We continue in Chapter 9 of Kohelet, in the passage where King Solomon describes the troubling sight of "one fate comes to all" - the apparent impression that there is no difference in the destiny of the righteous and the wicked - and the negative conclusions that one might draw from it, contrasted with the proper conclusion that ought to be drawn. From there, we move to the supreme value of life: "for a living dog is better than a dead lion," and to understanding how man is entirely built upon connection - internally and externally.
זֶה רָע בְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר נַעֲשָׂה תַּחַת הַשֶּׁמֶשׁ כִּי מִקְרֶה אֶחָד לַכֹּל וְגַם לֵב בְּנֵי הָאָדָם מָלֵא רָע וְהוֹלֵלוֹת בִּלְבָבָם בְּחַיֵּיהֶם וְאַחֲרָיו אֶל הַמֵּתִים׃ - This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that one fate comes to all; moreover, the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
And "and after that they go to the dead" can be explained in another way, connecting back to the beginning of the verse: "that one fate comes to all" - in what way? In that ultimately everyone dies. Does the righteous person not die? Does he necessarily live longer than the wicked? This is part of the claim that "one fate comes to all": you see that there are troubles or good lives, and it seems unrelated to whether one is righteous or wicked, and in the end everyone dies, and that too appears unrelated to whether one is righteous or wicked.
The Imrei Shefer explains: the fact that one fate comes to all is worse than all the evils done in the world, and this is the meaning of "this is an evil in all [ba-kol]" - meaning "worse than all [mi-kol]." The sight of an apparently identical fate for the righteous and the wicked here in this world is the worst evil of all. The author notes that often the letter beit serves as a superlative, as in "the fairest among women [hayafah banashim]" - meaning fairer than all women; "the poorest in Manasseh [hadal bimnasheh]" - meaning poorer than all in Manasseh. Here too, "this is an evil in all" means greater than all: the worst evil of all is what appears to be injustice in the providence governing the world.
And this itself should motivate a person to abandon frivolous pursuits. What benefit is there in everything you do here in this world if you cannot protect it from the ravages of time? For one fate comes to all. Behold, you see in the end how bitter and grievous man's end is, and if so, what will you gain from all the pleasures and desires of this world?
"Moreover, the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live" - all the days of his life, you see that his heart is full of evil and madness: how many distressing thoughts weigh upon him, driving him almost mad, that is, out of his mind! How much a person toils with his body, how hard he labors, how many troubles and aches he endures - worries that strike the body like swords, grief, anger, sighing, and sorrow - even over a single frivolous thing that is taken from him. If he lacks something, see how agitated he becomes; he has no peace and no tranquility. A minor loss, and see how it throws him completely off balance. Reflect on how futile man's worldly affairs are, and what his end is - "and after that they go to the dead"; at the end of his days he joins the dead, ultimately arriving at the grave.
In other words, the Imrei Shefer does not explain, as Rashi does, that this leads man to heresy; rather: consider what man squanders his days on here. "The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live" - he busies himself chasing after harmful, senseless pursuits that bring him only harm, leading him to sadness, anger, and grief. And his end - "and after that they go to the dead": after this harsh and bitter life, he departs to a new company of people he never knew, where there is neither eating nor drinking, neither delight nor joy, and among them he will lie like a silent stone. And even if he enjoyed all his toil - all the villas left behind, all the wealth, the grand mansions - in the end he will dwell in a cramped, dark abode, with maggots spread beneath him and worms covering him, driven away from all his pleasures and delights, knowing nothing of them. All pleasures and lusts he will leave behind, "only his flesh pains him, and his soul mourns over him." And the commentator wonders: how can a person reflect on all this during his lifetime and still continue pursuing vanity and physical pleasures? How does he not take all this to heart to mend his ways?
כִּי מִי אֲשֶׁר (יבחר) [יְחֻבַּר] אֶל כׇּל הַחַיִּים יֵשׁ בִּטָּחוֹן כִּי לְכֶלֶב חַי הוּא טוֹב מִן הָאַרְיֵה הַמֵּת׃ - For whoever is joined to all the living has hope, for a live dog is better than a dead lion.
