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Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:20

专讗讛 讗转 诪注砖讛 讛讗诇讛讬诐 讻讬 诪讬 讬讜讻诇 诇转拽谉 讗转 讗砖专 注讜转讜 讘砖注讛 砖讘专讗 讛拽讘状讛 讗转 讗讚诐 讛专讗砖讜谉 谞讟诇讜 讜讛讞讝讬专讜 注诇 讻诇 讗讬诇谞讬 讙谉 注讚谉 讜讗诪专 诇讜 专讗讛 诪注砖讬 讻诪讛 谞讗讬诐 讜诪砖讜讘讞讬谉 讛谉 讜讻诇 诪讛 砖讘专讗转讬 讘砖讘讬诇讱 讘专讗转讬 转谉 讚注转讱 砖诇讗 转拽诇拽诇 讜转讞专讬讘 讗转 注讜诇诪讬 砖讗诐 拽诇拽诇转 讗讬谉 诪讬 砖讬转拽谉 讗讞专讬讱 讜诇讗 注讜讚 砖讗转 讙讜专诐 诪讬转讛 诇讗讜转讜 爪讚讬拽

Consider God’s doing! Who can straighten what He has twisted? (Eccles. 7:13). When the Blessed Holy One created the first human, He took him and led him round all the trees of the Garden of Eden and said to him, “Consider My works, how beautiful and praiseworthy they are! All that I have created, for your sake I created it. Pay heed that you do not corrupt and destroy My world; for if you corrupt it there is no one to repair it after you. Not only that, but you will bring death to that righteous man (Moses).”

After the High Holy Days, I sometimes feel torn between feelings of hope and feelings of doubt regarding humanity’s prospects for improvement. At the very least, it helps me to know that our ancient Sages understood this emotional tension.

Perhaps “there is nothing new under the sun” (Eccles. 1:9); that verse and the one quoted in the passage above represent the submissive pessimism within Ecclesiastes. The rest of this midrash, then, adopts a more proactive stance as it imagines God instructing the first human to care for creation. This rabbinic understanding of human ecology asserts that the world is meant to be awe-inspiring, that God created it for our sake, and that we must protect it from irreparable harm.

As much as I cherish this reading of the midrash, its final sentence challenges us to consider the repercussions of humanity’s initial and continued failures to uphold God’s vision for our role in creation. The midrash points to God’s punishment of mortality for Adam and Eve’s disobedience, implicating them specifically for Moses’s eventual death. This tragic teaching directly connects the Torah’s beginning and end in a solemn counterpoint to our upcoming celebration on Simchat Torah, during which we mark the conclusion of one year’s Torah readings and the beginning of the next.

This puzzling mix of positive and negative views of our place in nature reminds me of another rabbinic appraisal of humanity. In a talmudic passage (BT Eruvin 13b), the students of Hillel and Shammai debate whether or not humankind should have been created at all. After two and a half years of deliberation, the schools “voted and concluded: ‘It would have been better had humankind not been created; but now that humankind exists, let it probe its ways.'”

This year, I find such a blend of “opti-pessimism” strangely reassuring. Accepting that human civilization has long been deeply flawed clarifies my duty to understand this history and to leave the world better than the way I found it. I do not know if this will be enough, but I pray that it will get me started.