Drash Cards for Ha’Azinu (5761)

by Marc Mangel

• Today I want to mainly talk about Kohelet, but before that one comment on the Torah reading.

• In Ch 15, v 11 we have a public policy statement if there ever was one.

• We cannot eliminate poverty, but we can cushion its effect. Now on to Kohelet

• We all know Ch 3, v 1-9: Turn, Turn, Turn (Pete Seger 1954)

• In his 1993 book ‘Where Have All the Flowers Gone’ Seeger writes “a bearded fellow with sandals, a tough minded fellow called Ecclesiastes who lived in Judea like 3000 years ago…I bet he was short, wiry, irascible”

• My reading for this year: take your pleasure in the doing, not the accumulation

• Ch 1, v 7 has a beautiful ecological observation and Ch 2 v 16 tells us that there is nothing coming to perfection

• Ch 3, v22: rejoice in deed and Ch 5 v1: take care with our words — these are good reminders.

• And perhaps best of all, Ch 7, v 5: be able to take criticism, indeed — seek it out