Rabbi Chanina said: It is written yivchar ("shall choose") - even those who stretched forth their hands against the Zevul, meaning those who harmed the Beit HaMikdash and subsequently repented, concerning them it is stated: "and their form shall waste away in Sheol, away from its abode [mizevul lo]" (Tehillim 49:15): Sheol comes upon them because they harmed the Zevul. To push them away is impossible, for they have already repented, and how can one push away someone who has repented? Yet to draw them near is impossible, for they stretched forth their hands against the Zevul. How then is this resolved? Concerning them it is stated: "And they shall sleep an everlasting sleep and not awake" (Yirmiyahu 51:39).
An example of this is Menashe, who placed an idol in the Heichal and filled Jerusalem with blood from end to end. Although he repented, his teshuvah was not complete, as we have learned at length in the Prophets and in the shiurim on Ein Yaakov, and some say that Menashe is among those who have no share in the World to Come. What then is their status? They are not subjected to punishment, but on the other hand, they will not merit to "Awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust" (Yeshayahu 26:19). It turns out that they remain in an intermediate state: neither punishment nor reward, but rather an everlasting sleep - remain asleep.
And the Rabbis of Caesarea said: The young children of the gentiles and the soldiers of Nevuchadnezzar neither live nor are judged, and concerning them it is stated: "And they shall sleep an everlasting sleep and not awake." One cannot bring a claim against the young children of the gentiles, for they are minors; similarly with the soldiers of Nevuchadnezzar - it was a mandatory conscription, as he conscripted them to come and destroy the Beit HaMikdash, and they did not do so willingly. It is impossible to judge them, yet it is also impossible to grant them life - "they neither live nor are judged."
The Midrash states: "For a live dog" - in this world, one who is a dog can become a lion, and one who is a lion can become a dog. But in the Future to Come, one who is a dog cannot become a lion, and one who is a lion cannot become a dog. That is to say: as long as a person is alive, he can transform from a dog into a lion - even if he is in a lowly state, he can repent, mend his ways, and become a lion. Conversely, on the other hand, even if a person is a lion and a tzaddik, he can corrupt his ways like Yarov'am ben Nevat and become a dog. This is here in this world. But once one dies, it is over; there is no rectification, and nothing can be changed any longer.
The Midrash relates a remarkable episode. Some sources cite it regarding Hadrian, while others simply say "a king" without mentioning a name; in the Midrash here he is referred to as Hadrian shechik atzamot ("may his bones be crushed") - an epithet added whenever his name is mentioned. He said to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananyah: "I am better than your teacher Moshe" - not "Moshe Rabbeinu (our teacher)," but "your teacher." Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananyah, the wisest of the Jews, who frequently debated those who were wise in their own eyes and proved their folly, asked him: Why? He replied: "Because I am alive and he is dead," as it is written: "For a live dog is better than a dead lion." Even if you call me a dog, I am still better than your teacher Moshe, who is dead.
Rabbi Yehoshua asked him a challenging question: "Can you decree that no fire be kindled in Rome for three days?" You are a king, can you decree that no one kindle a fire in Rome for three days? He replied: Certainly, and woe to anyone who defies my order. He immediately decreed that no fire be lit in Rome for three days - neither in an oven, nor in a lamp, nothing at all.
The next day, they went up and strolled on the palace roof, with Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananyah at his side. Rabbi Yehoshua lifted his eyes and saw smoke rising from a distant corner. He said to him: Why is there this smoke? After all, you issued an order! The king replied: Over there is a nobleman who is ill; the physician visited him and said he would not recover unless he drinks a hot beverage, so they had to heat a drink for him. Rabbi Yehoshua turned his gaze to another direction and saw smoke once again. He asked him: Why is there smoke here? The king answered: Over there is an eparch - a high-ranking official - who is ill, and the physician visited him and said he would not recover unless they heat the bathhouse for him.
