Ashkenazim have a custom to read the book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) on Sukkot (Rama, Orah Chayyim 490:9) and this is a “late” custom as compared to the reading of the other four Megillot. Masechet Soferim (8th century?, 14:3,18 and 18:7) refers to reading the other Megillot but does not mention reading the book of Kohelet. (In my edition of Masechet Soferim, Slotki, 1965, p. 276, footnote 6, records that the Gra (18th century) added in the text of Masechet Soferim to read Kohelet on Sukkot.)
It seems that by the Middle Ages, Ashkenazim were reading Kohelet on Sukkot. Most likely this delay was because the message of Kohelet is very troubling and for a long time it was thought not appropriate to be read. However, eventually it was added probably just for the reason that once the other four Megillot (Esther, Shir ha-Shirim, Rut and Eicah) were read, then it was thought appropriate to read the fifth Megillah, Kohelet.
One of the most well-known set of verses in Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) is 3:1-8. 3:1 records, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the shamayim” (translation from Reichert and Cohen, 1946, p. 123). Note, many (all?) people translate the word shamayim as the heavens which I think they think is some undefined place that G-d and angels live, but I think it is the air starting from above people, animals and vegetation.
The first action mentioned in 3:2 is the first possible action, a time to be born, (1a) and the opposite action is a time to die (1b), which ends the life that was born. The second half of 3:2 continues this theme but by vegetation. First there is a time to plant (2a) vegetation, which from the plant’s perspective is like being born, and then the opposite action is that there is a time to uproot (2b) the plant, which is dying from the perspective of the plant.
The next verse 3:3 is problematic. It begins by stating that there is a time to kill (la-harog) and then a time to heal (lirpoah), but healing does not undo or end the killing as the person is still dead. In addition, the second half of 3:3 refers to opening (liphrotz) and building (livnot), which seemingly have nothing to do with killing or healing. Furthermore, killing is prohibited (Bereshit 9:6; Shemot 20:13), how could Kohelet write that there is a time for killing? People have told me that the killing is by a war, but this is mentioned in 3:8, and does not explain how the killing relates to opening/ building and how the healing undoes the killing. Instead, based on Melachim I 18:30, which records that on Mount Carmel (near Haifa) Eliyahu repaired (va-yirapeh) the altar which had been demolished (he-harus), Arnold Ehrlich (1848-1919, quoted by Ginsberg, 1963, p. 49) has suggested that the word la-harog in 3:3 should really be la-haros switching the gimmel in the end of the word for a samaech. With this change, 3:3 would refer to demolishing (3a) and repairing (3b), opening (4a) and building (4b), and 3:3 then accords with the structure of 3:2-8. The repairing (3b) ends or stops the demolishing (3a) and all four actions in the verse refer to one process, the building process, as almost inevitably when a person builds something, first the person needs to demolish and open things up to rebuild it. (When we did renovations in our house in Modiin, the work began by demolishing walls and making openings in the house before the house was re-built.)
The next verse, 3:4 refers to a time to cry (5a), a time to laugh (5b), which ends the crying, a time to mourn (6a) and a time to dance (6b), which ends or signals the end of the mourning.
The next verse 3:5 refers to a time to throw stones (7a), to gather stones (7b), to hug (8a) and to refrain from hugging (8b). This reference to throwing and gathering stones is odd. This action does not appear to be a significant action in a person’s life and how can it relate to hugging? The answer is that Kohelet Rabbah (3:3) explains that the phrase refers to marital relations when the wife is not a niddah (when sexual relations are permitted) and when the wife is a niddah (when sexual relations are prohibited). Reichert and Cohen (1946, p. 124) explain that the term stones in the verse is a euphemism for the testes, and the throwing of the stones is a euphemism for sexual intercourse. Note also in Rut 3:4,8,14 there is a euphemism, albeit a different word, margelotav, for the same male anatomy. It could be that Kohelet is not referring to the laws of niddah, but instead he (?) means there is time for sexual profligacy and a time for sexual restraint (see Machinist, 2004, p. 1607). With either possibility, the first half of 3:5 then relates to the hugging and not hugging in the second half of the verse.
