We want to introduce the cooling Biblical antithesis of ‘all things new,’ ‘eyn kol cha•dash ta•chat ha•sha•mesh,’ ‘there is nothing new under the sun.’
How is it possible that the Bible offers two conflicting points of view about ‘new things?’
I personally cannot answer this question but I can quote our sages who coined the expression: ‘shiv•eem pa•nim la•Torah.’ This phrase means literally ‘the Torah as seventy faces’ and it expresses the idea that the Torah can be interpreted by different approaches that represent many different points of view. And truly, believing the Bible means having faith, and this does not require having scientific evidence for its writings. Believers are not asked to approve the Bible by comparing it to their views, standards and lifestyles, but to accept and follow it.
For the attention of all news seekers at this moment – ‘no news is good news’ is a phrase that couples a grain of humor with two grains of truth. This was said much before we could think about such an expression, and the bottom line of all new thing was long underlined by ‘Kohelet,’ Ecclesiastes:
‘That which has been, is what shall be; and that which has been done is what shall be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.’
Most Hebrew speakers today would say ‘shemesh’ and not ‘shmesh’ and it would sound better is you use it this way.
The phrase ‘ta•chat ha•sha•mesh’ is unique to the Book of Ecclesiastes where it appears 29 times.
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