In the verses before us, Kohelet continues along the path with which he opened the chapter - the superiority of the house of mourning over the house of feasting, the superiority of the rebuke of a wise man over the song of fools - and arrives at a verse in which he reveals just how fragile human judgment is: how oppression on the one hand and a gift on the other are capable of unbalancing even a wise man and depriving him of sound judgment. We will follow the order of the verses, cite the words of the Midrashim and commentators, and see how the verse that follows is itself the answer to the entire question.
כִּי הָעֹשֶׁק יְהוֹלֵל חָכָם וִיאַבֵּד אֶת לֵב מַתָּנָה׃ (ז) - "For oppression confounds a wise man, and a gift destroys the heart" (7).
The Midrash expounds: "For oppression confounds a wise man" - this refers to oppression where a student oppresses his teacher, causing his own wisdom to be lost from him. And who is considered his teacher? Anyone who taught him Mishna and Talmud. The student wrongs his teacher, and the consequence is the loss of wisdom.
The Midrash further states: The distress and oppression that Datan and Aviram caused Moshe caused their own wisdom to be lost. And regarding "and destroys the heart of a gift [matanah]," Rabbi Evyatar said: matanah is related to matun (patience and composure). Had Moshe remained patient, he would have been spared. But they provoked and aggravated him, saying to him: "May the Lord look upon you and judge" - for having made our odor abhorrent in Pharaoh's eyes, "There is no straw given to your servants, yet they say to us, 'Make bricks!'" These were those two notorious scoffers, Datan and Aviram.
And what did this cause? Moshe became distressed, and out of that distress he approached the Holy One, blessed be He, and said: "For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in Your name, he has dealt harshly with this people, nor have You rescued Your people at all." And what does "you have made our odor abhorrent" mean? It teaches that the Egyptians would place Jewish children inside the walls and build over them. At that moment, the attribute of strict justice sought to strike Moshe, as it says, "And Elohim spoke to Moshe" - Elohim denotes the attribute of justice. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: I testify about you, "Now the man Moshe was exceedingly humble," yet you say, "Nor have You rescued Your people"? What was the punishment? "Now you shall see" - you will see what happens now, but you will not see the war of the thirty-one kings.
Thus we see: that very harassment inflicted upon Moshe by Datan and Aviram created a situation in which Moshe Rabbeinu lost his customary composure - "confounds a wise man," for even a wise man can be brought to distraction - and ultimately, because of them, he forfeited the privilege of witnessing the conquest of the Land. Incidentally, there were two decrees here: this one and the decree of Mei Merivah (the Waters of Strife). Under this decree, he might have entered the Land without leading the war of the thirty-one kings, or perhaps he might have lived on outside the Land. The decree that he would not enter the Land at all and would pass away came as a result of Mei Merivah.
Pesikta Zutreta explains the verse in the reverse direction: a wise man who deprives his student and refuses to reveal to him the true depths of Torah - the student asks him to reveal the secrets of the Torah and the sage is unwilling - that oppression will "confound a wise man," throwing the mind of the sage himself into confusion, and he will lose that "heart of a gift" that he possesses. Even the little that he holds will be lost to him, in the spirit of "The rich man and the poor man meet together; the Lord is the Maker of them all" - meaning that the Holy One, blessed be He, can turn the rich into poor and the poor into rich. So too here: the Holy One, blessed be He, strips the sage of his wisdom when he refuses to teach it to others.
The holy Alshich explains that this verse continues what we saw above: "It is better to go to a house of mourning." A person might argue: Why should I go to a house of mourning to hear words of rebuke and mussar? I can understand on my own; my wisdom will protect me from stumbling, and I have no need for the rebuke of others. And even if I go to a house of feasting and hear no rebuke from a wise man - I will still remain wise and cautious. To this Kohelet responds: Do not say so, for "oppression turns a wise man mad."
