Introduction: King Solomon's Warning - Do Not Panic
In chapter 8 of Kohelet, King Solomon reaches one of the book's central warnings: what a person should do when the world turns upside down on him. Exile, distress, suffering, failure through sin - in all of these lurks the very same danger: panic. A person becomes alarmed and dismayed, and out of panic he may throw off the yoke, remain stuck in an evil place, and turn the affliction into an excuse to abandon his Creator. We will study the verse according to Pesikta Zutreta, Midrash Zuta, Rashi, and the Imrei Shefer.
אַל־תִּבָּהֵל מִפָּנָיו תֵּלֵךְ אַל־תַּעֲמֹד בְּדָבָר רָע כִּי כׇּל־אֲשֶׁר יַחְפֹּץ יַעֲשֶׂה׃ (ח, ג) - "Do not be hasty to go out of His presence; do not persist in an evil thing, for He does whatever pleases Him." (8:3)
"Do not be hasty to go out of His presence" - Even in exile, do not abandon Hashem
Pesikta Zutreta explains: "Do not be hasty to go out of His presence" - even though you go into exile, do not rush in panic to abandon Hashem at the time when you go out of His presence, as it is said, "Cast them out of My sight, and let them go forth" (Yirmiyahu 15:1). Sometimes a person feels that if Hashem did this to him and sent him into exile, then that is it - as if to say, He no longer makes demands of me, all restraints are removed, and all bets are off. Regarding this, Scripture comes and says: do not panic even when you go out of His presence. Even when you are walking in exile, do not rush to abandon Hashem.
"Do not persist in an evil thing" - when you go out into exile, do not stand in the ways of the nations and follow their statutes, for that is an evil thing. Rather, it should be as King David says in Tehillim (44:18): "All this has come upon us, yet we have not forgotten You." "For He does whatever pleases Him" - whatever the Holy One, blessed be He, desires He will do, meaning that He will bring His people out of exile and gather their dispersed. Do not think that the situation you are currently in is irreversible; reality will yet change, and the Holy One, blessed be He, will yet gather the outcasts of His people Israel.
A Second Explanation: Do Not Panic from Afflictions
Pesikta Zutreta offers another explanation: "Do not be hasty" - as in "Do not be hasty in your spirit to be angry" (Kohelet 7:9), meaning do not rush, and as in "and they hurried [vayabhilu] to bring Haman" (Esther 6:14). If afflictions come upon you, do not be panicked or agitated, but rather go before Him in humility because of Hashem's wrath. When troubles come upon you, walk before Him in humility, but do not panic from the troubles, do not grumble, do not break down, and do not fall into those states where a person casts off the yoke, Heaven forbid. And even when you walk before Him in the midst of suffering, know this: Hashem will do whatever He pleases, and ultimately He will remove the troubles and afflictions from you.
"Do not persist in an evil thing" - The Source for Not Ending on an Evil Note
Here lies the source for something familiar to us all, though we do not always know where it is derived from. Midrash Zuta states: For we learned in the Mishnah, one who begins a Torah reading begins with something good, and one who concludes concludes with something good; with the blessings, one may read and pause, but with the curses, one reads without pausing, for we do not make an interruption during the curses. Rav Ivu said: Because of the verse, "Do not persist in an evil thing."
According to Rav Ivu, this is why we do not interrupt in the middle of the curses: the person called up to the Torah begins the reading with blessings, reads the curses as part of the reading, and continues for a few more verses on the subject of redemption or something positive, and only then concludes. Similarly, one who is called up to read from the Torah does not conclude with "he shall surely be put to death," nor with "I will destroy that person" - one never concludes with an evil matter, but always seals the reading with something good. It is as if by stopping on a curse, you are saying that a curse should come upon this person, Heaven forbid, and leaving it at that. "Do not persist in an evil thing" - do not end on a bad note. Therefore, if you reach a negative subject in your study, continue a bit further so you can conclude with something good.
For this reason, it is customary to recite a positive verse at the conclusion of Torah study, reciting "Rabbi Chananya," saying something that contains a positive message so as not to end on a negative note. And even if we happened to conclude with something unfavorable, "Hashem desired, for the sake of His righteousness, to make the Torah great and glorious" (Yeshayahu 42:21) is always a good conclusion. We finish with this so that one's learning is sealed with words of blessing, and not the opposite.
