Chapter 3 of Kohelet opens with the appointed times and cycles established by the Holy One, blessed be He, in His world, and reaches its peak in a verse that forms one of the foundational pillars of Jewish thought: recognizing the perfection of the Creator's handiwork, and the ultimate purpose for which the world was created - the fear of Heaven. In this lesson, we will delve into this single verse and explore several perspectives: the words of the Zohar, Rashi, Ibn Ezra, the Sages in the Gemara and Midrash, the Malbim's insights in his work Eretz Chemdah, the Sefer HaIkkarim, and the Kol Ephraim.
יָדַעְתִּי כִּי כׇּל אֲשֶׁר יַעֲשֶׂה הָאֱלֹהִים הוּא יִהְיֶה לְעוֹלָם עָלָיו אֵין לְהוֹסִיף וּמִמֶּנּוּ אֵין לִגְרֹעַ וְהָאֱלֹהִים עָשָׂה שֶׁיִּרְאוּ מִלְּפָנָיו׃ (ג, יד) - I know that whatever God does shall endure forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; and God has acted so that people will fear before Him. (3:14)
The Zohar in Parashat Pinchas explains: When a human craftsman creates a piece of work, he looks at the model he needs to copy or produce, examines it repeatedly, and then crafts it. Afterward, he inspects it again - here something must be added, here something removed, here polished, here adjusted - until it turns out exactly as he desires. But with the Holy One, blessed be He, it is not so: "Whatever God does shall endure forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it." With Him, blessed be He, there is no "prototype" that is subsequently corrected; there is no scenario in which Hashem sees that something did not turn out well and carries out a renovation. There are no revisions. The Holy One, blessed be He, performs His deeds through eternal creations, and just as He made them, so they remain forever. And this is what is stated: "And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good" - everything is in the category of "very good," not things that later require fixes and alterations.
Rashi explains: Everything that the Holy One, blessed be He, made during the Creation is meant to endure forever and must not be altered, neither by addition nor by subtraction. And if you nevertheless see that things have changed over time - know that it was Hashem who commanded them to change, which is the meaning of the verse's continuation: "and God has acted so that people will fear before Him." The change is intended to instill awe in the creations.
Rashi provides examples. The Holy One, blessed be He, placed boundaries upon the sea and set sand as its border so that it would not breach its bounds; and if you see that the ocean breached its boundary in the generation of Enosh and flooded a third of the world - perhaps the first tsunami in history, a tsunami that devastated a third of the world - know that "God has acted so that people will fear before Him." Likewise, for seven days the movement of the sun was altered in the generation of the Flood, rising in the west and setting in the east. And why? So they would realize that an unnatural change was taking place and repent. Similarly, the sun retreated ten degrees in the days of Hezekiah, who requested this as a sign that he would recover; and conversely, in the days of Ahaz, when on the day of his death the sun set prematurely and lengthened the night, so that he would not be eulogized properly and would not receive great honor from Heaven. All of these occurrences were "so that people will fear before Him."
Thus we find that the ultimate purpose is the fear of Hashem. The Holy One, blessed be He, made everything in a permanent, fixed order, and if you witness anomalies in nature - they are intended to instill awe, to revere Hashem, and to teach you that this is the ultimate purpose of man.
Ibn Ezra explains: Everything Hashem does is eternal, and therefore "the formed creature cannot" - meaning man, who is himself a created being - add to His handiwork or detract from it. And what does this come to teach? "That people will fear before Him." For if scientists were capable of creating a single blood cell, the leg of a fly, or the wing of a mosquito, what a sense of self-importance would fill their hearts! Yet what do they actually do? They take Dolly the sheep and clone her. The Chinese are also experts at cloning and copying. But is it any great wisdom to take an existing entity and replicate it? Creation ex nihilo - something from nothing - are you capable of creating anything? You cannot create a thing.
You cannot change the nature of human existence. You cannot decide that starting tomorrow a person will function without a heart. Nothing can be subtracted, and nothing can be added. The reality of human design is like closed-source software that cannot be modified. At most, one can make minor modifications in crops, combining the color of one with the flavor of another to produce a hybrid - but to create an entirely new fruit that never existed in the world, no human being is capable. And all of this is "so that people will fear before Him": so that you understand you are a created being, that you cannot tamper with creation, that Hashem created His world and you are here merely as one of His servants - for you have no power to change anything.
