Shabbos Chol HaMoed Succos - 5780
Shabbos Chol HaMoed Succos - 5780
Rabbi Hal Miller
For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he that increases knowledge
increases sorrow. [Koheles 1:18]
On the Shabbos Chol HaMoed during Succos, we read Koheles. Why should
we interrupt the holiday known as the time of our joy, with reading a book that
is so depressing? Solomon himself, in our verse, seems to be telling us that
learning about the holiday will decrease the joy, not increase it. What does
King Solomon mean?
We could read our verse as a blanket statement that anyone who strives to
learn anything at all will pay a price for having done so. That seems more than
a little counterintuitive. Being wise and knowledgeable certainly points out the
many faults in the world as things are now. But is that why we endeavor to
gain wisdom? What is the actual result of learning?
Rashi interprets our verse that when man gains too much wisdom, it is God
who is pained. If man sees his wisdom as having promoted himself into a
god-like position, man will lose his fear of and devotion to God, clearly a
negative result of gaining knowledge.
Ibn Ezra writes that a wise man will be "grief-stricken" at the baseness of man,
and the poor job mankind is doing working toward our Divine mission. Again,
a negative result of wisdom. Seems thus far that the phrase, "ignorance is
bliss" may have some real value to it.
But there is a second way to view our problem. Midrash Rabbah points out
that Doeg and Achitophel fell into the trap as described thus far, and used
their knowledge for ill. But how about Moshe? Avraham? Numerous others
have used tremendous wisdom for tremendous good. Is the result random?
The same is true with wealth. Some have used great wealth for great
purposes, others for wickedness.
The Dubner Maggid explains. Chazal have always looked down upon one
learning "Greek wisdom", meaning in general any forms of the knowledge of
the non-Jewish nations. We are allowed to learn what is necessary to earn
a living, to deal with the non-Jews in appropriate manner, etc., but not
beyond that. The Torah tells us (Yehoshua 1:8) that "you shall meditate on
it day and night", meaning that there is no time to spend with frivolities and
non-Torah learning. Where we do gain wisdom in other areas, our purpose
must be to apply that learning to our understanding of Torah.
Moshe, David, Yosef, in fact all of the Ushpizin as well as many others in
our history, learned much, but made use of their secular learning to improve
their own understanding of Torah. Our verse tells us not to follow those who
learn without that goal.