Eat, Drink, and be Happy?

Kohelet 8:15

Can we enjoy a meal, even a feast, while so many among us suffer? How do we respond to life’s ever increasing attack on our wellbeing, safety, dignity and peace? The answer in this chapter is surprising.

After going back and forth about the perils of injustice, the patience needed to see through dark times, both challenges and benefits of hard work and accumulating wealth, Kohelet comes to this conclusion in chapter 8: Enjoying life is not so bad after all:

וְשִׁבַּחתִּי אֲנִי אֶתַּ הַׁשִׂמְחָה אֲשֶׁר אֵין־טוֹב לָאֲדָם תַּחַת הַשֶׁמֶשׁ כִּי אִם־לֶאְכׄוֹל וְלִשׁׂתֹת וְלִשַׁמֹחַ וְהֵוּא יִלֶוַנָוּ בַעֲמָלֹו יְמֵי חַיָיו אֲשֶׁר־נָתַן־לֹּו הָאֶלֹהִים תַּחַת הַשַׁמֶשֶׁ׃

"I therefore praised joy. For the only good people can have under the sun is to eat and drink and enjoy themselves. That much can accompany them, in exchange for their wealth, through the days of life that God has granted them under the sun."

Kohelet 8:15

This praise of joy seems almost surprising. A verse earlier it’s all doom and gloom. But perhaps the message here, as apt today as it must have been for the author and so many generations since - is that in a world of uncertainty, enjoy the moment, relish the small pleasures, and don’t let existential dread consume you.

Is this really wisdom—or just surrender? The not so funny joke to a cocktail party on the deck of the Titanic comes to mind here..

Isaiah, the Jerusalem prophet of fierce moral clarity, was not a fan of dinner parties while the wars wage on. Though he lived hundreds of years after King Solomon - it is likely that the author of Koehelt knew the Book of Isaiah and may be responding to his furious words spoken to the people of Jerusalem. Isaiah counseled against joy mid life’s battles, and saw this almost hedonistic mindset take a darker turn. As the Assyrian army crept toward Jerusalem, instead of repenting and seeking divine intervention, the people embraced revelry and fatalism:

"Instead, there was rejoicing and merriment, killing of cattle and slaughtering of sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine: 'Eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!'"

(Isaiah 22:13)

Here, enjoyment is not a wise response to the limits of human control—it’s escapism, a reckless refusal to face responsibility. Isaiah condemns their laughter because it isn’t rooted in meaning; it’s just noise in the face of doom.

So where does Kohelet fall on this spectrum? Is this text offering solace around a dinner table, a distraction, or just a more eloquent version of despair?

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrestles with this question in his reflections on Sukkot, the festival where Kohelet is read, celebrating feasts and harvests, as the new year begins. The holiday is focused on cultivating the same sentiment that Kohelet suggested here - Simcha - joy.

He connects the book’s themes of insecurity and impermanence to the deeper meaning of joy:

“What remains, other than fear, in a state of radical insecurity? The answer is simcha, joy. For joy does not involve, as does happiness, a judgment about life as a whole. Joy lives in the moment. It asks no questions about tomorrow. It celebrates the power of now.”

This is the crucial distinction. Kohelet may not be advocating nihilism or hedonism. The poet is teaching us to be present. To fully experience, as so many sages and gurus remind us - the here and now. The world is unpredictable, death is inevitable—but that does not mean life should be drained of meaning.

Perhaps that is why Kohelet 8:15 speaks of eating and drinking alongside joy -simcha. This is not a call for reckless indulgence, but a reminder to savor what we have, to bring intentionality into our pleasures. Even when war rages, even when the future is uncertain, we still have the power to bless our meals, to share food with others, to create moments of holiness in the everyday.

Avivah Zornberg writes that

"To eat and drink in Kohelet’s world is not despair but defiance; it is the protest of the living against the absurdity of death."

Kohelet’s answer to existential dread is not retreat, nor denial, but presence. Sometimes around a table, set for a feast.

It is the radical choice to celebrate life in the face of uncertainty. The power of now is that it is all we truly have. So let us eat, drink, and be joyful—not because tomorrow we die, but because today, we live. L’chayim. To life.

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