Kohelet: The Sphinx of Scriptures

Rabbi Moshe Shulman

Tuesdays starting August 22nd at 1:00 pm eastern, 8:00 pm Israel time

No text in Tanakh has captured our imagination more than Kohelet. King Solomon’s philosophical treatise is at once enigmatic, esoteric, self-contradictory, philosophical, pragmatic, beautiful, infuriating and inspiring. It has been called the Sphinx of Scriptures!

Kohelet probes profound questions such as what is the purpose of life if death renders all futile? Is it wrong to seek pleasure? How do we determine good and evil? Why do the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper? Is there a ‘world to come’ and if so, what purpose does it serve? How do we understand the divine system of reward and punishment, as well individual vs national accountability before G-d? What role did the Temple serve? King Solomon probes these questions and more, in a text filled with contradiction and controversy.

Kohelet reads like an enigma, a text encoded by a cipher, waiting for the right cipher key to be found that can unlock its mystery, inner beauty and timeless message. Let’s explore this together!


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