Ecclesiastes קהלת
Shlomo's book on vanity, and on what remains when everything has been tried.
«Vanity of vanities, all is vanity» — so Kohelet begins, and then speaks as a king who has tried everything: built houses, planted gardens, gathered silver and gold, denied himself nothing, acquired more wisdom than any before him — and found it all hevel, vapour.
The book is full of contradictions, and the sages at Yavne debated its inclusion for exactly that reason. They included it: «its beginning is words of Torah and its end is words of Torah». Beside bitter observations that the wise man dies like the fool stand the calmest lines in the Tanakh: «to everything there is a season», «eat your bread with joy».
It ends where it was heading: «the end of the matter, all having been heard: fear God and keep His commandments, for that is the whole of man». It is read on Sukkot.