Meta-solar Time

My father explained that the ushpizin, the  special guests, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, King David and Joseph whom we invite into our Sukka each on his own night of Sukkot, are an expression of continuity, a statement of our belief that though times may change, the word of God does not. In that sense, the holiday looks to the past. Yet, Sukkot is forward looking as well, as we pray: “May the merciful One re-establish the fallen Sukka of David.” It is the continuity achieved by connecting to Israel’s glorious past which will lead us to an even more glorious future when the anointed (Mashiach) descendant of King David arrives.

Rav Yehuda, son of Rav Shmuel ben Shilat said, quoting Rav: The Sages wished to hide the Book of Ecclesiastes (which we read on the intermediate Shabbat of Sukkot), because its words are self-contradictory; yet why did they not hide it? Because its beginning is religious teaching and its end is religious teaching. Its beginning is religious teaching, as it is written [1:3], “What profit has man of all his labor wherein he labors under the sun?^”  And the School of Rav Yannai commented: “Under the sun he has none, but he has profit (with labor) before the sun.”  The end thereof is religious teaching, as it is written [12:13], “The conclusion of the matter, all having been heard: fear G-d, and keep His commandments; for this is the whole man.”                         Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 30b

Rabbi Aharon Soloveichik explained the curious phrase “before the sun.” Time is measured by the earth’s revolution around the sun. In “solar time” we have but the fleeting moment, as one of the great medieval Jewish poets wrote (some say the words were written by Rabbi Avraham ibn Ezra [1089 – 1164], others [including Rabbi J.B. Soloveichik] attribute it to Yedaya haPnini [1270 – 1340]): 

The past is gone

The future yet to be

The present a mere eye blink

(I regret my inability to render a poetic translation of the Hebrew.)

                However, in “meta-solar time” man uses the mere eye blink of the present to connect the past and future, and thus indeed profits from his labor “before the sun.”