The Fracticality of The Catalogue of Times — the didactic parallelism of creation
Using the Chinese Book of Changes and Qabalah as a hermeneutical lens for Hebraic Wisdom Poetry
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to seek, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
7 a time to tear, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time for war, and a time for peace. (Ecclesiastes 3:1–8)
At first read, this poem may sound like a universe-broad, eternity-deep platitude. So there’s a time for everything. Even binary oppositions. Tell me something I don’t know. What’s the point?
But scratch the surface and you reap a hidden heap of meaning.
For one thing, it turns out physically breaking the word everything in Hebrew generates the word for nothing. The Hebrew words, kaph and beth are what differ between the words, ‘everything’ and ‘nothing.’
הֲבֵל
(‘All is vanity/change/nothingness’, Ecclesiastes 1:1)
Oxford Old Testament Professor John Jarick notes that the Hebrew word for “everything” is, in its primitive form, nearly identical to the word for “nothingness”, “breath”, “futility” or “transience”. What differs between them is the difference between the Hebrew letters kaph and beth. “In the twinkling of an eye, with a deft sleight of hand, ‘everything’ has been changed into ‘nothing’.”
This is quite literally encapsulated in the statement, “What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted” (Ecclesiastes 1:15) as the changing of kaph to beth is the difference between a curved letter and a jagged, crooked edge. Literally the writer was breaking ‘everything’ to create ‘nothing’. Ecclesiastes was written during a moody time for the Jewish people. They had been occupied, their land trampled on, destroyed and been enslaved and by the Babylonians, only to return to a land they barely recognised.
לֹא־יוּכַל לְהִמָּנֹֽות׃
(‘What is crooked cannot be made straight’ Ecclesiastes 1:15)
And so one key to this poem is this strange, beautiful glitch in Hebrew semeiotics. In addition to this, there are a multitude of parallelisms herein. Phenomena are linked by structural relation in the poem as a whole. The way in which the lines relate compel us to compare different sorts and sets of things that happen in the world. Various events correspond.
What this literary device –parallelism — does to the text as a whole is not only unlock its sense, but also its meaning. The forms of parallelism which here concern us are antithetic parallelism, allegorical parallelism, literal parallelism, ontic parallelism and didactic parallelism (the last three are my coinage, first two Jarick’s). The parallelism of everything and nothing, however, is the simplest and most potent.
At first read, the poem seems like a series of mutually necessitating binary oppositions — clichés really: destruction breeds creation; death breeds life; laughing, weeping; hushing speaking — you name it, it’s there. This is the most basic parallelism: antithetical.
John Jarick uses the Chinese Book of Changes (a.k.a. the I Ching) to argue that these binary oppositions represent a lot more as a synecdoche of the whole structure than their seeming duplets do alone. His point of departure is to assign each pair or binaries a yin or yang: “Each pair of contrary times consists of what may be regarded as a ‘positive’, ‘creative’, or ‘bright’ pole on the one hand and a ‘negative’, ‘yielding’, or ‘dark’ polar opposite, beginning with the classic yang-and-yin pair of ‘birth’ and ‘death’.” The negatives here are represented with a split bar and the positives with a whole bar. To start with, he looks at the introduction to the poem: “For everything there is a season, a time for every matter under heaven.” Here, we have two reversed ideas of being and becoming — everything, changing, changing, everything.
These are antithetic. It is impossible to imagine the notion of nothingness without everything; this changeless change applies equally to life, which is defined by death and finitude, infinitely. Planting is a reverse-motion plucking. In order to wreck, there must have been building. “Joy and woe are woven fine, a clothing for the soul divine”, as Blake once put it. It ends with love and hate; peace and love.
Once the poem gets going it is more difficult to separate the positives and negatives. The yin and yang are ambiguous, especially given the statements — for example — about mourning and mirth in the book as a whole, about the day of death being better than the day of birth in 7:1 and sorrow being better than laughter in 7:3. “Plucking up” could also be positive, implying a harvest; yet also negative in the context, for instance, of Zepheniah’s reference to the “plucking up” of Gaza. Despite this, Jarick assumes that essentially destructive and creative times can be treated as negative and positive respectively — and I agree with this principle.