"I am with him in distress" - It is not right that My children be cursed while I am blessed
Rabbi Yehoshua offered another reason: because it says, "I am with him in distress." The Holy One, blessed be He, said: It is not right that My children be cursed while I am blessed. As it were, the Holy One, blessed be He, says: I am together with the Jewish people in their distress. If one concludes with a curse, Hashem remains the source of blessing and is, as it were, blessed, while for us - Heaven forbid - what remains is a curse. Therefore Hashem says: My desire is that you too be blessed. How so? Always conclude with words of blessing, with praise, with something positive; then you do not end on an evil note, and this is what is fitting and pleasing before Hashem.
"Do not persist in an evil thing" - Removing shame from your fellow
There is also a practical directive here: to spare others from embarrassment. An example that many unfortunately overlook is that sometimes a ba'al korei has not prepared the parashah properly. Among Yemenite Jews this is even more common, since they do not have a single designated reader of proven expertise; rather, each person called to the Torah reads his own aliyah. Naturally, not everyone is equally prepared, not everyone is fluent in the reading, and not everyone had childhood training. And when someone begins to stumble - suddenly the synagogue comes alive with alert listeners.
A story is told of a ba'al korei who occasionally began to make mistakes. People were surprised: "You have been reading for fifty years without errors, what happened?" He told them: "I noticed that during long parashiyot the congregation begins dozing off. If I make a mistake or two, I instantly wake up the entire congregation - everyone jumps up: 'Ah, he made a mistake!' So once a parashah I make two or three errors and give the congregation a wake-up shot, and it is worth it; no matter if they think I erred, as long as people wake up." Yet to our shame, people often wake up specifically to mistakes, driven by an impulse to correct him, to show him that he is wrong, that he does not know.
There was once a person in a synagogue who constantly corrected the reader, jumping up aggressively: "Correct that! Repeat it! Don't read it like that, we don't fulfill our obligation, you must read it this way!" It is told that one day the reader said to him, "Listen, I see you are a great expert" - and handed him the silver pointer of the Sefer Torah - "please, come up and read the Torah for us." Immediately he stammered: "No, no, I didn't prepare, I don't..." Standing on the sidelines and correcting the reader is very easy and simple, but when asked to read himself - suddenly the person reveals himself to be completely unlearned.
And this is a grave matter, because it easily leads to shaming one's fellow in public. A person stands and reads, and suddenly someone shouts at him, and then another mistake and another mistake occurs, and because he had not prepared adequately, one blunder follows another and everyone jumps on him. Sometimes the congregation must literally be silenced: only the chazzan corrects, no one else may intervene! What a humiliation, what deep shame for that person! What about publicly humiliating one's fellow? What about "Do not persist in an evil thing"? You see a person in an unpleasant situation, an unfortunate predicament, and you stand there - not only looking on, but actually taking part in his distress and humiliating him? Keep your distance from such behavior.
"For he does whatever pleases him" - A tzaddik decrees and the Holy One, blessed be He, fulfills
The Midrash continues and asks: What is meant by "For he does whatever pleases him"? Whatever the tzaddik desires, the Holy One, blessed be He, will do, as it is said, "He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him." A tzaddik decrees and the Holy One, blessed be He, fulfills it.
And this can also be understood in reverse. It is related that the son of the Chafetz Chaim was once traveling on a train, and there was a group of Chassidim there, each recounting miraculous tales about his Rebbe - for Chassidim cherish stories of wonders. They said: "Here sits the son of the Chafetz Chaim; surely he can tell us of wonders! It is well known that by the Chafetz Chaim, miracles rolled around under the table, yet all in simplicity, without fanfare or ostentation." He told them: "Among us it is said that the descendants of Cham were the ones amazed by wonders; we are not impressed by miracles. My father always used to say: Far more than being impressed that 'a tzaddik decrees and the Holy One, blessed be He, fulfills,' one should be impressed that 'the Holy One, blessed be He, decrees and the tzaddik fulfills.'"
And indeed so it is. That the Holy One, blessed be He, fulfills - He is described as a "forbearing King," who tolerates insult to Himself and cares for His pious ones and tzaddikim more than for His own honor, as we saw with Michayahu and in other places. But that a mortal human being, fashioned from clay, full of desires and personal will, should subjugate his will to the will of Hashem - that is the true miracle. According to this, the verse can be explained in reverse: "For he does whatever pleases him" - whatever Hashem desires, the tzaddik will do. This is the greatness of the tzaddik, who fulfills the will of Hashem to perfection.
