Ecclesiastes11chapter 11

What is done

This chapter is heard aloud once a year, when the whole book is read at Sukkot on the Sabbath that falls in the festival week. The site's own table in src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts records that reading and sources it to Tractate Soferim 14:3; it printed parashot total 0 and haftarah uses total 0 for this book.

Rashi ties two practices to the second verse, the portion given to seven and to eight. His own reading is charity: whoever has shared with seven in need should "share further with eight more who come after them" and not call it enough (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 11:2:1). He then reports what "Our Rabbis, however, said". The seven are the seven days of creation, and a man gives one of them to his Creator "by resting on Shabbos". The eight are "the eight days preceding circumcision" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 11:2:3). The corpus carries Eruvin 40b:9 and Pesikta DeRav Kahana 28:1 among its locators on that verse.

How it is read

Rashi is the one commentator on this chapter whose English the corpus carries, quoted here from The Metsudah Five Megillot, Lakewood, N.J., 2001, which Sefaria reports as CC-BY. Every quotation is held to fifty words or fewer because the translation is modern, and the edition's own notes are never quoted as his.

The bread cast on the waters is kindness done to a man "about whom your heart tells you that you will never see him again" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 11:1:1). Rashi's example is Jethro. Jethro fed Moses thinking him an Egyptian he would never see again. Moses became his son-in-law, brought him under the wings of the Divine Presence, "and his sons and grandsons merited to sit in the Chamber of Hewn Stone" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 11:1:2).

The clouds full of rain and the fallen tree he reads of the righteous. A wise and righteous man who dwells in a city leaves his deeds discernible there after his death (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 11:3:1). The tree is "a Torah scholar, who with his merit protects like a tree" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 11:3:3). The one who watches the wind never sows, "because he is always fearful" of the rains (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 11:4:3). The fifth verse draws a long note on a verse read from its end to its beginning. The Metsudah edition reports that Rashi's words are transposed in the printed text and gives the corrected order from Sifsei Chachomim beside it (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 11:5:1 and 11:5:2).

The morning and evening sowing Rashi reads as a whole life of doing good. "If you had students in your youth, you should have students in your old age." The same holds of Torah learned, of children and of charitable acts (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 11:6:1). The reason is that no one knows which will survive. Rabbi Akiva "had twenty-four thousand students from Gabas to Antiparis, and they all died between Pesach and Shavuos". He came to the Sages in the south and taught them (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 11:6:2).

The sweet light is Torah: "The light of Torah is sweet" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 11:7:1). The young man told to rejoice in his youth is told it as a master tells a servant to go on sinning. The warning comes with it, that he will be punished in one blow for all (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 11:9:1). The evil he is to put away is "The evil inclination" (Rashi on Ecclesiastes 11:10:2).

The corpus carries two further notes on this chapter without an English text, each marked linked because Sefaria holds no English version of the ref. They stand cited and unquoted at Ibn Ezra on Ecclesiastes 11:1:1 and 11:9:1.

What the rabbis say

The corpus carries forty rabbinic locators on this chapter and the text of none, so each is cited and linked here rather than quoted. On the first verse, the bread on the waters, it holds Avot DeRabbi Natan 3:9, Bamidbar Rabbah 14:2, Kohelet Rabbah 11:1:1, Midrash Aggadah, Exodus 2:20:2 and Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 11:1:1. On the second, the portion to seven and to eight, it holds Ein Yaakov, Yoma 8:15, Eruvin 40b:9, Kohelet Rabbah 11:2:1, Midrash Aggadah, Leviticus 9:1:5 and Pesikta DeRav Kahana 28:1. On the third, the clouds and the fallen tree, it holds Avodah Zarah 31a:4, Kohelet Rabbah 11:3:1, Midrash Tanchuma Buber, Achrei Mot 1:1, Tanna DeBei Eliyahu Rabbah 3:1 and Yalkut Shimoni on Torah 469:38. On the fourth, the one who watches the wind, it holds Midrash Tannaim on Deuteronomy 11:22:4 and Sifrei Devarim 48:3.

The sowing and the light carry the next run. On the fifth verse the corpus holds Bereshit Rabbah 65:12, Kohelet Rabbah 11:5:1, Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 11:5:1 and Midrash Lekach Tov, Genesis 27:2:2. On the sixth, sowing morning and evening, it holds Avot DeRabbi Natan 3:5, 3:6 and 3:7 with Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 4:1. On the seventh, the sweet light, it holds Kohelet Rabbah 11:7:1, Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 11:7:1, Midrash Lekach Tov, Numbers 8:2:1 and Midrash Mishlei 28:6. On the eighth it holds Kohelet Rabbah 11:8:1, Midrash Aggadah, Genesis 27:2:1 and Midrash Lekach Tov on Ecclesiastes 11:8:1.

The young man carries the rest. On the ninth verse the corpus holds Avot DeRabbi Natan 1:4 with Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B 1:6 and 42:5, and Avot DeRabbi Natan, Recension B, Addition to Recension I 1:7. On the tenth, anger and evil put away, it holds Ein Yaakov (Glick Edition) at Nedarim 3:3, Shabbat 23:9 and Taanit 1:6, with Ein Yaakov, Nedarim 3:4. What each of them teaches is a saying of the rabbis, and is reported as theirs wherever this site quotes one. The quotations wait on a fetch that carries the text.

Sources: Rashi, Rashi on Ecclesiastes 11:1:1 to 11:10:2, The Metsudah Five Megillot, Lakewood, N.J., 2001, reported CC-BY; Ibn Ezra, Ibn Ezra on Ecclesiastes 11:1:1 and 11:9:1, cited by ref because the corpus carries no English text; The Sefaria corpus, scripts/data/sources/sefaria/ecclesiastes/11.json, the 40 Talmud and Midrash locators of this chapter; The site's own files, src/lib/hebraic/readings.ts, probed for this book and printing parashot total 0, haftarah uses total 0, and the festival reading at Sukkot on the Sabbath that falls in the festival week, sourced there to Tractate Soferim 14:3.