The Book of Ecclesiastes was written around the year 300B.C. It reflects the reality of the Chosen People on the return from exile. With no nation, no king, and a sadly diminished temple the people seem to have lost their sense of common identity, their feeling of belonging to something larger than themselves. The author of the book, who calls himself Qoheleth, looks death squarely in the eye and finds human life not worth more that a puff of smoke or a soap bubble. In the author’s view the only realistic response is to find some small contentment in living each day. Our own spiritual journey will end up in a similar depressed state unless we find that we belong to something larger than ourselves.