Rabbi Yehoshua said to him: "May the spirit of that man be confounded" - meaning, may your own spirit be confounded! You are still alive, yet your decree cannot hold for even a single day: this one needs it, that one must have it, and for the other it is essential. Yet regarding Moshe Rabbeinu, from the moment he wrote in the Torah for us, "You shall not kindle fire in any of your dwellings on the Sabbath day" (Shemot 35:3) - go and see if a Jew kindles fire on Shabbat; his decree still endures to this day. This was a generation that did not know the concept of secularism. You think you are better than him? You may be a live dog, but in this case, the dead lion is surely better than the live dog.
Rashi explains "For whoever is joined to all the living there is hope": while one is alive, even if he is wicked and associates with the wicked - "to all the living," to everyone, including the wicked - there is hope. And what is this "hope"? There is something to anticipate; there is still a good promise. How so? Perhaps he will repent before he dies. Whoever is still joined to life still has hope.
And later in the verse, "for a living dog is better than a dead lion" - Rashi explains that both refer to wicked men: it was better for Nevuzaradan than for Nebuchadnezzar his master, who was called a lion, as it says, "A lion has gone up from his thicket." Nebuchadnezzar died in his wickedness and was condemned to Gehinnom, whereas his servant Nevuzaradan, who repented, is in Gan Eden.
"And our Sages expounded this regarding cutting up a carcass before dogs," Rashi says. And what does this refer to? When King David passed away on Shabbat, Shlomo sent an inquiry to the Beit Midrash: My father is dead and lying in the sun, and the dogs of my father's house are hungry - what should I do? Two questions: a corpse is muktzeh machamat gufo (inherently set aside) and forbidden to be moved on Shabbat; and furthermore, the dogs of his father's house are hungry.
On the surface, this is puzzling: did David feed them by hand? Whatever they did every Shabbat, let them do this Shabbat as well! Rather, the meaning is that the dogs would eat from the leftovers of the king's table, and now there was no meal and no leftovers - for the king had died. Thus the question was raised: is it permitted to cut up an animal carcass and place it before them?
They sent back to him: Cut up a carcass and place it before the dogs; and as for your father - place a loaf of bread or a child upon him and move him. And notice: the first answer they gave addressed the dogs, and only afterward did they explain how to attend to his father (and they mentioned "a loaf or a child" only for the deceased). Why did they give precedence to the dogs? Because a living dog is better than a dead lion - the dog needs to eat right now, and that is urgent so as not to cause suffering to living creatures; therefore, they answered that first.
The Imrei Shefer continues by enumerating another deficiency in man's ultimate end. "For whoever is joined" - the word "joined" (yechubar) has the cantillation mark of a zakef katon, which is a major disjunctive accent, as if there were a period here: "For whoever is joined," and then, "to all the living there is hope." From this he explains: if we reflect, we will see that man is connected in a twofold manner - both internally and externally.
Internally: man is composite and connected, and woe to him if any part separates. If the heart were to decide not to supply blood to certain organs, if the lungs were not to provide oxygen, and so forth - the entire reality of man's existence stems from being joined, from harmony. The moment there is no harmony in the body, it is already the onset of illness. Therefore, when people wish someone a long life, they say to him "Shalom" - "May you have peace, and may your house have peace, and may all that is yours have peace." And what is peace? The Malbim explains: peace among all the foundations of the physical body - all the component parts of man live in harmony, all functioning properly, each supplying the needs of the whole body. This is man's internal connection.
And man also has a connection externally: man needs social life - not in the sense of friends to spend leisure time with, but in an entirely different sense. You wake up in the morning and eat bread - someone baked it, someone grew the wheat, someone milled it into flour, someone transported it to the bakery, in the bakery they did their work, someone delivered it to the grocery store, and in the grocery store a person stood and sold it. How many individuals stand in between just so you can eat a slice of bread in the morning! And one can trace the same cycle with the coffee you drank, with the butter you spread, and at every single stage. And likewise with what came before that: your shirt - how much effort was invested until it was ready to wear; your clothes and shoes; and even the bed on which you slept and the mattress - how much toil went into making them available to you.
