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Section X. Chapter Seven: Building Up the World.
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Others held that building up the world is the finest thing a person can occupy himself with. They said: building houses is necessary — without it a person has no place to shelter from heat and cold and gather his household together.
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And building up fields is necessary for food, which is indispensable; and all of this produces joy, breadth of spirit, energy, and happiness for a person — as it says: 'The profit of the land belongs to all; even a king serves the field' (Eccl. 5:8).
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And kings and ministers glory in buildings and construction — as it says: 'Together with kings and counselors of the earth who built ruins for themselves' (Job 3:14); and similarly for the faithful: 'Houses full of every good thing which you did not fill' (Deut. 6:11).
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I went through their view and found them excessive — in requiring the abandonment of everything in favor of this pursuit.
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How can anything of this be built without wisdom, planning, engineering, and calculation? And if there is not extensive knowledge in the midst, none of this goal is achieved.
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If a person burdens himself with this pursuit he falls into toil, misery, grief, and anxiety — spending all his own wealth and others' out of eagerness to complete what he began — as it says: 'Woe to him who builds his house without justice, his upper rooms without righteousness, making his neighbor work for nothing' (Jer. 22:13).
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And if he completes it and finds in it the slightest thing that does not please him, it becomes in his eyes worth nothing — his toil and misery wasted — like what is said: 'And Hiram went out from Tyre to see the cities Solomon had given him, and they did not please him' (1 Kgs. 9:12).
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And perpetual regret and constant narrowness of spirit come only with it; and people's envy, rulers' wrath, and calamities come only with it — as it says: 'You have built houses of hewn stone but shall not dwell in them; you have planted pleasant vineyards but shall not',
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'— and drink their wine' (Amos 5:11). And if the buildings are agricultural estates, their crops do not grow as the person wishes — they grow only at the Lord's pleasure — so there is perpetual grief with them.
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And if he uproots and replants them, the grief doubles. And anxiety comes over withheld rain or flooding, and likewise drought, blight, locusts, and flash floods.
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As it says: 'Famine if there be in the land, pestilence if there be, blight, mildew, locust, or caterpillar if there be — when his enemy distresses him' (1 Kgs. 8:37).
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And the injustice of rulers and the oppression of their agents come until the cultivator works only for them and nothing falls to the owner — as it says: 'When goods increase, those who eat them increase; and what advantage has the owner except to see them with his eyes?' (Eccl. 5:10).
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And if his crops multiply and his yield rises, his secret purpose and public intent is only to raise prices and narrow the market until the weak and poor are oppressed — as it says: 'To buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the refuse of grain' (Amos 8:6).
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Building was made dear to a person only that he prepare from it the measure he needs — as it says: 'And he settled there the hungry and they established a city for habitation; they sowed fields, planted vineyards, and produced a fruitful yield' (Ps. 107:36–37).