The first half of the next verse, 3:6 refers to a time to seek/ demand (9a), and a time to lose something (9b), as when a person acknowledges that something is lost, then this stops one from seeking or demanding the item. The second half of 3:6 records that there is a time to keep/ store (10a, li-shmor, not the definition of the word shamor in the Torah, which is to remember, see our discussion on Devarim 4:6, “The definition of the word shamor in Moshe’s speeches in the book of Devarim - To remember”) and a time to discard (10b), and the discarding ends the keeping of an item. While these four actions could be referring to material items, I think that all the actions refer to a person seeking a partner/ friend, losing a partner/ friend, keeping the partner/ friend and separating from one’s partner/ friend.
The next verse 3:7 refers to a time to tear (11a), a time to sew (11b), as the sowing ends or removes the tear, and a time to keep quiet (12a) and a time to speak (12b), as the speaking ends or stop the person from being quiet. It is not clear how these four actions are connected. Hartom (1999, p. 76) suggests that all of these actions refer to mourning. The tearing was the common way for a person to express his/ her grief, and then after the mourning was over, the tear was sewn. (Today we still tear our garments at the funeral, but it has become a formal act and I think very few people sew their clothing which they tore.) Similarly, initially when a person is in mourning, they are quiet and pensive, and then when the mourning ends or become less intense, they start to talk.
The last verse in this set of verses, 3:8 records that there is a time to love (13a), a time to hate (13b), as the hate ends the love, and a time for war (14a) and time for peace (14b), as the peace ends the war. This verse breaks the pattern of the previous six verses since in 3:2-3:7 the first action (the “a” action) in the first half of the verse corresponds to the first action (again the “a” action) in the second half of the verse. For example, in 3:2, action 1a is being born and action 2a is being planted. However here the action to love (13a) does not correspond to fighting a war (14a). One would have thought that the first action in 3:8 would be to hate which corresponds with fighting a war or that the second action in the second half of the verse would be to fight a war. Maybe Kohelet did not want to put to hate before to love since while it happens that people who hate each other fall in love (Beauty and the Beast?), the more common occurrence is that people who hate each other initially loved each other (most cases of divorce?), and hence hate would be mentioned after love. (Note this does not imply that all cases of love lead to hate or that hate only happens after love, but that it is more likely that hate will happen after love, then love will develop from hatred.) A different idea is that maybe Kohelet did want to list to hate before to love to not be too rose-colored to imply that all cases of hate lead to love in the end. In addition, maybe Kohelet did not want to end this series of verses on fighting, so he ended with there is a time for peace. Or maybe Kohelet wanted to end the series of verses with a verse that has a chiastic structure, 13a with 14b and 13b with 14a.
Looking at the eight verses as one unit, excluding the first verse, 3:2, which is the totality of life, being born and dying, there is an approximate chiastic structure to the verses. 3:3, the demolishing and building of physical structures roughly matches with 3:8, the forming and ending of human relationships, 3:4 is similar to 3:7 since both relate to mourning and 3:5 and 3:6 both relate to a person and his/ her partner, which, other than the fear of G-d (12:13), is the pivotal part of a person’s life.
Bibliography:
Ginsberg, H. L. 1963, The quintessence of Kohelet, in Biblical and other studies, edited by Alexander Altmann, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Hartom (Artom), Elia Samuele (1887-1965), 1999, The five Megillot, Tel Aviv: Yavneh Publishing House.
Machinist, Peter, 2004, Kohelet/ Ecclesiastes, in the Jewish Study Bible edited by Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 1603-1622.
Reichert, Victor and A. Cohen, 1946, Ecclesiastes, in The Five Megilloth: Hebrew text, English translation and commentary, edited by A. Cohen, Hindhead, Surrey: The Soncino Press, pp. 103-191.
Slotki, Israel W., 1965, Masseketh Soferim, translated, in The Minor Tractates of the Talmud, Vol. 1, edited by A. Cohen, London: Soncino Press.