Woe to man if he had to wake up in the morning and take care of all his needs from beginning to end, like some Robinson Crusoe living on a deserted island, searching for a Man Friday to help him manage somehow. He would have no time at all to actually accomplish anything in life, because he would be constantly preoccupied with his next meal, clothing, shelter, and everything he needs to arrange. It turns out, therefore, that man also requires a connection to society, for without being connected to it, he cannot survive.
And Rav Dessler explains that it is not for nothing that the Holy One, blessed be He, created His world in this manner. If you think about it, this makes us deeply dependent: look at what happens when, for just a few days, a certain commodity is not produced - bread is not baked, or milk is unavailable. A person becomes utterly dependent on others. Says Rav Dessler: this is intentional - the Holy One, blessed be He, wants a world built on chesed, as we learned at length in our lessons on Michtav Me-Eliyahu. The Holy One, blessed be He, wants you to know that you need others, that you must bestow upon others while also receiving from them, and in this way, the world becomes a place where everyone helps one another, and through this, the world is sustained.
And if you ask: but this is merely self-interest - I am a grocer and I sell to you because I earn money; I am a baker and I distribute bread because I turn a profit - where is the chesed here? Rav Dessler answers: it does not have to be that way. A person can be a grocer whose entire mindset and aspiration upon rising in the morning is to benefit his fellow man and do chesed with him; the fact that he earns money from it does not make it a transgression, nor does it detract from it. You can intend it for the sake of a mitzvah, to do chesed with the person you are selling to so that he can feed his children - if you directed your intent toward a mitzvah, you have gained a great merit.
We once related the story of the Chafetz Chaim and his son-in-law, who stepped down from a wagon. The Chafetz Chaim wanted to pay, but the son-in-law said to him: "I will pay." He took out money and paid the wagon driver. Afterward, the Chafetz Chaim asked him, "What were your intentions?" He replied, "What was there to intend? Does one need to recite a Leshem Yichud beforehand?" The Chafetz Chaim told him: "Oh, what a pity. They say that wise men know how to make money out of garbage, while fools turn money into garbage. That is to say, even an ordinary matter with no inherent spiritual value, the wise man knows how to transform into something precious. Had you only had the proper intention, you would have fulfilled the mitzvah of repaying a debt, you would have fulfilled 'On his day you shall give his wage,' you would have intended to do chesed with a fellow Jew, as well as 'or buy from the hand of your fellow' - for there is a mitzvah to purchase specifically from a fellow Jew." He enumerated an entire series of mitzvot, all of which depended solely on intention.
We learn from this that even through a routine, ordinary action, a person can merit eternal life. We once noted: two people go to sleep - for one, his meter is running, while the other simply sleeps. What is the difference? The first said: "I am going to sleep so that tomorrow, with God's help, I will have the strength to wake up and pray, so that tomorrow I can go study Torah, so that I can serve the Holy One, blessed be He" - his very sleep is divine service. As the Shulchan Aruch phrases it in Orach Chaim, siman 231: such a person serves Hashem constantly. "In all your ways know Him" - this is a great secret, that in every single action a person performs, he can intend it for the sake of Heaven, and then, at every single moment, his meter above is ticking.
It turns out, therefore, according to Rav Dessler, that the Holy One, blessed be He, created us dependent so that we would recognize our mutual responsibility, bestowing upon one another out of an intention to do chesed with others, out of an intention to be beneficial, and out of an intention to do good.
King Solomon points out the apparent evil "under the sun" - that one fate befalls all - and warns against drawing heretical conclusions from it, for in the World of Truth, justice will be visible to all. Rather, one should learn from it just how futile the affairs of this world are, that all the days of man are filled with turmoil, folly, and worry, and his end is "to the dead," joining a realm where there is neither eating nor pleasure. From this, the true value of life is revealed: "For a living dog is better than a dead lion" - as long as a person is alive, he has hope and confidence that he might repent before death, and the dog can become a lion; but once he dies, there is no further rectification. Finally, we learned that man is entirely built upon connection: an internal connection of his limbs in peace and harmony, and an external connection to society, without which he could not survive - and this itself is the Creator's will that "the world be built on chesed," and that in every action, even the simplest, one should intend it for the sake of Heaven and to perform chesed, thereby fulfilling: "In all your ways know Him."