Chapter 12 of Kohelet is the chapter in which Shlomo HaMelech lays out before us the portrait of old age in all its stages, in order to direct a person toward life's ultimate purpose. We have reached verse 5, which first describes the fears of the elderly, and then the extinguishing of the three bodily faculties through three metaphors: the almond tree, the grasshopper, and the caperberry. And why all of this? So that a person will internalize that "man goes to his eternal home," and awaken while he still has the ability to do so.
גַּם מִגָּבֹהַּ יִרָאוּ וְחַתְחַתִּים בַּדֶּרֶךְ וְיָנֵאץ הַשָּׁקֵד וְיִסְתַּבֵּל הֶחָגָב וְתָפֵר הָאֲבִיּוֹנָה כִּי־הֹלֵךְ הָאָדָם אֶל־בֵּית עוֹלָמוֹ וְסָבְבוּ בַשּׁוּק הַסּוֹפְדִים׃ - They will also be afraid of heights, and terrors shall be in the way; the almond tree will blossom, the grasshopper will become a burden, and the caperberry will fail; because man goes to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the marketplace.
The Imrei Shefer explains: In his youth, a person was fearless, full of strength, leaping like a deer over every mountain and hill. Now, the entire path is filled with obstacles - wherever he goes he stumbles, at every step he encounters hindrances. He is afraid even of a fly. And when he sees an elevated place, he no longer contemplates whether to jump over fences, but whether he can step onto the sidewalk at all. Even that becomes a barrier in his eyes.
In the continuation of the verse there are two interpretations, dividing the faculties of the body into three. The first interpretation is that of the Imrei Shefer, who explains that the physical faculties are divided into three: the stimulating faculty (the drive to act), the imaginative faculty, and the appetitive faculty (desire) - and all three are alluded to by the almond tree, the grasshopper, and the caperberry.
The stimulating faculty is a person's alertness and bustling activity, which is most often directed toward seeking wealth. He runs from place to place: a deal here, an opportunity there, closing a deal here and traveling there. A person possesses alertness, and this running around is primarily in pursuit of money.
The second faculty is the imaginative faculty: a person envisions how he will build, buy, spend, produce, and import. There are many imaginations in which he is engrossed and preoccupied, in order to accomplish, advance, build, and marry. Indeed, without imagination, a person would not budge a single millimeter. What motivates a person to move? The imagination of how he will profit, what he will possess, how he will advance, and what he will achieve - and with that, he moves forward.
As noted at the time: Rav Baruch Mordechai Ezrachi eulogized Rav Ovadia Yosef and remarked that the greatness of Rav Ovadia lay in the fact that he had known Rav Ovadia "even when he was still just Ovadia." What does this mean to convey? Aspirations. Even as a young boy, he had a clear certainty that he was destined to be the Gadol HaDor.
And Rav Yitzchak Yosef shlit"a, the Rishon LeTzion, related here that when Rav Ovadia was meeting his future mother, at a certain stage she broke off the shidduch. Why? Because whenever he came to her father's home, he would speak with the father and never look at her. According to Halachah, he had already seen her and had no reason to look further, but she viewed this as an extreme asceticism with no telling where it might lead. Her father, Rav Fattal, who loved Rav Ovadia dearly, was deeply distressed and said to him: Try talking to her. He replied: I have already tried. The father said: Then I will speak with her. Rav Ovadia answered: May you succeed. They met once more, and the Rav told her: Look, the distance I am maintaining right now is strictly according to Halachah; we are going to marry, and everything will be different. And so that you know - I am destined to become a great man, and you will receive an equal half of whatever reward I merit. This is what he promised her, and she agreed.
Imagine if she had refused - what an eternal loss that would have been. But she agreed, and look at the generation she brought forth, what descendants and what continuity, meriting to be an eishet chaver who gave of herself in a truly supernatural way for the Rav's diligence and immersion in Torah without any distractions. That is to say: greatness lies in aspiring, in knowing from a young age where you are meant to go, placing it before your eyes as a goal - and achieving it. This is the power of imagination: a person envisions the future, pictures how it will be, strives toward it, and reaches it.