When a person observes the world, he sees injustice, he sees oppression: the wicked besets the righteous - both in the sense of surrounding him, and in the sense that he dictates who will be in charge and who will be considered righteous; that is, the dominion of the wicked over the righteous. "And behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they have no comforter." All these things arouse questions and doubts within a person. Therefore, do not proudly declare, "I do not need to go to a house of mourning and I am in no danger of heresy": "oppression turns a wise man mad" - one who looks upon the oppression in the world, even if he is a wise man, will have his mind confounded, bringing him to doubts, heresy, and a loss of faith.
And what is meant by "the heart of a gift" [leiv matanah - "and a bribe destroys the heart"]? The Alshich explains: A person has two hearts. "With all your heart" - our Sages teach - means with both your inclinations, the yetzer hatov and the yetzer hara. The yetzer hara is the natural heart with which a person is born; it is "built-in." By contrast, the yetzer hatov is a gift a person receives at bar mitzvah - a gift from Hashem, and not a gift that can be exchanged at a store, but a gift to last for one hundred and twenty years, a gift to sustain him in the service of his Creator. Yet looking upon the oppression in the world leads even the wise man to bewildered thoughts and heresy, until it "destroys the heart of a gift": even the yetzer hatov cannot prevail, nor can it set the person's mind at ease and remove his doubts in faith. Therefore, the wise man says: Go to the house of mourning, hear words of mussar and rebuke there, for that is the only thing that can keep a person far from sin.
The Midrash expounds further: "For oppression [oshek, read homiletically as eisek, business] turns a wise man mad" - this refers to the business affairs with which Torah scholars occupy themselves with one another, which confound their wisdom. That is to say, when a person has other occupations besides Torah, these occupations preoccupy him and give him no rest. Thus it is related in the Gemara regarding a certain sage who was unable to concentrate on his studies that day; when they asked him why, he said he had lost his purse. The explanation is that understanding depends on the heart, and the heart depends on the purse. The moment his purse was lost, his heart was lost. When a person's heart is invested in many earthly matters, business ventures he runs, and concerns in which he is immersed, it is very difficult for him to engage in Torah; he has neither peace of mind nor rest.
The Midrash continues regarding "and destroys the heart of a gift": Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said, "I learned eighty halachot from Yehudah ben Pedaya concerning the laws of plowing over a grave and the rules of its ritual impurity, and because I was occupied with communal needs - I forgot them." Note this well: even when it is not private business but the needs of the community, nevertheless, the moment one's mind is occupied with something else, do not be surprised that those eighty halachot are lost.
Ibn Ezra explains that oppression and a gift are two opposites: one adds to a person's property and the other diminishes it. When you extort or oppress - property is added to you, at least so it appears immediately; and when you give a gift - property is deducted from you. Even though they are two extremes, their corrupting effect on the human soul is similar, only operating in opposite directions.
Regarding oppression: when a person is robbed and oppressed by others - "turns a wise man mad," it brings him to wild, irrational thoughts, and he comes to suspect even righteous individuals. Something is stolen from his home, and he starts thinking: "It seems to me it was so-and-so." But so-and-so is a righteous man, you know him! Nevertheless: "He was at my house the day before." In this way, he begins to suspect upright, righteous people, viewing the righteous as wicked. One can also interpret "turns a wise man mad" [yeholeil chacham] to mean that it brings him to mad suspicions against the wise man himself, against the righteous and Torah scholars. And in the end, when the stolen object is found, he will say: "How could I have suspected so-and-so? How did such a thing even enter my mind?" - and he will be ashamed of himself.
And the reverse occurs with a gift: a gift fattens a person's heart and leads him to justify the wicked. A wicked person gave you a gift - your heart is already with him. Notice the contrast: oppression causes one to see the righteous as wicked, while gifts cause one to see the wicked as righteous. From the moment he gives to me, my mind is favorably disposed toward him, all his deeds appear in a positive light, and I am unwilling to oppose him or protest against him. This is profound wisdom: through oppression a person can come to suspect the innocent, and through receiving gifts he can come to vindicate the suspect.
The message, therefore, is: do not lose your reason. Both when you are wronged and when you are given gifts - remain rationally grounded. If you were wronged - do not suspect the innocent; if you received gifts - do not assume the givers are blameless and do not instantly turn them into righteous saints. Guard your heart, so that you maintain independent thinking, free of personal bias.
