We often hear of the power of stories, but sometimes it is good to see a specific example of how stories can help us make sense of what could be difficult to grasp in the abstract. They can also stimulate our imagination through their style, play on words, humor, cleverness, ambiguity, etc.

For this reason, I have often wondered what it would be like to transform Qohelet into a narrative. If you think that such a task is impossible or even ludicrous, the Rabbis didn’t think so. Let me show you an example. In chapter 3 Qohelet starts his “catalogue of times” and in verse 6 he says:

[a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away (ESV)]

Now, how would you turn that into a story or an anecdote?

First of all, one may ask what it means that there is a time to lose and cast away. Michael Fox says that Qohelet “begins with this postulate that there is a time for everything and applies this rule not only to clearly useful actions, but even to the ones that may seem useless and even deleterious (Fox, A Time to Tear Down, p. 208). He gives two possible examples of this: Qoh. Rabbah v. 6b and the disappearance of the asses of Saul’s father in 1 Samuel 9:3. Many may be familiar with Saul’s story, but most, including me, would not have a clue what Midrash Qohelet Rabbah has to say about it.
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