In this context, the question was raised: Perhaps because he promised her all this, he did not remarry after her passing? No, that was not the reason. After she passed away, matches were suggested to him. Rav Kaduri married at the age of eighty after his wife passed away, explaining that he could perform none of the Kabbalistic tikkunim unless he was married - since all matters of tikkunim reflect the union of male and female aspects, and without a wife he could not do so. People came to suggest matches to Rav Ovadia as well, but he said: What, do I have nothing to do? A wife expects her husband to sit with her and make time for her, and what am I, a young man? Let me sit and learn. Whatever was needed - laundry and managing the house - Moshe and Yehudit handled wonderfully. He did not want a millstone around his neck at that stage of his life.
Regardless, one must realize: the notion that a person does not remarry in order to "honor" a deceased spouse is a flawed attitude, contrary to the view of the Torah. One hears this from secular society, not from people of Torah. There are those who think a woman honors her husband by remaining unmarried, staying a widow from age thirty to ninety, lest the children or the husband's family say that she is forgetting his memory if she remarries. These are distorted notions, not the outlook of Judaism. According to the Torah, a man is forbidden to remain without a wife, and he is obligated to marry - even within the first year of mourning.
There was once an incident involving an unfortunate young man whose wife had been ill for about two years. When she passed away, he came to ask whether he had to wait, since there are halachot about waiting three festivals and the like. He was told not to wait, but to remarry immediately. Indeed, a few months later, he remarried. Afterward, he mentioned that a certain rebbetzin - whose name will not be mentioned - had protested to him: How could he possibly remarry so soon, what is this, and so on. The response given to him was: Forgive me, but she is speaking nonsense. "Let the words of Torah be burned rather than handed over to women," as Chazal said, and not without reason. The sefarim state that given the spiritual challenges of our generation, one should not wait a single moment. Consider: a man whose wife was ill for two years - how long has this man already had to endure this? Is he made of plastic? The Poskim rule that when there is any concern regarding matters of holiness, one should marry immediately. What place is there for criticism? Is it not enough that he was left a widower with orphans, that he must also hear accusations that he "does not honor his wife"? This is utter vanity.
In everything, one must seek Da'as Torah - what the Torah says, not what people say. There are those who do not remarry "as a memorial to the wife" - are you a gravestone? She already has one headstone; does she need another? And there are women who do not remarry "as a memorial to the husband." To be sure, there are women where it is understandable why they do not wish to remarry: after the painful ordeal they went through, they do not care to repeat it, and according to the letter of the law they are exempt - they are not commanded in the mitzvah of procreation, and especially if they already have children, they have already fulfilled the ideal that "He did not create it for waste, but formed it to be inhabited," so they are under no obligation to marry. But a man is certainly obligated to marry. Notice that the Satmar Rebbe married at an advanced age, as did Rav Kaduri and other Gedolim. Could a young man possibly imagine that he has no yetzer hara, that it has forgotten him?
The third faculty, says the Imrei Shefer, is the faculty of desire: the craving for food, delicacies, and licentiousness, along with all other bodily lusts - whether flesh of one kind or flesh of another. And unlike the ambitious faculty, where one who chases wealth knows no end to his pursuit, physical lusts do have a limit. A person cannot eat endlessly; he eats until there is no more room, until he is ready to burst. There is a well-known story of a suicide bomber who, before setting out, entered a restaurant for a final meal; after all, money was no concern, as he had no intention of paying. He ate and ate, and they offered him: Perhaps take another dessert? He told them: No need, I am about to explode anyway. Thus, even eating has a limit. So too with licentious desires - once a person satisfies his craving, his attraction ends until the next arousal.
King Solomon addresses these three faculties through three allegories. Shaked (almond) connotes swiftness and diligence, as previously explained: Chazal say, why did the Holy One, blessed be He, show an almond rod? Because the almond tree is quickest to yield its fruit, within twenty-one days, indicating diligence and industriousness. This represents the first faculty, the ambitious faculty, which is ever diligent, moving swiftly and in a rush to amass more wealth, like the almond tree that knows no rest.
Notice, however: the almond tree also blossoms in its season - it turns entirely white or pink, a magnificent sight - yet after the summer it sheds its blossoms and leaves, leaving behind nothing but a bare monument of trunk and branches. "Veyane'etz hashaked" ("and the almond tree shall blossom/shed") comes from the notion of casting off the blossom (netz), akin to "lesharesh" (uprooting), which means to remove from the root; it can be interpreted as blossoming, like "the pomegranates have blossomed" (hentzu harimonim), or it can mean that it sheds its blossoms. Thus the verse tells man: all of this diligence (shekidah) and this endless race after wealth and fortune - in old age, all the leaves fall away. A person reaches old age and ceases the chase; he is simply no longer there.
