In the final section of chapter 7, King Solomon summarizes his search: he seeks to find wisdom, attempts to identify the reason why man stumbles and fails to perfect his soul, and ultimately arrives at one major conclusion - that man himself is the author of his own ruin. Along the way, he teaches us a tremendous principle: "One by one, to reach the final sum" - everything accumulates, for better or worse.
וּמוֹצֶא אֲנִי מַר מִמָּוֶת אֶת הָאִשָּׁה אֲשֶׁר הִיא מְצוֹדִים וַחֲרָמִים לִבָּהּ אֲסוּרִים יָדֶיהָ, טוֹב לִפְנֵי הָאֱלֹהִים יִמָּלֵט מִמֶּנָּה וְחוֹטֵא יִלָּכֶד בָּהּ׃ - And I find more bitter than death the woman whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands are bonds; one who is pleasing to God will escape from her, but a sinner will be trapped by her.
The Gemara in Berachot (8a) relates that in the West (Eretz Yisrael), when a man would marry, they would ask him: "Matza or Motzeh?" This was a coded question the groom was expected to understand. "Matza" refers to the verse, "He who has found [matza] a wife has found good" (Mishlei 18:22); "Motzeh" refers to our verse, "And I find [motzeh] more bitter than death the woman." Which category do you fall into? Seemingly, there is a contradiction here within King Solomon's own words: is a wife "found good" or "more bitter than death"? Many answers have been offered for this, and anyone who has attended an engagement party or a Sheva Berachot has heard a few of them. Let us mention some of them in brief.
One explanation: when the person himself is the one doing the "finding" (motzeh) - it is more bitter than death. But when he accepts what the Holy One, Blessed be He, designates for him, that is "He who has found a wife has found good." "And I find" (umozei ani) - when I am the finder, searching in clubs and all sorts of places that are not the proper path of matchmaking from Hashem, not through a traditional shidduch but by his own seeking - that falls under the category of "more bitter than death."
A second explanation: "He who has found a wife [isha] has found good" refers to an ordinary woman; but "I find the woman [ha'isha]" with the definite article refers to something more bitter than death. If you took an unpretentious woman of the home, as the Gemara says, "Descend a level and take a wife" - a woman who is humble and supportive toward her husband - that is good. But if you took "the woman" with an elite, haughty demeanor, who suddenly feels, "Who is he anyway, and why should I support him?" - that is categorized as "more bitter than death."
It is also explained by way of gematria: the word ish (man) has a numerical value of 311, while isha (woman) equals 306, but ha'isha (the woman) equals 311. When the man is 311 and the woman is 306, the man is the provider and leads - "He who has found a wife has found good." But when she is ha'isha, 311, exactly equal to him, she demands absolute equality at home: "Today I did dishes, today you do dishes; you cannot go to the Torah class, there are chores to do." That is "more bitter than death." They tell of a man walking with his friend who phoned home: "Bracha, turn on the hot water boiler right now! I do not want a repeat of yesterday when I came home and there was no hot water - right now, immediately!" He hung up. His friend marveled, "Wow, you really keep things under tight control at home!" He replied, "Yes, my friend, I just hate washing dishes with cold water..." In any case, this is our point: take a woman who is not "the woman" with an air of superiority, but one who is humble, and that is "He who has found a wife has found good."
Another explanation: "He who has found a wife has found good" - a person comes home and finds her at home, excellent. But when he finds her in a different place each time - once at the mall, once out shopping, once here and once there, constantly having to track her down in yet another place - that is more bitter than death.
The Vilna Gaon notes a precision in the language: "He who has found [matza] a wife has found good" is phrased in the past tense, whereas "And I find [motzeh] more bitter than death" is in the present tense. Why? Because this reflects a profound truth about human psychology. When a person possesses something good, he quickly takes it for granted and fails to appreciate just how good he has it. When does he realize it? When it is taken away from him. But when it comes to something bad, a person never gets used to it; he will constantly grumble, constantly feel the hardship, and constantly complain. Therefore, the good is phrased in the past tense: "matza" - he found her thirty years ago, got married, and that was that; he no longer perceives that he is living in paradise and fails to recognize how much gratitude he owes to Hashem. But the bad is "motzeh," in the present tense - he finds it anew every single day.