We have often spoken of the Gedolim who refused to accept anything from anyone precisely because of this. Those familiar with their ways know that this has always been the practice of the Gedolim: never to accept gifts from anyone. And the main reason, beyond the dictum that "he who hates gifts will live" (Mishlei 15:27), is so as not to be beholden to or dependent on any human being.
It is told of Rav Elyashiv that when there was a discussion about how to receive the Torah leaders who were coming to his home for a meeting of the Moetzes and how to seat them, someone suggested setting up a round table so there would be no question of who sits at the head. The Rav was very pleased with the idea and asked him, "Do you have somewhere to get one?" He replied, "Yes." He went and brought it. That person recounted: When I arrived, Rav Elyashiv immediately took out his wallet to pay me. I said, "No, Rebbe, this is a volunteer effort." He absolutely refused to accept it, saying, "We will not use it at all; just tell me how much I owe you." The Gedolim refuse to take a single penny from anyone, and in this way they preserve a clear, unclouded mind. They need no envelopes from this one, no favors from that one, and no favorable coverage in another's newspaper - they need nothing from anyone, and no one can say he gave them something and therefore their opinion is swayed toward him. This is just as Shmuel said: "I have not taken one donkey from them" (I Shmuel 12:3), and the Gemara explains on the verse "for there was his home" that Shmuel never benefited from anyone. This is the great virtue: a person maintains independent judgment because he owes nothing to anyone, having accepted nothing from anyone.
In the sefer Seder HaYom, cited by the Me'am Lo'ez, he explains: "Oppression drives a wise man mad" - a wise-hearted person cannot rejoice in this world, because the oppression he sees, the injustice and dishonesty, rattles him, brings him turmoil, and strips away his joy. "And a bribe destroys the heart" - his heart is not at ease because of the injustice in the world. And how much more so ordinary people, who cannot be happy when they witness what takes place in the world.
He adds: Observe that there are mountains upon mountains of matters that human intellect cannot grasp, hanging like mountains suspended by a hair, which even Moshe Rabbeinu could not explain, prompting him to ask the Holy One, blessed be He, why the righteous suffer while the wicked prosper. A person who looks at the world and sees injustice loses his composure and cannot remain at peace. But consider: these matters are exalted, and who can claim to know or explain why things are this way here and that way there, why one tzaddik suffers while that rasha prospers? Chazal have already said: one is a completely righteous person and the other is an incomplete tzaddik - yet who can know who is truly complete and who is not? "And destroys the heart, a gift" - through this perplexity, a person might lose his heart, that very heart given to him as a gift from Hashem to understand that there is judgment and there is a Judge and to contemplate the workings of the world; Heaven forbid, he might begin to harbor improper thoughts about the Holy One, blessed be He, and question the ways of the Omnipresent.
טוֹב אַחֲרִית דָּבָר מֵרֵאשִׁיתוֹ טוֹב אֶרֶךְ רוּחַ מִגְּבַהּ רוּחַ׃ (ח) - Better is the end of a matter than its beginning; better is patience of spirit than haughtiness of spirit.
Notice how magnificent this is: the very next verse provides the answer to that line of thought. When you look at the world around you, everything seems chaotic: there is no apparent fairness, no justice, no logic. The problem is that you are looking with sensory perception, and sensory perception is limited - it reaches only as far as the physical senses can grasp. Touch, sight, hearing - all are bounded. But if you were to view things through intellectual vision, delving deeply beneath the surface, you would understand that everything done here ultimately leads to good. "Better is the end of a matter than its beginning": you currently see a wicked person who prospers and celebrates - look at the end of the matter, at what ultimately becomes of him. Anyone who examines history sees that in the end, it is well with the righteous and ill with the wicked. At the specific moment events unfold, it appears just the opposite; but if you possess patience and forbearance, you will see that the end of a matter is better than its beginning.