The grasshopper is a species of locust, characterized by its swift flight and haste to consume. As is well known, wherever locusts descend, nothing remains. So it is with the imaginative faculty (koach hamedameh): nothing is swifter on the wing; it carries a person to the most distant places, and one who does not imagine never arrives. Imagination drives a person to run - he imagines how he will go there, conquer here, acquire from there, and take control over here - leading him astray into acquiring all these things in his fantasy and devouring them like a locust.
Yet all of this is true when a person is young. As he advances into his twilight years, becoming feeble and helpless, the wings of his imagination weaken as well. That grasshopper which was once darting and light becomes like a porter bearing a burdensome stone. "Veyistabel hehagav" ("and the grasshopper becomes a burden") - it becomes like a porter (sabal) carrying a heavy load upon his shoulders; this grasshopper no longer flits swiftly about, and the imagination no longer runs without bounds.
"Ha'aviyonah" (desire) relates to the third appetite, physical passion, and it too is broken and rendered void. When a person grows old, on the one hand he can no longer taste what he eats or drinks, and even if he does taste it - the doctor tells him this is forbidden and that is forbidden. On the other hand, physical desire departs from him entirely.
Reflect and see: a person moves slowly and steadily toward his eternal home. And if you ask: does not a child or youth also walk day by day toward their eternal home? That is true, yet in the young, the signs of death are not visible. In the elderly person, however, when one sees that everything begins to fade away - the pursuit of money, the imagination, physical appetites, everything continuously waning - everyone can see that death is spreading its wings over him.
Seemingly, it should have said that the mourners gather at the funeral home or the cemetery; what are they doing in the marketplace (shuk)? The commentators explain that while he is still alive, the eulogizers are already circling around him, waiting for him to pass. There was once an incident at a funeral where a hundred-year-old man was leaving, leaning heavily on his cane. The cemetery watchman saw him and remarked, "Tell me, grandfather, is it really worth the trouble of going all the way back home? You are already here." In this way, the eulogizers count down his hours and moments, and in their eyes, he is already considered departed. The eulogizer begins inquiring about what the man accomplished and did in his lifetime, for soon he will be asked to deliver a hesped and must prepare his address, so he walks about the marketplace to hear what people say about him - because as far as they are concerned, he has already passed from the world.
The Me'am Lo'ez cites several additional interpretations from various commentators. In the name of the Metzudat David: "Veyistabel hehagav" describes a person's state when his strength has ebbed, such that even a grasshopper resting on him feels like a heavy burden, as though a load were placed upon his back. In the name of Rav Farissol: "Veyistabel hehagav" refers to the hunched posture of old age - when a person grows old, his whole body stoops, forming a hump like the one a grasshopper bears on its back. In the name of Rav Zechariah: it refers to the pulse, which once skipped along like a grasshopper, constantly beating, but as one ages it slows down, like someone carrying a burden. And in the name of Derech HaChaim: until now he supported others, but now others must carry him - he who was once light as a grasshopper has himself become a burden that others must endure and carry. This is a common reality in old age; and even if today people are not literally carried by hand but use a wheelchair, this too is part of "veyistabel hehagav."
In the name of Rav Ibn Latif: "And desire shall fail" - when people grow old, and especially those who become nursing patients, they think only of their own personal matters and do not care to know what is going on in the world. A person during his vigorous years might have been a "political animal"; he would not miss a single news flash, and not only listened to the news but lived it, shouting comments back at the broadcaster. Yet when he grows old, you suggest he listen to the news, and he says: Leave me alone, I do not want noise. You suggest some program to keep him occupied, and he says: Turn it off, it bothers me. He has no interest in anything. "Ha'aviyonah" (desire) is related to "avah" - the will or desire. People usually interpret this as physical lust, but he explains that it is not necessarily that, but rather desire in general. What do you want? Nothing. Ask him: Maybe you want me to buy you something? You are passing by there anyway - "buy what, bring what?" Do you lack anything? Nothing is missing. If he is in pain, he groans, and besides that, he asks for nothing. A person no longer has any will, he has no longing, and he desires nothing.