The Gemara in Berachot 55a asks: What is the meaning of "and God has made it so that they fear Him"? Rav Chisda said: A bad dream is harder than lashes. What is the reason? "And God has made it so that they fear Him" - in order to bring man to a state of awe and fear. And when Heaven wishes to ease someone's mind and shows him good dreams, sometimes this is to his detriment. The Gemara says that Doeg and Achitophel never experienced a bad dream in their lives, whereas King David never experienced a good dream in his life.
It is explained in Mishnat HaChalomot that the concept is as follows: when misfortune was due to King David, they did not wish to bring actual harm upon him; instead, they brought it upon him in a dream. As the Gemara expresses it: "his fear is sufficient for him" - the terror of the dream suffices for him, and with that he has fulfilled his obligation. In contrast, with Doeg and Achitophel, when Heaven wished to bestow good upon them, they gave them that good in a dream, saying to them: you have already received your good in a dream, that is enough for you, and thereby they would not need to bestow further good upon them from Heaven. Another explanation is that giving a person good in a dream is considered a form of reward, whereas David was given his punishment in a dream, which is a form of fear, in order to preserve his reward intact for the World to Come.
They also said there: Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said, what is the meaning of "and God has made it so that they fear Him"? Thunder was created only to straighten out the crookedness of the heart. A person hears a clap of thunder and his heart drops within him; such a terrifying blast that sometimes the whole house and all the windows shake. Thunder is meant to grant a person insight into the mighty power of the Creator of the universe, and through this, something in the crookedness of the heart is straightened out.
Rabbi Yehuda said in Shabbat 31b: The Holy One, Blessed be He, created His world only so that they would fear Him, as it is stated, "and God has made it so that they fear Him." The entire purpose of creation - "everyone who is called by My name, and whom I have created for My glory, I have formed him, yea, I have made him" - is for man to have fear of Hashem, and through this merit the life of the World to Come.
And in Midrash Rabbah: Rabbi Yehuda bar Rabbi Simon said, Adam HaRishon was worthy of living and enduring forever, so why was death decreed upon him? Because "God has made it so that they fear Him." Death was decreed so that man would live with a sense of awe - I am destined to leave here at some point - and through this, he will serve Hashem.
And further in the Midrash: Rabbi Elazar said, from the beginning of the creation of the world it was said, "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together," and why all this? So that the dry land might appear. Why, then, is it written twice, "He who calls for the waters of the sea, and pours them out upon the face of the earth, Hashem is His name" - once in the generation of the Flood and once in the generation of the Dispersion? That is to say: if Hashem desired from the outset that the dry land appear, why do we see twice that He wiped out the dry land with water? Rather, it is because "God has made it so that they fear Him," similar to what Rashi cited: the changes that Hashem brings about in creation are designed to lead man to fear Him. Regarding this, Rabbi Yudan says: Great is fear, for heaven and earth were created only for the sake of fear - why was the entire world created? So that they fear Him.
We do not possess an organized commentary on Kohelet from the Malbim, but he explains several verses from Kohelet in his work Eretz Chemdah, and he addresses our verse twice: at the end of the book and in his discourse for the festival of Shavuot.
The Malbim explains: every product reflects its producer. The result resembles the one who brought it about: when the agent is flawed, the result is flawed, and when the agent is perfect, the result is perfect. If so, when the agent is immutable and changeless, the result ought to be eternal and immutable as well, for change indicates a lack: why does change occur? Because something was found lacking. The works of Hashem are not flawed such that we could say something deteriorated there; Hashem is eternal, and His works, correspondingly, must be eternal.
And this is the question that Shlomo raises here: "I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it" - and if so, how is it that we see this is not the case in our world? We see that things change, that reality does not endure perpetually, and that there are alterations in nature and creation.
The answer is: if the Perfect Artisan creates something for its own sake, where it should be neither lacking nor superfluous, He indeed makes it with absolute perfection without any change. But if the object is merely a preparation for something else, it is often precisely its defect that constitutes its perfection. Just as a certain philosopher asked that sage: If the Holy One, blessed be He, wants human beings to be circumcised, and the foreskin is detestable in His eyes, why did He not create man circumcised? If You want him complete, create him complete! Does the Holy One, blessed be He, create defective things? The answer is: that is precisely the point. The Holy One, blessed be He, wanted man to perfect himself, and for this reason He created the thing lacking - so that you would complete it. Hashem wanted to create room for our labor, for us to act and achieve. Thus, the defect does not indicate a flaw; on the contrary, the perfection of the thing lies in it being created deficient so that you might perfect it.