After the counter-activity couplets, Jarick considers the quatrains and argues that these are a form of analogous activity which is also changed in an instant. This I term analogous parallelism. And so, internal to each quatrain, everything is changing, just as change is everything. Birthing is to planting as dying is to plucking, killing is to wrecking as healing is to building. Weeping is related to laughing as mourning is to dance. To seek is to keep just as to lose is to discard. Tearing is to sowing as hushing is to speaking — or is it the other way around? Still, it makes you see reality in this different way, as a patterned network of complex interactivity, all ultimately one.
The “scattering of stones” and the “gathering of stones together” is a deeply ambiguous couplet. Could it be to do with the Hebrew death penalty? Or is it, as Jarick hypothesises, a sexual metaphor — in line with the English expression ‘sowing the wild oats’. This would make sense within its own quatrain: sexual relations involve embracing. However, as I’m sure the pareidolic among you will have realised, there are more reflections than those internal to each quatrain.
My alternative interpretation looks to the historical context of the day. The scattering of stones could mean the destruction and rubble of war; gathering them together could mean rebuilding. Furthermore, the creation of a township or a house through the “gathering” of stones would result in embracing; the destruction of the same would result in refraining — it is no reason to celebrate.
In response to accusations that I be clutching at straws. There is a time to clutch, and a time to release — and this depends on the level at which we parallel. Such a duplet may well be polyvalent. There are three other forms of parallelism in this poem wherein the war metaphor works better than the sexual metaphor.
Jarick continues his structural analysis of the poem by looking at the duplets of quatrains. This appears to be a literal parallelism. The process of birth is a form of building, and dying involves the wreckage of the body. In order to heal, medicines must be planted; one kills the thing plucked. When we speak, we are seeking; we lose words when we hush. Sewing something comes with the intention of keeping it, and when clothing is too worn and torn, it is discarded. The parallelism between the fourth and fifth quatrain is the most difficult to disentangle. Jarick hypothesises that this is because the prevailing logic of the poem centres on the dialectic of ‘everything’ and ‘nothing’ — and so nothing lies at the very centre where everything is at the edges.
The true beauty of the reflection is seen in the overall picture. All changes, change is everything. Birth is related to expression, death to hush. Planting to sowing, plucking to tearing. Killing is discarding, only healing is keeping; wreckage is losing in favour and building is seeking. Again we have an uneasy parallel in quatrain four and five.
One refrains from weeping and embraces healing. When one mourns, one gathers oneself; when one dances, one scatters oneself. Most hopefully, hating and fighting change, love and peace are everything. This I term ontic parallelism because it considers the being of each of these phenomena. In some sense this parallelism goes beyond mere literality or analogy.
To illustrate how this is distinct from the literal or analogous parallelism of the previous reflections, consider the three different parallels of birth: analogously, we are planted on this earth; literally, we are built; but birth is also the basic example of the world expressing itself, speaking. While birthing involves a form of building — the building of matter into a body in the womb — and is akin to planting something on this earth it really is an expression of the universe speaking. Contrast this to killing: akin to wrecking analogically; literally being plucked from life; but ultimately ontologically a form of discarding. Speaking is to hushing as tearing is to sewing, the relationship here is one of analogy — words are sewn together; but when we speak, we are seeking something — information, attention, what-have-you; and borne to the wind are words.
There are problematic phenomena here which do not fit neatly into this system I have, with Jarick’s heuristic from the I Ching, proposed. Take losing, for example and the comparison of the relationship between losing and discarding to that between losing and hushing. When we have lost something it is often because we have been careless, discarded it from our attention. This is a more literal than figurative relationship. And what does hushing have to do with losing? Words are lost when we hush and sought when we speak. But words are not necessarily intrinsic to seeking and losing, only to speaking and hushing.
