One example of using one’s strengths brought by Rav Eisemann is Navos HaYizreali, the man whom the wicked king Achav killed in order to acquire his vineyard. Why did Navos deserve death? Navos had a beautiful voice and when the people went up to the Beis HaMikdash he used to sing and inspire them. One year he decided to stop doing this. He no longer used the gift Hashem gave him as a way of inspiring people, and for this he merited death.
Wisdom is needed for performing as a servant of Hashem. This wisdom includes understanding all of one’s potential and knowing how to harness it for the sake of Heaven.
The Incomparable Value of Life Life is greatest gift a person can have. It is a wonder that the physical body (guf ) and spiritual soul (neshamah) can come together, that a spiritual entity that has no dimensions of space can be contained in a physical body. In achieving this combination, man is Hashem’s point of contact with this world. We are told in Koheles (9:10) to do everything with all our might; we are not to blunt the will to live.
Boredom implies life has no value to you. Life is not forever, so don’t “kill” time. The body plays a critical part in allowing the actualization of the spiritual neshamah. But it can be directed to evil by the yetzer hara. The soul has “legs” only in this world; it is frozen in place, as it were, in the world to come where no further mitzvos can be done. In this context, Rav Eisemann offers a new meaning to the question of whether we are ready to greet Mashiach. Are we ready to be frozen at our given spiritual level? If not, we should begin working to strengthen ourselves spiritually so that we will be ready for Mashiach’s arrival.
* * * * * Rav Shimon Schwab (in Rav Schwab on Prayer) discusses a prayer found early in our morning davening that incorporates the themes of Koheles. We say “Ribon kol haolamim” – “Master of all worlds (or all time), not because of our righteousness do we cast our supplications before You, but in the merit of Your abundant mercy.”
The prayer then goes on to ask seven questions – “What are we? What is our life? What is our kindness?…” This is followed by a sevenfold elaboration of our insignificance – “Are not all the heroes as nothing before You? And famous men as if they never existed?…” The seventh elaboration is from Koheles (3:19), “And the preeminence of man over beast is nonexistent, for all is hevel.” The prayer then offsets the havalim by seven laudatory expressions of gratitude to Hashem: ‘To thank You, praise You, glorify You…’
The beginning of the prayer includes the preface from Tanna d’vei Eliyahu, “L’olam yehai adam y’rei shamayim…” – “Always let a person fear Hashem privately and publicly…” It includes Shema Yisrael, and concludes with the blessing of sanctifying Hashem’s name. It is within our commitment to being yir’ai shamayim that we can elevate the world of hevel to a world of Kiddush Hashem (sanctification of Hashem’s name).