To what may this be compared? To a father who bought his son a 150-piece building set, a special space vehicle whose pieces must be assembled. The child opens the box and finds that the toy has already been assembled. "Father, return this to the store! Why did you bring me this?" "I am giving you a building set so that you will build it - that is the entire challenge." So too, Hashem created man lacking so that he would perfect himself.
If so, there is no expression of an artisan's defect here, Heaven forbid; on the contrary, the perfection of the thing is that it be lacking so that man may complete it. This is man's ultimate purpose in the world, and this is "God has made it so that they fear before Him." By being required to complete the work of creation - for Hashem could have created ready-baked loaves, whole bread, and so on - Hashem rather desires that man act and complete all that exists here in creation. Man possesses free will, through which he can attain fear of Hashem. For if everything were complete and we did not need to do anything, and everything were already just as it should be - where would our personal self-perfection lie, in rectifying our character traits, drawing closer to Him, blessed be He, trusting in Him, and serving Him? Everything would happen on its own. Therefore, Hashem created man in advance with deficiencies, so that his task would be to bring to completion everything he does here in the world.
In his discourse for the festival of Shavuot, the Malbim explains the verse in a simpler manner. It is well known that the creation of the world ex nihilo (yesh me'ayin) occurred only during the six days of Creation. Once the Holy One, blessed be He, completed the work of the six days, He willed that everything subsequently occurring in creation would not be ex nihilo, but rather one thing from another, substance from substance (yesh miyesh). After Hashem created the primary foundations of all things, from then on He forms new things out of existing matter.
And concerning this it is said, "Because on it He rested from all His work which God created to make." There is a difference between creation (beriah) and formation and making (yetzirah and asiyah): "Which He created" - from this came the resting, from the creation that is ex nihilo. But "to make" - from then on there is the potential to make, to make something out of what already exists. That is the difference between creation and making.
And this is what Chazal said: The Holy One, blessed be He, made a condition with the sea during the six days of Creation that it would split for the Jewish people when the time came for the splitting of the Red Sea. Why was a condition necessary? Because one must not attribute any new creation to the Holy One, blessed be He, after the six days of Creation. And if you see here a new creation of a split sea - know that it is not new, but was already established in advance.
And out of necessity, says the Malbim, if we were to say that there are new creations, this would point to a defect in the artisan. For only a human being, when he makes something and sees that the plan was not successful, makes corrections; but with the Holy One, blessed be He, there are no corrections, because He is the Perfect Artisan and operates in all things with utter perfection. Therefore, anything you see now that appears to be a change in nature initiated right now - do not think it began now. Know that already during the six days of Creation, the Holy One, blessed be He, designed this phenomenon; for otherwise, you would be forced to say there was a defect in His action, blessed be He, as He would now need to create something new that did not exist beforehand - an opening for the earth's mouth, or the reality of water splitting apart.
And this is the plain meaning of the verse: "I know that whatever God does" - during the six days of Creation - "it shall endure forever." It is impossible that Hashem would make something that would not endure forever, for that would indicate a defect in His action. "Nothing can be added to it" - it is impossible for anything to be added, for in saying so, you would imply that Hashem's earlier work was lacking. "Nor anything taken from it" - for if there were a need to subtract, it would imply that there was too much in the work. And if we were to say there is creation ex nihilo after the original Creation, we would necessarily cast a deficiency upon the original Creation. Therefore, from then on, Hashem only forms and makes one thing from another, in the category of formation and making, and not in the category of creation.
Sefer Ha-Ikkarim explains "I know": Shlomo says, after having examined all the matters of this world - and we have already seen his view that all is vanity - I have come to know a fundamental and essential principle regarding reward and punishment. "Whatever God does," in the future tense - the good reward for the righteous and the punishment for the wicked - this is the true recompense. And why? "Because it shall endure forever." By contrast, whatever is here in this world is not true recompense, because it does not endure forever. Only the eternal reward in the World to Come is worthy of being called reward, for nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it.