Avraham Avinu gave his life in the fiery furnace for Kiddush Hashem and was miraculously saved. Haran had said: "If Avraham is saved, I am with him; and if Avraham is burned, I am with Nimrod." When he saw that Avraham was saved, he declared, "I am with Avraham." He was thrown into the fiery furnace and was burned. Where was the justice? You might say his self-sacrifice was not wholehearted - yet how many people have sacrificed their lives without pure motives? Nevertheless, he did submit to the fire, whereas most people would never sacrifice themselves at all. Is this Torah and this its reward? After all, in the end, he was willing to be burned for his belief.
Yet whoever reflects closely sees: all the holy Matriarchs descended from Haran. If we trace our roots, our roots are Avraham and Haran: Avraham fathered the men, and Haran fathered the women. Sarah was the daughter of Haran; Rivkah was the daughter of Betuel, who came from this household; and Rivkah had a brother named Lavan, from whose family came Rachel, Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah. Thus, the entire continuation of the House of Israel from the maternal side came from him. One might say, "Nothing good came to him" - on the contrary, all future generations came through him. In the end: the righteous fare well, and the wicked meet their downfall.
In contrast, consider the wicked: Kayin had his punishment suspended for seven generations, while Hevel died immediately. Kayin's judgment was held in abeyance for seven generations, and afterward he met destruction. There is an opinion that Kayin has no lasting lineage whatsoever - if we say that Na'amah, the sister of Tuval-kayin, was Noach's wife, then there is continuity, but this is subject to dispute, and according to the other view, Kayin was erased completely, as Chazal describe him as having been wiped out in the Flood. And Hevel - what came of him? Hevel returned through reincarnation; Hevel is Sheis (Seth), upon whom the entire world was founded. And who is Sheis? Moshe. Sheis, Hevel, Moshe form an acronym. Moshe Rabbeinu, who gave the Torah, carried the soul of Hevel. Thus, in the final reckoning: the righteous fare well, and the wicked suffer.
Yet what is our problem? We want to see an immediate response, but that is impossible, for if that were the case, free will would be eliminated. If a person waits, he will see across the span of history that the righteous prevail and the wicked weep. A wicked person like Esav walked around feeling: I am deceiving Father, I am successful, I am riding high, I am the firstborn, we will laugh at him and then take from him - and in the end, "he cried out with a great and exceedingly bitter cry." He was wicked, and he suffered. Meanwhile, Yaakov endures to this very day. And as for Esav, even if today he appears to succeed - "Saviors shall ascend Mount Zion to judge the mount of Esav, and the kingdom shall be the Lord's." Wait; the great Day of Judgment will arrive: "And all the evildoers shall be stubble, and the coming day shall burn them up." If so, why the rush? Why must we see everything right here and right now?
One who contemplates will see: better is the end of a thing than its beginning. It is the end that provides the true perspective - showing how the righteous, in exchange for the small measure of suffering they endured here, receive eternity; whereas the wicked are compensated for their few good deeds here in this world, with that prosperity you saw and could not fathom why they deserved it, and afterward they face everlasting disgrace. Therefore, a person must not lose the "heart given as a gift," the heart granted to him as a gift from Hashem, over difficult questions regarding Divine providence - for in the end, he will see that better is the end of a thing than its beginning.
"For oppression maddens a wise man, and destroys the heart of a gift" - oppression, in all its facets, confounds the mind: oppression between student and teacher and between teacher and student; the oppression that Datan and Aviram inflicted upon Moshe; the mundane preoccupations and anxieties that disrupt the wisdom of Torah scholars; and above all, the sight of oppression and injustice in the world, which can bring even a wise person to thoughts of heresy, until even the yetzer hatov given to him as a gift cannot quiet his mind. On the other hand, the gift of bribery also perverts justice: oppression causes one to suspect the upright, while bribes lead one to vindicate the wicked. From this arises the demand to maintain a clear heart and independent judgment, in the manner of the great sages who never accepted benefits from anyone. And the answer to all these perplexities is found in the very next verse: "Better is the end of a thing than its beginning" - through sensory perception alone, everything appears distorted, but through intellectual contemplation and patience, it becomes evident that in the end, the righteous fare well and the wicked suffer.