Studying both t'hilim and kohelet gives me an insight on the two writers, father and son. When I was 13 we moved from Bayside, NY, an upwardly lower middleclass, post WWII neighborhood, to Great Neck. Culture shock for sure. Kohelet, hevel, norishkeit. Nuveau (spelling?) riche, materialistic, phony, superficial. And I don't think the kids were any happier than my previous, less wealthy friends.
The late Andy Kaufman, the strange "comic" was a classmate of mine. He played with reality, norishkeit. In the movie made about him there's a great scene when he was putting together a tv special and had the technicians make the screen jump, so that people would get up in the middle of watching and try to fiddle with the dial to fix it. Totally brilliant. Many of our classmates were filthy rich children of those who grew up during the depression in the states or survived the death camps in Europe. These kids were never allowed to "suffer." They were expected to be the best in studies, sports and looks. But something began to rot on the inside. Not everyone could find happiness in this perfection. Like King Solomon. Like him many took risks. Those a few years younger than me rejected the perfect and expensive clothes. I remember that my mother was in shock that my sister and her friends wouldn't dress up, even for "sweet 16's." My friends and I got coctail dresses and gowns, like for a prom. But my sister's crowd rejected the proms too. They looked for struggles, challenges of their own, like King Solomon. And some of the most gifted got lost on the way, or lost their gifts through miss-use.
The fathers, so like King David, only wanted to protect their children, they shouldn't have to go to war, just build the Temple, just live in luxury.
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