In the name of the Divrei Chefetz: "And desire shall fail" - a woman, who makes a covenant only with her husband, breaks her covenant with him. Unfortunately, we sometimes see unpleasant situations where, precisely in old age, when one spouse needs the other, some separate, leave, divorce, or disengage. In truth, one cannot place all the blame on one side, because often there were shaky relations for years, and now, when such a situation arises, it comes to the surface: she tolerated him all her life, and now she is also supposed to be his caretaker? And it can be the other way around as well. This is not meant to justify it, but merely to say that there is usually a history behind it.
He also quotes from the Divrei Chefetz on the phrase, "and the mourners go about the streets": those who see him in the street eulogize him while he is still alive. This is very common - when someone suddenly ages, someone who knew him in his youth sees him with a cane, stooped over, walking step by step, and says: What, that is so-and-so? Wow, look at that. He already eulogizes him, viewing him as one who is already gone and no longer part of this world.
We have already discussed how a person always feels young, while everyone around him is getting old. "Look, his beard has already turned white" - and when was the last time you looked in the mirror? He only sees what happened to the other person. There is a story of a man who arrived at the clinic and saw the sign, "Dr. Yaakov Goldman." He said to himself: Yaakov Goldman? He was with me in university, how interesting. He walked in, saw the doctor, and could not believe it: how old the man had become! He asked him, "Tell me, did you study at the Hebrew University?" The doctor replied, "Yes." He said, "Do you remember me?" The doctor asked, "What is your name?" He replied, "Moshe Levi." The doctor said, "Moshe Levi? I don't recall having a lecturer by that name." You think he was your peer, but he looks at you as someone who might have been his professor when he was a student - you were forty when he was twenty.
This is precisely what Shlomo comes to impress upon a person: my friend, you are aging just like everyone else; wake up. Do not think that this skips anyone - it happens to every single human being. There are wake-up calls here, and each person must see this for himself and understand.
To the general world, everything Shlomo mentions here sounds like absolute despair. Why? Because in their eyes, one comes into the world to enjoy - for fun, pleasure, and desires. The moment the body begins to wither, a person sinks into depression. But for someone who has more powerful things in life and a different purpose, this whole reality takes on a different meaning, and the entire outlook changes. This is why Chazal extol the elderly and the wise, and even said regarding a zaken ashmai - elderly people who acquired basic wisdom simply by virtue of growing old, and even elderly non-Jews - that they must be respected, for "how many vicissitudes have passed over him!" He has been through a great deal in life, and one who has experienced much knows and understands far better than a young person; he possesses life wisdom.
In Judaism, old age is viewed as a time when a person has already been freed from some of his physical desires, allowing him to invest himself far more in sanctification, in the service of Hashem, and in the fear of Heaven. Notice that the Gedolim and Tzaddikim are usually spoken of in their old age - the wonders they performed, the great salvations, and the like. As a person grows older, on the contrary, it is a process of refinement and sanctification; it is a person who senses all the more acutely that he is preparing to give a final accounting. All this is reason to elevate him, not to depress or discourage him. But for someone whose entire existence begins and ends with the physical body, the whole concept of old age is a source of great depression.
This is why we often see among those far from Torah, and especially among the non-Jewish world, that they request that upon reaching a certain age or medical state, they be disconnected and not resuscitated. "Why do I need such a life, being in a geriatric ward? I have no interest in that." What does "I have no interest" mean? Hashem gave you a soul, and as long as it remains within you, there is rectifying to be done, there is purpose, there is the will of Hashem. Even if you recite a single berachah, even just once a week - do you have any concept of what power, what strength that holds? But what does a secular outlook possess? Physical desires. And if the body can no longer deliver, why prolong his days and connect him to machines? It does not provide what he expects from life.
However, when a person has a different purpose in life, he understands that this is another stage in which the Holy One, blessed be He, wishes to refine him, where a person must be cleansed of everything that transpired throughout his days, and afflictions are what cleanse him. This reality is perceived as yet another phase in life that also contains the will of Hashem: Hashem has expectations of me as a child, as a youth, as a young adult, in middle age, and in old age. Every stage has its divine purpose; He formed it within me, and the Holy One, blessed be He, desires that I serve Him using these very tools. Giving up and saying, "Since this is the case, it is over" - this is not what Shlomo came to teach. He came to teach that life has a purpose, and that precisely at the age when one begins to observe all these phenomena, there is an even greater reason to awaken to the service of Hashem.