The story is told of a man who came to a rabbi and complained that his wife throws plates at him. The rabbi asked him, "How long have you been married?" He said, "Twenty years." The rabbi asked, "So why did you come only now?" He replied, "Because now her aim has improved and she started hitting the mark..." Another story is told of a man whose wife constantly threw objects at him. Eventually, she passed away, and he returned from the funeral convinced that his ordeal was finally over. Just then, strong winds blew, a flowerpot perched above swayed, and the moment he walked into the house - crash! - it fell from above. He looked up and said, "Tell me, are you going to keep at it from heaven too?"... This is the meaning of "motzeh" - the bad is always experienced in the present. All of this comes to teach us that we must never take the good for granted, and that we must thank the Holy One, Blessed be He, every single day for the goodness He has granted us.
רְאֵה זֶה מָצָאתִי אָמְרָה קֹהֶלֶת, אַחַת לְאַחַת לִמְצֹא חֶשְׁבּוֹן׃ - "See, this I have found," said Kohelet, "adding one to one to find the reckoning."
The Pesikta Zutarta states: Rabbi Yitzchak said, if a person stumbled in sin and became liable to death - his ox died, his hen was lost, his flask broke, or his finger was bruised in the marketplace and a drop of blood issued from it, a part of the soul is considered like the entire soul. This is what is written: "adding one to one to find the reckoning" - to exhaust the account, to cleanse his sins.
How wonderful this is. In prayer we plead, "but not through afflictions and evil illnesses" - is there such a thing as good afflictions and good illnesses? Rather, often a person deserves a severe punishment, but the Holy One, blessed be He, does not bring it down in its full severity. This is like a king who told his son that he no longer wanted to see his face, and if he came, he would throw at him the boulder in the corner of the palace. Sometime later, the king missed his son, but the son was afraid to come. The king asked the wise man: How can I be released from this, seeing that I took an oath? He replied: Take the boulder, break it into crumbs and gravel, and throw a little at him each time - in this way, you fulfill your oath and he will not be harmed. This is precisely what we ask: Master of the Universe, if troubles are already decreed upon us - let them not be giant cinderblocks, let them be gravel.
And this is "adding one to one to find the reckoning" - the Holy One, blessed be He, exacts payment from a person through small things, and through them settles the account until it is fully resolved, rather than with a single punishment that shatters him to pieces. The Gemara asks: To what extent does the definition of affliction reach? And it answers: A person who reaches into his pocket to take out one coin and pulls out another, or who puts on his garment inside out. Afflictions - but the very smallest kind. For this we pray: If something is already coming to us, let it be "one to one to find the reckoning" - his flask broke, his finger was bruised and a drop of blood emerged, to exhaust the account and cleanse the sins.
Another explanation of "adding one to one to find the reckoning": mitzvah after mitzvah until a great sum is formed. This teaches that the Holy One, blessed be He, joins together every single perutah that a person gives to tzedakah into a great reckoning. A person tends to underestimate small mitzvot, minor deeds, and trivial matters; we appreciate grand, massive projects, and for those it is easy to enlist us, but when it comes to something small - "find someone else." And this is a great mistake. Precisely from things that a person tramples underfoot with his heels, a great reckoning emerges.
In one kollel, in addition to the regular sedarim, they instituted a five-minute study session: they arrive, open the Gemara, learn for five minutes, and close it. And why? In order to cherish and appreciate five minutes in their eyes. For when a person comes to a two-hour seder, ten minutes are spent on general catch-up - what happened, what the Prime Minister said, whether there will be a government or not - and only then, "Alright, where were we?" But when the seder itself is five minutes, one cannot talk for ten minutes; the moment he arrives he begins to learn, because otherwise nothing will be left. This is training to appreciate what a minute is, and what five minutes are. And of many great Torah sages it has been said that they acquired their world in those few spare minutes.
