Koheles Rabbah (01:3) “What profit is there for man in all his toil that he toils under the sun?”. “What profit is there for man?” Rabbi Binyamin said: The Sages sought to suppress the book of Koheles because they found in it matters that tend toward heresy. They said: All of Solomon’s wisdom that he seeks to impart is: “What profit is there for man in all his toil,” but one might think that he meant even in the toil of Torah. They then said: He did not say “in all toil,” but rather in his toil…
It was presumably included by anshei Knesset hagdola. Or neviim beforehand. How could the later sages remove it?
ReplyDeleteBy removing it, you accuse Shlomo HaMelech of heresy. Who could ever that position? Especially as Chazal jumped through hoops to explain away all the problematic stuff he did late in life.
DeleteOr even worse, accusing earlier sages of erring..
DeleteBingo.
DeleteThe bottom line is that the books of Tanach did not just randomly appear one day. They were written down by prophets, edited by sages and then put into final form by the Anshei Knesses HaGedolah. All those people thought we could handle the texts and figure them out. They trusted us and we accuse them of making a mistake if we doubt that.
But Kabbalah is fine, whatever absurd claims it makes , it's encroached every aspect of our lives. The "Leshem yichud" formula was banned by the Noda bYehuda, because of its dualism.
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