounts exist of people who sold their World to Come, some of which even led to a Beit Din case over whether the sale took effect, and the conclusion is that indeed it does - such is the reality in Heaven. There is even a recorded case where the deceased came to litigate before a Beit Din here on earth, a remarkable account that needs not be detailed here.
In any event, the halachic authorities write: "Let the buyer not rejoice, and let the seller mourn." That is, the seller certainly has reason to mourn, while the buyer should not rush to rejoice. For transferring merits in this world is simply not feasible; there is no such proprietary ownership that allows one to say, "Take this merit, I give it to you." That is something Heaven can do, but here it is not negotiable currency, and one cannot trade in spiritual merits. What does happen? The very fact that one said, "I sell you my merits" - what did he demonstrate by that? How cheap the World to Come is in his eyes, how utterly worthless it seems to him! And one who holds his mitzvot and good deeds in such low regard is considered like one who regrets his previous good deeds (toheh al harishonot), viewing everything as worthless vanity, and by that very mindset he has already lost his reward. The buyer may not have acquired anything, for how can spiritual merits be bought and transferred with money? But the seller has certainly lost them.
Likewise, there is a halachah in Yoreh De'ah cited in the name of Rabbeinu Yerucham: a person engaged in Torah study can stipulate before learning that he will share a portion of his study with another; but once he has already learned, it can no longer be taken and transferred. If so, this is what the verse means: "There is a person whose labor is with wisdom, knowledge, and skill, yet to a person who did not labor for it, he must give his portion" - he sells his portion, his Torah, to someone who never labored in it. And do you think this is effective? Regarding this, the verse states: "This too is vanity and a great evil." "Vanity" applies to the buyer: What did you buy? Vanity, emptiness, nothing at all. And what about the seller - did he at least keep his merchandise? No: it is "a great evil." He brought a great evil upon himself, for Heaven no longer credits him with that merit, and the merchandise is lost to him as well. Thus the buyer is left with vanity, and the seller is left with a great evil, having degraded his Torah so that he is no longer worthy of reward for it.
In this section, King Solomon examines wisdom itself. According to the Ibn Ezra, this refers to general wisdom, in which there is no enduring advantage: "one fate befalls them all," and whatever remains of it is eventually forgotten or proven mistaken, and even the desire to leave a lasting mark is futility. According to Rashi, the question is raised even regarding the wisdom of the Torah, and to this the answer is: "For there is no remembrance of the wise man along with the fool forever" - in this world their physical end is the same, but for eternity the difference is fundamental: the merit of Avraham stands forever, while Nimrod fades into oblivion. From there, Solomon moves on to the pain of toil left behind to others, teaching two lessons: that the very thought of "what will happen to this after me" is futility, since over there it will truly not matter to you; and that in order not to sink into sorrow, one must "cause the heart to despair," diverting one's mind from the loss and coming to terms with it. Echoing through all of this is one fundamental principle: what is truly valuable is eternity - Torah, mitzvot, and spiritual merits. Therefore, one must guard them and cherish them, being careful not to forfeit them through lashon hara or treat them lightly, for everything else is vanity and pursuit of wind.