It is told of Rav Moshe Feinstein that he once held a siyum. They asked him: The Rav is not accustomed to making siyumim, why this time? He said to them: This is no ordinary siyum. They asked: In what way? He told them: I am constantly being invited - once to a wedding, once to a brit, here to serve as sandak and there as the mesader kiddushin - and the reality is that most people do not arrive on time. One has to wait for the father of the newborn, for the mohel, for the uncle, for the photographer. I thought to myself: precious minutes are going to waste. I took a Gemara along with me and began learning through Shas solely during these spare minutes - and from those minutes alone, I made this siyum. This is "He who gathers little by little shall increase," one total joins another into a great reckoning: one to one to find the reckoning.
Know that every single coin joins with the next. Do not say: What is the small coin I gave to tzedakah worth, half a shekel, come on now. No, my friend - penny joins to penny, and everything in the end will amount to a great reckoning.
Rashi explains: All the mitzvot that the righteous perform and the transgressions that the wicked commit are counted before the Holy One, blessed be He, one upon the other, until they combine into a great reckoning. So too, the Gemara in Masechet Sotah (8b) states: Rabbi Meir would say, from where do we know that every single perutah joins into a great account? The verse states: "adding one to one to find the reckoning." A person does not become righteous in a single day, but performs another mitzvah and another mitzvah and another mitzvah; and likewise the reverse, a person does not become wicked in a single day, but one by one until it amounts, may Hashem have mercy, to a grave reckoning.
We have spoken of this more than once: people today are looking for the instant, the fast, and the immediate. In the past, people understood that things involve a process, and therefore they also had patience. Today there is no patience; people want everything in hand, right away, and now, and this is destructive - because it causes a person not to invest effort. He has no patience to wait, and therefore he does not invest. In earlier times, they knew that things take time, so a person invested, exerted himself, and toiled, knowing that fruits are not harvested immediately. Today a person wants to step into something ready-made and succeed instantly, and when he sees that it lingers and takes time - he despairs, gives up, and walks away. And that is a great pity. One must know: adding one to one to find the reckoning.
The Chafetz Chaim was once asked: "Rebbe, how does one become great?" He replied: "There is really nothing extraordinary here. You wake up in the morning, wash your hands (netilat yadayim), go to the synagogue, pray Shacharit, eat breakfast, go to the beit midrash and learn until noon, go home, eat lunch, rest a bit, get up for second seder, pray Minchah and Maariv, eat dinner, attend third seder, and go to sleep. That is all." You will not find anything supernatural or extreme - on the contrary, he opposed extremes: he was against those who stay up learning until the late hours of the morning and then wake up late, and against all sorts of erratic practices. The proper way to succeed is "one by one, to find the reckoning." Anyone who has studied Daf Yomi knows this principle: one day, one page; another day, another page; and after seven years, you realize that the entire Shas is behind you. Remembering it is another virtue, and knowing it thoroughly is another virtue, but the mere fact that one studied every single day, persevered, and achieved - that is "one by one, to find the reckoning." Day after day, a little more each time, and in the end you arrive at a grand sum.
On the surface, this is puzzling: until now, we saw "Amar Kohelet" in the masculine, yet here it says "Omerah Kohelet" in the feminine. Rashi explains: "Omerah Kohelet" - said the gathering of wisdom, or said his intellectual soul (nefesh hamaskelet) which gathers wisdom. "Kohelet" comes from the root of assembling (lehaqhil) and gathering (leqabbetz); Shlomo's soul gathers all of wisdom. Therefore, one can speak of Shlomo in the masculine as the gatherer - he is the Kohelet; or one can refer to the vessel where wisdom is gathered, which is his intellectual soul, and then it is in the feminine form.