The central reflection is also refracted rather than a neat fit. If scattering and gathering refers to the death penalty, why the dance during the execution? Mourning only makes sense in terms of gathering the blood-soaked stones. If scattering and gathering refers to sex, why when one gathers oneself does one mourn? The war metaphor might make sense, but only for the victorious power. Those who scatter rubble will dance in celebration, while those who have to gather it will mourn the dead. Moreover, while it is understandable that laughing is related to embracing, why is mourning paralleled with refraining? Surely at a time of mourning embrace is often most sought after. It is clear that Qoheleth, to whom this poem is attributed, thought long and hard about the ordering of these oppositions. Subjectivity is rife within any attempt at an garnering objective meaning. The arrogance inherent in finding a neat system, a nice-looking assortment of well-ordered boxes, into which humans can place the breadth and depth of human experience, is clearly something scorned and laughed at here.
Jarick goes on to conclude that what centres all of this it the principle of everything and nothing: this binary opposition can be seen on the macro, intermediate and micro scale. Dancing and scattering at the very centre have no obvious connection; nor do building and weeping, or refraining and seeking; nor do the very couplets themselves at the end of it all — they are by definition polar opposites, binary oppositions.
Seeing this emptiness at the centre everything does seem to chime with the pessimism of Ecclesiastes to the whole idea of wisdom: wisdom didn’t save Israel from oppression by Babylon — wisdom is just words, useless and meaningless in the face of the cruelty of humanity and the world. This does not, however, seem a hopeful basis for a new society. There seems to be an underlying optimism in the almost algorithmic structure of this absurd piece of writing.
There is another layer to this picture which I couldn’t help seeing from the application of the Daoist Heuristic above. So far we have divided and subdivided. We have looked at the duplets, the quatrains, the duplets of quatrains, and the bigger picture. But what about the other symmetry: the three degrees of separation?
Three is a significant number in Hebrew theology, being half the time that creation was made. Dividing the creation up in this way, one sees that in those six days — where birth, healing, planting — were also created, were also their polar opposites — death, killing, plucking.
This parallelism which separates the quatrains by three seems to be didactic, that is, it is trying to teach us something. It is normative — in the sense that it prescribes an ideal world. Moreover, the relationship between these reflections can quite easily be framed in the imperative mood — with an exclamation mark thereafter! After birth — dance; after death — mourn; after planting — be merry; after plucking — weep, your food has become temporary. Refrain from killing; embrace healing; gather the wreckage — and scatter the buildings anew! Discard weeping; keep laughter; lose mourning — seek dancing! Scatter words by speaking; gather words by hushing; embrace sewing and mending things; refraining from breaking things. These are normative claims. They are not merely the ethical components of the poem, however, they are also a description of, ‘a world feeling as it should’, the world, so-to-speak, the ‘right way up.’ For,
“Each world religion or philosophy gives an account of life going well, life led well, and life feeling as it should…a vision of a flourishing life: a set of explicit or implicit convictions about what it means for us to lead life well, for our life to go well, and for it to feel right…that guide…all our desires and efforts.” [Wolf & Croasman p.6]
This poem thus as an active contribution to make to the life of the reader and listener. Our heuristic becomes a hermeneutic — sense-making becomes meaning-making. Intelligible message becomes worthwhile message. Using the basic logic of the I Ching as a logical razor uncovers something which a simple oration misses out. Each layer of reflection goes deeper into our understanding of the world: analogy, scientific involvement with ‘what is’, ontology, and the hopeful encounter with a better world.
The Qabbalah also plays a useful heuristic and hermeneutical role in this poem. The ten Sephiroth (singular Sephirah), or emanations on the tree of life, of Jewish mystical thought, though developed after this poem was written, provide another lens through which to see this. Though there are eight quatrains, there are ten Sephiroth. Luckily, some of the Sephiroth are paired with one another — and there is a hidden one (unlabelled above). This is Da’ath, or knowledge, is place below-between Chokmah (Wisdom) and Binah (Intelligence). The Sephiroth variously interpreted as a process of creation, a psychology, and a system of ethics.
