What did King Solomon mean by “chasing wind”?
By Rabbi Shalom Landau.
Rabbi Landau explains that King Solomon looked at all the labor, skill, and achievement a person does “to prove he belongs here, to justify his place on this earth,” and called it chasing wind. That effort can never succeed, because “what you do says nothing about whether you should exist.”
In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau points out that King Solomon does not say the deeds themselves are empty. What is chasing the wind is the toil: the pressure inside, the race to prove yourself, the need to earn your place through what you do.
He contrasts two ways of serving. One comes from the pressure to justify yourself, a frantic race with no rest and no joy. The other comes from knowing your place is already secure, so your learning, mitzvos, and kindness aren't trying to buy anything. It is the difference between a servant counting his wages and a son acting from the joy of being close to his father.
Related concepts: Purpose · When a machine does the work
In A Soul at Peace: Simply Existing, and Chasing the Wind
Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level
Surface claim
The race to prove your worth is what King Solomon called chasing wind.
Deepest human truth
A son does not earn his place in his father's house. He is already there.
More questions from this teaching
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