Rashi: There is Nowhere to Flee
Rashi explains: "Do not be hasty to leave His presence" - do not be rash and think that you can go and flee from Him to a place where He does not rule, for He rules everywhere. It is impossible to flee from Hashem; wherever you go, you are still before Him. "Do not persist in an evil thing" - do not station yourself in the pursuit of evil matters, "for whatever He pleases" to exact retribution from you, He has the authority and the power to do.
The meaning of this is: "For there is no righteous man on earth who does good and does not sin." There is no person of whom it can be said that he never sinned; even regarding the four who died solely through the counsel of the serpent, it is proven that they had sins and repented for them, at least for some of them. What, then, is required of a person? That even if you fall into sin, do not remain there. Even if you stumbled, do not stay stuck there. It happens that a person stumbles; but if you stumbled, run away. If you stumbled, do not continue to entrench the fall.
"And Do Not Bring Us into the Hands of Sin" - Sin Has Hands
This is what we pray: "And do not bring us into the hands of sin." Rav Yaakov Galinsky asked: Does sin have hands? What does it mean to "come into the hands of sin"? After all, the Mishnah teaches: "Reflect upon three things and you will not come into the hands of sin" - but does someone who reflects upon these three things really never sin at all? How can he be guaranteed that he will not come into the hands of sin?
Rather, this is the meaning: There is a person to whose hand a sin comes - and that is still manageable, for if a sin comes to your hand, you can let it go. But woe to the person who comes into the hands of sin: he is already gripped, caught, locked in; he has entered into the hands of the sin and it holds him fast, and just try to break free. How difficult this reality is for people in all kinds of addictions to sin! The Gemara says regarding idolatry that one who became deeply entrenched in it has no remedy other than death; and it brings something similar regarding forbidden relations, that when a person becomes so attached to the impurity of forbidden relations and deeply entrenched in it, he sometimes no longer has the power to extricate himself. Therefore, a person must be mindful and careful not to come into the hands of sin, so that the sin does not seize him in its grip. This is what Shlomo says: "Do not persist in an evil thing" - do not establish yourself in evil pursuits; and even if you stumbled, do not remain there - flee.
The Imrei Shefer: The Slave Rebelling Against His Master
The Imrei Shefer explains "Do not be hasty to leave His presence": Often we see that when tragedy strikes, people behave toward their Creator like a slave rebelling against his master. If the master strikes his slave, the slave becomes enraged at him, casts off the yoke from his neck, mocks his fear, and no longer dreads the terror of his hand. In simple terms: when tragedy strikes, that is it, he is no longer afraid; he has abandoned Hashem. He feels, "What more can He do to me? Look at what He has already done to me."
A story is told of a woman whose son tragically passed away at the age of thirty in a severe accident, and from then on she began to speak harshly against the Holy One, blessed be He, hurling bitter accusations. A relative who knew her said to her: It is a mistake to speak this way, for the Holy One, blessed be He, is stronger than you, and you have other children. Know that one who does not accept comfort over the deceased - as the Gemara in Ta'anit states, will bury another deceased, Heaven forbid. For one who refuses to be comforted portrays the Holy One, blessed be He, as cruel, so to speak, and thereby brings another tragedy upon himself. And indeed, after two or three years, another child passed away, Heaven forbid. But notice: after the second child passed away, she did not utter another word; she said nothing, and later she accepted comfort for both the first and the second.
We see that such a reality exists, where a person thinks: What more do I have to lose? Hashem did this to me, that is it, I am leaving. Regarding this, the Imrei Shefer says: Such a person no longer fears the dread of His hand, and many act madly in times of trouble and cast off the yoke of Heaven from their neck, saying: Why should I labor for Him and perform His mitzvot if He has turned cruel toward me? This happened to quite a few people during the Holocaust, and that was unfortunately the reality there as well. And there are many, the Imrei Shefer notes, who wonder at the righteous person whom they see clinging to his righteousness even in times of trouble: What does this man gain by walking with God, when His wrath against him has increased yet he still holds fast to his integrity? The very fact causes them astonishment - how can Hashem, as it were, display anger toward him and judge him strictly, yet the person still clings to Hashem, may He be blessed?