Rashi quotes from the Midrash: Rabbi Yirmeyah ben Elazar said that the Divine Spirit (Ruach HaKodesh) sometimes speaks in the masculine and sometimes in the feminine. Do not be surprised by this: one verse says "ezri umefalti" (my help and my deliverer, in the masculine), while another says "ki ata ezrati" (for You have been my help, using the feminine form); one verse states "the voice of a herald [mevaser, masc.]" and another states "herald of Zion [mevaseret tziyon, fem.]." Along similar lines, the Imrei Shefer writes: King Shlomo devised this distinguished name for himself, "Kohelet", because he gathered (hiqhil) much wisdom, ethical teachings, and proverbs; and the phrase "omerah Kohelet" is like "Hashem is my portion, said my soul [omerah nafshi]" - it refers to the soul, which is grammatically feminine.
The Imrei Shefer adds: My soul tells me, "See, this I have found" - here I found one reason for the pitfall of sin, and I will undoubtedly find other reasons, and then "one by one, to find the reckoning" - I will uncover the full account of all those deeds that baffled me. And what was that cause I thought I had found? "And I find more bitter than death the woman" - at last we have found who is to blame for everything! However, in the end, I see that this is not so.
אֲשֶׁר עוֹד בִּקְשָׁה נַפְשִׁי וְלֹא מָצָאתִי, אָדָם אֶחָד מֵאֶלֶף מָצָאתִי וְאִשָּׁה בְכָל אֵלֶּה לֹא מָצָאתִי׃ - That which my soul sought further, but I did not find: one man among a thousand I found, but a woman among all these I did not find.
The Imrei Shefer explains: Not only did I not find additional causes for the pitfall of sin - "that which my soul sought further, but I did not find" - but even the cause I thought I had found is not a sufficient explanation. For consider: does everyone have an evil wife? "One man among a thousand I found" - only one in a thousand whose sole purpose and aspiration is to do good, to refine his character traits, and to advance spiritually. Would you claim that the other 999 all have bad wives? Furthermore: "but a woman among all these I did not find" - when I searched for an upright and righteous individual, among all of them I did not find a woman. If so, what caused the woman to stumble? A man could at least claim that he has an evil wife, but what can a woman say - that she has an evil wife? Thus, even the reason I thought I had found to explain why man does not bring his soul to perfection is insufficient.
Rashi explains "that which my soul sought further, but I did not find" - there were numerous things he sought and did not find: he looked for a good wife and did not find one, as well as "that which has been is far off, and deep, exceedingly deep - who can discover it?" - many things that I searched for and wished to grasp, yet could not find. Regarding "one man among a thousand I found," Rashi cites the Gemara: As is customary in the world, a thousand enter to study Scripture, yet only a hundred emerge to succeed and advance to Mishnah; a hundred enter Mishnah, yet only ten emerge to advance to Gemara; and of those ten who enter Gemara, only one succeeds in reaching the level of practical Halachic ruling (hora'ah), to serve as a posek for the community. Thus, out of every thousand, only one achieves this. And despite all this, "a woman among all these I did not find," which is why Rashi remarks: you must be careful with her, for women are temperamentally pliable (da'atan kalah aleihen).
לְבַד רְאֵה זֶה מָצָאתִי, אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה הָאֱלֹהִים אֶת הָאָדָם יָשָׁר וְהֵמָּה בִקְשׁוּ חִשְּׁבֹנוֹת רַבִּים׃ - Only see this I have found: that God made man upright, but they have sought out many calculations.
Rashi explains: Only this matter have I found - that the downfall came through her. I did not find a woman of lofty spiritual standing among all these, but I did find that the setback came through her. How so? "That God made man upright" - the Holy One, blessed be He, created Adam alone and made him upright; "but they" - once he received a helpmate in the form of a woman who joined him, turning the single individual into "they," only then did they "seek out many calculations," schemes and thoughts of sin. Thus the Midrash expounds: as long as man was alone, he guarded himself; but as soon as they became two, they sought out many calculations and went looking for transgression.