For with regard to any reward or punishment in this world, it is possible to add to it or subtract from it. For example: a wealthy man who was decreed to lose wealth - someone can come along and give him a gift, and temporarily he will have an increase in wealth. Thus, even though Hashem decreed a loss upon him, another person came and added to him. And vice versa: a righteous person was decreed good and Hashem multiplied his wealth, but a wicked person came and robbed him temporarily, contrary to the Creator's will, because man has free will to do good or cause harm.
These matters apply only according to the view that an agent of free will has the power to harm or benefit someone for whom it was not decreed from Heaven. We have already mentioned that there is a major dispute about this among the early authorities; our accepted tradition follows the view of the Vilna Gaon that one cannot, but many prominent Rishonim held that one can, and Rav Friedlander elaborates at length on this topic. In any event, according to that view, it follows that reward and punishment in this world are subject to change - this is not the true, eternal reward.
Regarding this, Shlomo says: "I know that whatever God does" - there, in the Future to Come, the true reward; "it shall endure forever," for there it is eternal without changes; "nothing can be added to it and nothing taken away from it," for no one can add to it or subtract from it. If so, why is there reward and punishment in this world at all - "I will grant your rains in their season," and conversely when people rebel against the word of Hashem? To this he concludes: "God has done it so that they will fear before Him" - so that man will understand that there is justice and there is a Judge and rectify his ways, not as the place for receiving retribution. The place for receiving retribution is exclusively in the World to Come, where alone there is no change.
And the way to perceive this is through contemplation: one can examine and see that throughout history nothing remains of the wicked, while of those who walk in the path of Hashem - "And you who cleave to the Lord your God are alive, all of you, today." Whoever takes stock - "Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations" - will perceive the reality of reward and punishment throughout history, and this will lead him to the service of Hashem.
Notice, however, that even reward and punishment in this world are not immediate. The righteous person who does good does not receive his reward immediately, and the wicked person does not receive his punishment immediately; you see the wicked person prolonged in his wickedness and the righteous prolonged in his suffering, and thus free will is preserved. Yet one who observes across the span of history sees that ultimately it is always well with the righteous and ill with the wicked. Kayin, who did evil, was wiped out; Hevel, who did good, was reincarnated in Sheis and the entire world descended from him, even though for the moment it seemed that he lost out and died. Haran, whose heart was divided, was burned - and would you say he lost out? From Haran descended the Matriarchs of the House of Israel - Sarah, Rivkah, Rachel, and Leah - and from Lot comes Melech HaMashiach. Ultimately, the one who does good receives good, but in the immediate term it appears that he lost out, and anyone standing on the sidelines says: "Look, he said, 'I trust in Hashem,' yet he was burned." In the immediate term there are major difficulties, but whoever waits can see the reality of reward and punishment even here in this world.
אֶת הַכֹּל עָשָׂה יָפֶה בְעִתּוֹ גַּם אֶת הָעֹלָם נָתַן בְּלִבָּם מִבְּלִי אֲשֶׁר לֹא יִמְצָא הָאָדָם אֶת הַמַּעֲשֶׂה אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה הָאֱלֹהִים מֵרֹאשׁ וְעַד סוֹף׃ (ג, יא) - He has made everything beautiful in its time; He has also put the world in their heart, so that man cannot find out the work that God has made from the beginning to the end (3:11).
The Kol Ephraim explains that Shlomo HaMelech is describing here how the Holy One, blessed be He, demonstrates to us through miracles that He alters nature, yet all within the framework of "there is nothing new under the sun." As we mentioned regarding the splitting of the Red Sea and the earth swallowing Korach, this is not a new creation; rather, it was all already created during the Six Days of Creation.
He adds that the entire error of the scientists who believe in the antiquity of the universe is answered here by Shlomo HaMelech. Where does their error stem from? From the fact that they take physical objects and test them - for example, with radiation detectors or carbon-14 dating, where the amount of carbon changes from year to year, and based on this they attempt to determine how long the object has existed. From this they arrive at erroneous calculations of millions and billions of years.
There is the story of a student who went on a class field trip to the stalactite cave and told the teacher with great confidence: "Does the teacher see this stalactite? It has existed for five million years, three months, and twenty-two days." The teacher asked him: "From where does such amazing precision come?" He replied: "Three months and twenty-two days ago I was here with my family, and the guide said that the stalactite is five million years old..." It is a wonder he did not add another four hours. How ridiculous it is to count and calculate and imagine that these are precise figures. And if only scientists at least arrived at a consensus - but one speaks of millions, another of billions, a third of tens of millions; each interprets according to his own fancy, each with a different theory.
