Ecclesiastes and the Search for Meaning (Maggid Studies in Tanakh)
Digital Logos Edition
Overview
Ecclesiastes (in Hebrew, Kohelet) has long been viewed as the great existential work of the Hebrew Bible, containing the famous cry “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.” As part of a search for enduring meaning, it questions the nature of work, mortality, happiness, justice, goodness, and life itself. Kohelet is awash in contradictions, careful observations, disappointments, and insights, making it one of the richest and most complex books in all of Tanakh.
This fresh and hopeful look at an ancient book synthesizes rabbinic commentary with modern scholarship, fine art, and poetry. It highlights expressions from Kohelet that have become common parlance while shedding light on its more obscure verses. Ecclesiastes and the Search for Meaning offers a comprehensive introduction to the book and includes three essays on each chapter, concluding with an epilogue on Kohelet’s liturgical use on the holiday of Sukkot - for Kohelet combines the frustrations and vulnerabilities of life “under the sun” with the temporal joys that make life worthwhile. All are regarded as a “gift from God.”
- Questions the nature of work, mortality, happiness, justice, goodness, and life itself.
- Synthesizes rabbinic commentary with modern scholarship, fine art, and poetry.
- Offers a comprehensive introduction to the book and includes three essays on each chapter.
- Title: Ecclesiastes and the Search for Meaning (Maggid Studies in Tanakh)
- Author: Erica Brown
- Series: Maggid Studies in Tanakh
- Publisher: The Toby Press
- Print Publication Date: 2024
- Pages: 528
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
- ISBNs: 9781592646357, 1592646352
- Resource ID: LLS:MST21EC
- Resource Type: Commentary
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-07-11T21:20:32Z
Dr. Erica Brown is the Vice Provost for Values and Leadership at Yeshiva University and the founding director of its Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks–Herenstein Center for Values and Leadership. She previously served as the director of the Mayberg Center for Jewish Education and Leadership at The George Washington University and as the Scholar-in-Residence for the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Boston and the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington. Brown was a Jerusalem Fellow, an Avi Chai Fellow, the recipient of the 2009 Covenant Award, and is a faculty member of the Wexner Foundation. She has written or co-authored fifteen books on the Hebrew Bible, spirituality, and leadership and has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Tablet, First Things, and The Jewish Review of Books and wrote a monthly column for the New York Jewish Week. She currently serves as a community scholar for Congregation Etz Chaim in Livingston, New Jersey. Brown has interviewed Isaac Herzog, the President of Israel, Madeleine Albright, David Brooks, Jeffrey Goldberg, Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, David Gregory, Dennis Ross, David Makovsky, Sarah Hurwitz, Ruth Messinger, and Dara Horn, among others. She tweeted on one page of Talmud study a day at DrEricaBrown. Her latest books are Morning Has Broken (Maggid, 2024) and Ecclesiastes-Kohelet and the Search for Meaning (Maggid, 2023). She is the proud mother of four children, four in-law children, and five beautiful grandchildren.