The Imrei Shefer notes that the early sages spoke extensively about this matter. The Rambam also responded on this issue to a certain thinker who claimed that man was created for his own detriment, and Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, in his commentary on the Torah, followed the Rambam's approach and addressed this with great vigor, depth, and insight, refuting the words of that self-styled sage. And on what basis did that thinker make his claim? He observed and saw that most of the time things go poorly for man and he experiences no good, and from this he deduced that man was created for his own harm.
Yet the Rambam's view is well known: that most of a person's suffering is brought upon him by himself. "A man's foolishness perverts his way, and his heart frets against Hashem": a person brings most troubles and suffering upon himself, and then he cries out, complains, grieves, and levels grievances against the Holy One, blessed be He. Anyone who observes carefully will see that in most matters, this is indeed the case. The heartache a person endures from his children usually stems from the flawed upbringing he gave them; had he raised them properly, on the path of divine service and fear of Hashem, he would have derived abundant joy from them. The same is true regarding health: most health problems, as the Rambam writes, stem from the foods a person eats, and for someone who eats according to his recommendations, the Rambam guarantees that he will never fall ill, unless there is a plague, heaven forbid. Likewise, many of man's failures come in the wake of irrational actions he took, through which he brought about his own downfall.
King Solomon came to demonstrate to you: the Holy One, blessed be He, created man in a state of perfection. And if you see corruption afterward, it is not as that thinker from the time of the Rambam claimed, that Hashem created man for harm; Hashem created him for good, and man alone is responsible for the corruption. Do not pin this on the Master of the Universe - it belongs to you.
And this is how the Rav explains the essence of man on the day he was created: he was a pure, luminous substance; his soul ruled over all the powers of the body, and it was not joined to the body as an elemental mixture, but rather as an adjacent dwelling - that is, the connection was not a fusion, but like a neighbor attached alongside without becoming part of it. All the conceptions of his soul were filled with truth and righteous humility, all its knowledge was focused solely on genuine happiness, and all his concepts were purely spiritual. But knowledge of good and evil - which is illusory good, the good of this world, which is good and evil mixed together - he did not yet know. The concepts of this worldly good, coarseness, the fact that he was naked - none of this did he know when Hashem created him.
And who brought all this upon him? Only his eating from the Tree of Knowledge, whereby he sinned against his own soul. For the nature of that tree was to awaken bodily desires and mental images of envy, lust, and honor, and through this it caused the knowledge of good and evil to sprout together in his soul - suddenly evil became bonded with good within him, good from the standpoint of the body and evil from the standpoint of the soul. Ever since, man began to drown in the deep mire of desires and evils, with no strength left in his soul and intellect to distance him from them. And against whom is your complaint? Had you listened to the voice of Hashem and not eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, you would never have arrived at all this. The ministering angels wished to sing praise before him, they poured wine for him and roasted meat for him; and the holy Ohr HaChaim says that had he not sinned, he would have remained in the Garden of Eden until Friday night, recited Kiddush over the wine - which is the wine preserved in its grapes from Creation - and the world would have attained its rectification. This matter was discussed at length in the book Mishnat HaGilgulim, in explaining the sin of Adam HaRishon and its rectification throughout the generations.
In any case, we see that man ruined things by himself, was expelled from the Garden of Eden, his soul was divided into six hundred thousand parts, and six thousand years are needed so that each and every one of us can rectify a spark of the soul of Adam HaRishon, and after all that, perhaps everything will finally be brought to rectification. But who bears the responsibility for this failure? You do. There is no complaint here against the Holy One, blessed be He - Hashem created you complete.
And this is what King Solomon alluded to here: "That God made man upright" - Hashem created man upright and warned him for his own good not to eat from the tree, so that he would not follow crooked paths and fall. "And they sought out many calculations" - man is to blame for the troubles that befall him. Do not seek to blame this person or that person, the woman or anyone else; blame yourself: why do you not walk upright as God created you? And this already began with Adam HaRishon; if a person rectifies this, he will indeed merit attaining complete attachment to the Creator, blessed be He.