We begin with Kether, the undifferentiated unity of the Godhead, 1. The whole at the heart of all things, the supreme crown of God, who is the all in all. Yet existent within this is the reality of change, the kingdom, the world, creation, the cosmos (10).
The basis of this change is birth and death, where the world of time begins and ends, together with the planting and plucking that frame the waxing and waning of civilization. The second quatrain thus fits into Yesod, or foundation, number 9 in the tree of life. The urge of God before the earthly kingdom.
When to kill and heal, what to break and build? — These are questions that require wisdom, intelligence, categorisation and drawing together — and so we move to Chokmah and Binah, wisdom and intelligence, respectively — 2 & 3. In later occultic systems these are referred to as the animus and anima mundi, respectively — our masculine and feminine natures.
The spiral continues with the weeping-laughing-mourning-dancing quatrain. These I have related to Hod and Netzach — majesty and endurance, 8 & 7, referred to also as the legs of God. Through the trials, travails and excitements of the world, perseverance and an ability to take in the grandeur as well as horror is required.
It is important to make a judgement call, to exercise discernment, when deciding whether now is the time for embracing or refraining. The very interpretation of scattering and gathering — the question of which valence to take in the panoply — also requires these things. I thus relate the fifth quatrain to Chesed and Geburrah — mercy, the power to forgive, and judgement, the power to punish. These are referred to the left and right arms of God.
What is crucial when we have lost or sought? Knowledge of the location of the lost is lost, and yet we know what we seek. Whether something is kept or discarded, knowledge of this remains. This sixth quatrain I would relate to the numberless on the tree of life, Da’ath, knowledge itself.
The penultimate quatrain, tearing-sowing-hushing-speaking, speaks to the beauty of God and creation. Not only was it spoken into being, but it continues to tear and sew itself together, atomic forces, sinews synthesising ever new and complexer entities. This great expression of creation is itself beautiful — Tiphoreth, 9.
Love, hate, war and peace, are the things of this world, the final emenation of the divinity — the physical space around us, our friends, family, county, country, continent, cosmos. It is fitting that the eighth and final quatrain of the poem is the stuff we are all made of: Malkuth, 10.
It is very easy to make an accusation of eisegesis here. Rather than being an exegete — trying to bring out from the text what the text itself reveals — I am projecting my own baggage, biases and bloated system into the text.
Couldn’t any of these quatrains could not relate to anything in the Sephiroth? Have I just related killing and building to wisdom and intelligence because the spiral looks pleasing? Am I imposing order where there is none? Qoheleth, the sage who composed this ancient document, would certainly smirk at my desperate attempt to disentangle the nonsense of life, to quantify qualities.
“What is crooked, cannot be made straight, what is unnumbered cannot be counted.”
The inconsistencies and patterns within the poem certainly allow one to get lost in its hole. I was tempted to continue this ramble into the brambles of the kundalini, Jacob’s ladder, and the Eden-snake, Na’as.
But instead, I will leave you with Terrence McKenna misquoting Joyce,
“We really are all together in a dimension that is not quite as accessible as you might wish to be congealed.” [2012]
Bibliography
— Croasman, Matthew & Volf, Miroslav (2019) For the Life of the World: Theology that Makes a Difference Brazos Press: USA
— Jarick, John (2000) ‘The Hebrew Book of Changes: Reflections on Hakkōl Hebel and Lakkōl Zemān in Ecclesiastes’ in Journal for the Study of the Old Testament https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258154408_The_Hebrew_Book_of_Changes_Reflections_on_Hakkol_Hebel_and_Lakkol_Zeman_in_Ecclesiastes
— McKenna, Terrence (2012) ‘Psychedelic Society’ in Entheogens and the Future of Religion R Forte (ed.)
