Prof. Rabbi Marty Lockshin
The Torah.com, Oct. 9, 2022
“Is this modern-sounding idea—that life without progress is meaningless—really Kohelet’s worldview?”
In 1855, Adolph Jellinek (1821–1893) published a commentary on Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) from a late 13th century manuscript in Codex hebr. 32 (henceforth, “Hamburg 32”). The copyist opens the commentary with the words פי’ של ר’ שמואל “the commentary of R. Samuel,” whom Jellinek, among others, identified as Rashbam (Rabbi Samuel ben Meir, c. 1080 – c. 1160), Rashi’s grandson. Other scholars, including the great Rashbam scholar of the nineteenth century, David Rosin (1823–1894), did not accept the attribution (see appendix for more discussion).[1
The Real Beginning of Kohelet
In his gloss on verse 2, Hamburg 32 argues that Kohelet does not begin at the beginning, since the first two verses of Kohelet were a later addition:
שתי מקראות הללו—”דברי קהלת ” “הבל הבלים”—לא אמרן קהלת כי אם אותו שסידר הדברים כמות שהן.
These two verses (Kohelet 1:1–2), “The words of Kohelet,” [and] “Utter futility,” were not said by Kohelet but by the person who edited the words as they stand.[2]
If we accept this reasonable suggestion—an early example of what modern scholarship calls redaction criticism[3]—then Kohelet originally opened with:
קהלת א:ג מַה יִּתְרוֹן לָאָדָם בְּכָל עֲמָלוֹ שֶׁיַּעֲמֹל תַּחַת הַשָּׁמֶשׁ.
Eccl 1:3 What real value is there for people in all the gains[4] they make under the sun?
After expressing this grievance about the pointlessness of human toil, Kohelet continues:
קהלת א:ד דּוֹר הֹלֵךְ וְדוֹר בָּא וְהָאָרֶץ לְעוֹלָם עֹמָדֶת.
