What Pursuit of Happiness?

Kohelet 2:1-2

What is life all about and what’s worth living for?

The old king of Jerusalem, despite wealth and wisdom, success and legacy, is digging deeper into meaning-making and invites us to follow along. Whoever wrote this scroll - king Solomon or more likely a much later poet, is asking the same questions many of us ask these days, as so many political problems pose challenges to our wellbeing and threaten the freedom, dignity and life of millions, everywhere.

How can we be happy when such sorrow persists?

In the first chapter of this scroll which calls on us to gather and to learn together from the past how to live a better present - the notion that like our breath, it is all fleeting, is revisited and dug into deeper.

What if the pursuit of happiness is itself a hevel, a fleeting breath, a chasing after the wind?

Kohelet, the philosopher-king, wrestles with the very foundations of human fulfillment. His verdict is unsettling: joy, in the material sense, is no more lasting than sorrow. The wisdom that should elevate us above the fool? It crumbles into dust, indistinguishable in the grave.

So why pursue happiness if none of it lasts?

אָמַרְתִּי אֲנִי בְּלִבִּי לְכָה־נָּא אֲנַסְּכָה בְשִׂמְחָה וּרְאֵה בְטוֹב וְהִנֵּה גַם־הוּא הָבֶל׃ לִשְׂחוֹק אָמַרְתִּי מְהוֹלָל וּלְשִׂמְחָה מַה־זֹּה עֹשָׂה׃

I said to myself, “Come, I will treat you to happiness. Taste mirth!” That too, I found, was futile.

Of revelry I said, “It’s mad!”

Of happiness, “What good is that?”

Kohelet 2:1-2

On one level, this is a pessimistic, bitter attitude to life, perhaps provided for by lives of focusing on what does not really matter -- as fleeting as air, as yesterday’s noise.

But on a deeper level, what the rest of this chapter will try to figure out - is that there is a deeper sense of joy. Simḥa, as Kohelet calls it, another word for happiness - is not mere pleasure but something closer to fulfillment, to meaning, to the satisfaction of making a difference and enjoying what is worth enjoyment in the world.

If wisdom alone cannot sustain us, and if even great political or material accomplishments are subject to decay and divine indifference, does joy at least hold value in its own right? Can it be carved out of suffering, distilled from the fragility of existence?

Rabbi Sharon Brous, friend and colleague, challenges us to embrace joy not as a naive escape from pain, but as an act of spiritual defiance:

“To live in joy despite devastation is a radical act of resilience.”

This echoes the famous and sometimes vexing Hasidic teaching “it is a great mitzvah to be in joy always”.

But how do we hold that, in this moment, in a world steeped in grief? How do we approach the holiday of Purim - all about joy - when it also holds so much grief and shadows of hatred that linger too long in our lives?

Kohelet pushes us to try - and to recognize the limits of our control. The joy eventually endorsed here is not the triumphalist joy of empire or certainty, and it is not about accumulating stuff - but the humble, fleeting joy of the present moment.

Happiness is not the promise of eternity, not the illusion of permanence, but the simple sanctity of a moment well-lived.

What this musing is inviting us is not to deny pain, and not to always be happy in the face of suffering. But we are invited—commanded, even—to resist despair. To seek meaning despite its instability. To find joy, not because the world is whole, but because brokenness does not have to be the final word.

Kohelet’s joy is not an escape from reality, but a response to it. And maybe, just maybe, on days like these, that is enough?

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