Yet the root of the error runs deeper: the Holy One, blessed be He, did not create the universe as a world that had just begun, but as an already mature, fully formed world. For example, one of the ways they measure is by the expansion of the stars: the universe continues to expand, and the stars appear as though they emerged from a single point and are moving farther away, and based on the distance and speed they calculate millions of years. But who told you that they set out from that point at the time of creation? When Hashem created the universe, He created them already in mid-flight.
The same applies to man: had a scientist arrived on the day of Adam's creation and examined him, he would have concluded that this person had been alive for at least twenty years - yet he was created that very morning! What did he fail to take into account? That Hashem created Adam HaRishon fully formed, not from an initial drop. Similarly, if one were to examine a tree and count its rings to determine its age - yet it was created today or two or three days ago. It is an error to assume that what you see now developed from scratch; it was created in a mature state, and if it was created in a mature state, why begin counting how much time has passed over it?
Regarding this, Shlomo says: "He has made everything beautiful in its time" - already from the very first moment Hashem created His world, He made everything beautiful, in accordance with the words of Chazal that the entire world was created in its full stature and maturity. It was not created from scratch: when He created an ox, He created a fully grown ox; when He created man, He created a fully formed man, not from an initial drop. From the very first moment, Hashem made everything in its beauty and perfection, and everything appeared as a mature world functioning in its natural order - "nothing can be added to it and nothing taken away from it," everything established without change or alteration.
And why indeed did Hashem not provide signs of an ex nihilo creation, signs and wonders from which one could deduce through nature that at a specific moment everything began? This is "so that man cannot find out the work that God has done": if the hand of Hashem were clearly evident in creation, there would be no room for free choice. If it were clear to everyone and they saw the fingerprints of the Creator of the world - after all, they would see the Holy One, blessed be He, and where would free choice be? The entire concept of free choice lies in the fact that a person can walk through the world and say: I see nothing; everything has always existed; where is the Creator of the world? And because he does not see Him - there is room for free choice.
And this is what Shlomo says: "I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it." And if you wish to know why Hashem created the world in this reality, where everything was already created in its full form and stature and appears ancient - "and God has done it, that men should fear before Him." The fear of Hashem is His treasure, and if the reality of Hashem were obvious from nature, man would be compelled to fear Him - and this Hashem does not want. Hashem wants that awe to come from within themselves.
This went so far that there were those who thought the world was eternal, in the sense that it never had a beginning. But today, no scientist holds this view. We see that slowly but surely, scientists are gaining sense, so there is no reason to despair. Once they claimed the world had existed forever and had no beginning; today no scientist would say that. Once they said the world formed gradually; today even Stephen Hawking updated his models and held that the universe came into being in a single moment, not gradually. Slowly but surely, they will also discover the Creator of the world; one must give them time, as they process slowly. What we have known for five thousand years, they too will eventually understand.
Therefore, there is no need to be alarmed or fear any opinions of heretics. Even if you hear difficult questions and refutations - do not be alarmed. We have already traversed many questions throughout history, and our truth is an absolute truth. Slowly, they will discover it and say: Behold, we have found it - and we will say: This we have known since the creation of the world; what you have just discovered, we have known all along.
"I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever" - the deeds of the Holy One, blessed be He, are complete and eternal; there are no corrections or renovations in them, and it is not within man's power to add to them or subtract from them. The Zohar teaches that with Him, blessed be He, there is no prototype that requires improvement; Rashi teaches that every change seen in nature was preordained from the outset to instill awe; the Ibn Ezra teaches that our inability to alter anything is itself evidence prompting fear of Him; Chazal taught that bad dreams, thunder, and death were intended to straighten the crookedness of the heart, and that the entire world was created only that men should fear before Him. The Malbim added that the very deficiency in creation is its perfection, so that man would have room to complete and act, and that since the six days of Creation there is no ex nihilo creation, but only something emerging from something else. The Sefer HaIkkarim taught that true reward is eternal and not found here, and the reward and punishment in this world exist solely so that they may fear before Him. And the Kol Ephraim showed that the world was created in its full form and stature, and the hand of Hashem is concealed in order to preserve free choice. Everything returns to a single point: the ultimate purpose of all creation is fear of Heaven.