Random Sukkot Thoughts

• Maybe I just have a weird sense of humor but I thought it was pretty funny watching people struggling with lulav, etrog, and siddur during hoshanot. The less yeshivish folks just held the lulav and etrog in one hand and the siddur in the other while the more black hat types were very makpid to hold lulav in right, etrog in left, and somehow manage to balance a siddur on their outstretched arms.
• Perusing an Artscroll Yomtov halacha book (*shudder*) and I noticed something interesting. When it comes to smoking on YomTov Artscroll mentions that part of the reason smoking may have been permitted back in the day on Yom Tov was because it was שווה לכל נפש (a luxury or habit which all people need/do/want) whereas nowadays most people don't smoke so perhaps the halacha nowadays would forbid smoking. But when it came to showering it just quoted a Mishna Berura (or some old source) which prohibited heating up water to bathe one's whole body because bathing everyday is not שווה לכל נפש Now maybe I'm just pampered but I think most people nowadays consider it normal to bathe daily so I'm not quite sure why Artscroll doesn't consider the possibility that nowadays daily bathing is considered שווה לכל נפש.

The possibilities:
1.Many Orthodox Jews still have 19th century hygiene habits. (*double shudder*)

2. You can only take changing circumstances into account halachically if it makes things stricter. But making things easier based on changing circumstances is evil Reform/Conservative/Liberal "innovation".

Or maybe I just missed something or am unfamiliar with the halachot. Very possible.

• Kohelet is such an Un-Orthodox Book. I mean how much more skeptical can you get than this:

יח  אָמַרְתִּי אֲנִי, בְּלִבִּי--עַל-דִּבְרַת בְּנֵי הָאָדָם, לְבָרָם הָאֱלֹהִים; וְלִרְאוֹת, שְׁהֶם-בְּהֵמָה הֵמָּה לָהֶם.	18 I said in my heart: 'It is because of the sons of men, that God may sift them, and that they may see that they themselves are but as beasts.'
יט  כִּי מִקְרֶה בְנֵי-הָאָדָם וּמִקְרֶה הַבְּהֵמָה, וּמִקְרֶה אֶחָד לָהֶם--כְּמוֹת זֶה כֵּן מוֹת זֶה, וְרוּחַ אֶחָד לַכֹּל; וּמוֹתַר הָאָדָם מִן-הַבְּהֵמָה אָיִן, כִּי הַכֹּל הָבֶל.	19 For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that man hath no pre-eminence above a beast; for all is vanity.
כ  הַכֹּל הוֹלֵךְ, אֶל-מָקוֹם אֶחָד; הַכֹּל הָיָה מִן-הֶעָפָר, וְהַכֹּל שָׁב אֶל-הֶעָפָר.	20 All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all return to dust.
כא  מִי יוֹדֵעַ, רוּחַ בְּנֵי הָאָדָם--הָעֹלָה הִיא, לְמָעְלָה; וְרוּחַ, הַבְּהֵמָה--הַיֹּרֶדֶת הִיא, לְמַטָּה לָאָרֶץ.	21 Who knoweth the spirit of man whether it goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast whether it goeth downward to the earth?

Forget Evolution calling men monkeys! Kohelet calls man an animal! And says "they all end up the same"! And what is this "who knoweth" stuff about man's spirit going up to heaven!? Doesn't poor distraught Kohelet know about Olam HaBa!? If it weren't for the whole Sof Davar thing Kohelet could not have made it into the canon.

An Orthodox approach would be: A Rabbi once explained to me that Kohelet is sort of a parody of what man is like without religion. Basically the author made up this basically irreligious guy Kohelet and shows how depressed he is. The moral of the story is something akin to "Be Jewish or you'll be sad like Kohelet!" Very interesting idea. Kinda sounds like modern Orthodox propaganda about how awful it is to be not-frum/OTD.