There is no shortage of stories about couples who reached old age and took poison together, and there are countries that permit one to demand that a doctor end their lives, calling it "mercy killing." What mercy? A double mercy? May Hashem have mercy - for such a person does not realize what an endless Gehinnom he has opened for himself: he is both a murderer and a suicide. A suicide is a case exceedingly difficult to emerge from favorably in Heavenly judgment, and it is written that nothing is harsher than the judgment of a suicide; to this, add the indictment of a murderer, which is among the gravest of all. One cannot envy such a person, and the only possible merit by which to judge him is a complete lack of understanding.
There is one valid point in the argument of the youth, and that is technology. But if you make an honest reckoning, from the creation of the world until today, nothing in the human being has changed. Progress has had zero effect on man himself. Think about it: today, more than five thousand years after the creation of the world, you relieve yourself just as Adam HaRishon relieved himself after the sin; you think as Adam HaRishon thought; you eat as he ate. There is no development that exempts one from eating, no invention of some nano-chip that makes food superfluous. And likewise with all human drives - the pursuit of wealth, the pursuit of desires - nothing has changed. What has changed? External technology: instead of washing the floor yourself, there is a robot; there is a machine that washes clothes, a microwave that heats food, a computer that carries out operations. Everything is external.
What this means is that the conditions set by the Torah regarding the pattern of human life have not changed, for the Torah does not develop technologies, but rather a way of life for man - and man has not changed. Man with his loves, his hatreds, and his innate nature: the very things we contend with today are the things you read about in Sefer Bereishit, the struggles of the Holy Forefathers, Yaakov contending with Lavan. The issue of deceit, and the issue of idolatry - back then it was an idol of wood and stone, and today "their silver and gold are their idols." Envy, lust, and the pursuit of honor, all the character traits - they exist in full force today. In the underlying mechanics of human nature, nothing has changed, and what the Torah said back then remains fully valid today.
Therefore, the entire outlook of the youth is completely distorted. A young person shows you a tablet or a smartphone and asks: Do you use this thing? Baruch Hashem, no. So where are you, sir? Technologically, you are stuck seventy years in the past! True, there is no shame in that, you are right. But wait a moment - emotionally, do you have anything? And here, the situation is dire. All the studies indicate that those who are immersed in these devices suffer severe harm to their social skills, their emotional abilities, their capacity to enjoy anything, and their ability to analyze matters deeply. That young fellow with the smartphone feels advanced, but emotionally he has regressed two hundred years; his feelings are utterly numbed. It destroys a person from within - and this is what secular psychologists themselves say. So in what way is he advanced? In knowing how to operate this mechanical gadget better than you? Perhaps. But in terms of life wisdom - your grandfather had a thousand times more than you.
You can see this in the simplest examples. Today there are insolvent people, living beyond their means, swiping cards everywhere. Did your grandfather live like that? If he had money in his pocket, he bought; if there was no money in his pocket, he did not buy. Basic life wisdom that the youth does not recognize at all. You see someone at a very young age already deeply in debt, scrambling for funds - "I bought it in installments." And what, are installments not paid in the end? This was an elementary concept that everyone once understood, yet today people live without a reckoning. This is just one example of how the world is deteriorating emotionally, and all the progress is purely technological. This is precisely what we learned in Chovot HaLevavot: as the world increased in construction, their soul increased in ruin. The world is built up more, technology advances, material capabilities advance - and the soul is ruined further. It is literally one-to-one: the more external progress there is, the more spiritual decline there is.
Verse 5 depicts the extinguishing of the three bodily faculties: "Veyanetz hashaked" (the almond tree blossoms) - the awakening faculty, which all its days was diligent and ran after wealth, casts off its blossom and remains bare; "veyistabbel hehagav" (the grasshopper becomes a burden) - the faculty of imagination, which was once swift-winged like a locust, has its wings grow slack and becomes like a porter bearing a heavy load; "vetaper ha'aviyonah" (and desire fails) - the appetitive faculty, which breaks its drive and desires nothing more. And from here, "for man goes to his eternal home, and the mourners go about the marketplace" - that already in his lifetime, his remaining moments are being counted down. Yet this is not a message of despair: for one whose entire life is centered on the body, old age appears as depression; but for one who has an ultimate purpose, old age is a time of refinement and sanctification, another stage in which Hashem seeks his service. And the true message is awakening: man has not changed since the creation of the world, all progress is purely external, and therefore the words of the Torah are as valid for us today as they ever were - and we must remember our Creator while the power is still in our hands.