The teacher in Ecclesiastes first offers a pessimistic attitude toward life. Good people as well as bad people die. The world is inscrutable and futile. Some scholars say the teacher believes there is more to learn at a funeral than at a party. If you are fully awake to life--not hiding behind fear or the fantasy of easy optimism--you will find another attitude from a trustworthy teacher who has looked directly at the charring anomalies of life and has still found fertile springs that can outlast the heat of the sun. Richard Hagerman stirs the research of that wisest man in the Old...