Therefore, the wise king comes and warns: "Do not be hasty to leave His presence" - do not be rash on a day of trouble to walk away from Him and rebel against Him; on the contrary, know that you must cling to Him all the more. "Do not persist in an evil thing" - do not persist in an evil frame of mind, saying: Hashem did bad to me, so I too will do bad, I too will abandon His Torah. "For whatever He pleases He does" - if He pleases to strike you with an additional blow, what will you do? Who can rescue you from His hand? As we saw, Heaven forbid, "he will bury another deceased." If so, why open your mouth? Accept the justice of Heaven's judgment; Hashem is stronger than you. And if you continue to walk with Him casually, He will continue to chastise you further. Thus, if your sins multiply, you effect nothing against Him, and if your transgressions are many, what do you do to Him? Accept the justice of Heaven's decree upon yourself.
The Two Barrels: Why the Same Upheaval Yields Two Opposite Outcomes
The Chazon Ish was asked: How is it possible that the Holocaust caused some to become more righteous, and others to become more wicked? There were those who abandoned observance in its wake, and there were those who clung to Hashem and reached tremendous heights of Divine attachment amidst all the suffering - "Yet despite all this, we have not forgotten Your Name." How could this be?
He said to them: A parable of two barrels, at the bottom of each lay something unknown. Both appeared to contain clear water. Someone came and stirred up the barrels; they tasted one - it was sweet, as it turned out there was sugar at the bottom. They tasted the second - bitter and foul, as it turned out there was sludge at the bottom. Until they were shaken, both barrels looked identical, pure water, with no one seeing what lay beneath. And know, he said, that the Holocaust was a terrible upheaval.
One whose entire observance of Torah and mitzvot was done begrudgingly, as though it were a burden, as though doing the Master of the World a favor by showing up to pray, whose entire attitude was "I have a burden on me, when can I cast it off?" - when the opportunity came, cast it off with joy and gladness. But one whose entire aspiration was "How can I do Hashem's will and cling to Him more closely?" - when the Holocaust came, it posed no difficulty for him. On the contrary: what happened in the Holocaust is written in the Torah. "And if you walk contrary to Me... then I will chastise you further" - is this an unfamiliar system? The Torah explicitly states that when we stray from the path there are afflictions, and that is precisely what happened. It is written that He will bring enemies upon us, the exile of the First Temple is written, the exile of the Second Temple is written, it is written, "And among these nations you shall find no ease" - it is all already written. Therefore, for such a person, the Holocaust actually served as a reinforcement of faith.
Everything Depends on What Lies at the Bottom
We see that everything depends on the background, on what you bring with you from beforehand. If you came with an aspiration for faith - you will grow stronger. If you came with an aspiration to cast off the yoke - any small pretext will suffice, and you will always find more reasons. Do we not sometimes see this among youth? Suddenly someone falls apart. When asked why, he answers: "The mashgiach offended me, the Ram said this to me, don't even ask what the rosh yeshivah said." And you say to him: Are you seeking the Master of the World, or are you seeking to run away from Him? To run away from Him - there are plenty of reasons, and you will always find more. But to whom are you offering these excuses? Will that stand up for you on the Day of Judgment?
Suppose you recount what the rosh yeshivah did and say before the Holy One, blessed be He: "The rosh yeshivah wronged me, it was unfair." True enough! Hashem says to you: "And what do you want from Me? I gave you life, I gave you health, I gave you a livelihood, I gave you everything - can you explain to Me why you are spitting at Me because the rosh yeshivah did something wrong? Even granted that both you and I are upset with the rosh yeshivah - what do you want from the Master of the World?" Rather, a person is looking for a way out, and so he finds someone to blame: it is because of the rosh yeshivah, it is because of the Holocaust, it is because... When there is muck at the bottom, a slight stirring is enough to make it all surge to the surface.
In summary: "Do not hasten to go out of His presence" - both in exile and in suffering, a person has no license to become panicked and abandon his Creator, for there is nowhere to flee, and it is within the power of the Holy One, blessed be He, to remove the affliction just as He brought it. "Do not persist in an evil matter" - do not conclude with something bad, neither in reading nor in study; do not stand aside and add harm to one who is suffering shame; and do not place yourself in the midst of evil matters, for someone who stumbles must flee immediately, before sin ensnares him in its grasp. "For He does whatever He pleases" - the desire of the tzaddik is fulfilled by the Holy One, blessed be He, and the true virtue of the tzaddik is that he fulfills Hashem's desire in wholeness. And as in the parable of the two barrels: the shaking does not create the person; it merely reveals what lies at his bottom.