The capacity to step back and view the totality of one’s existence, as theologians and ethicists point out, is necessary for moral living, and Qoheleth does not deny this (Brown, Character in Crisis, pp. 132–33). The capacity to transcend oneself, in fact, points to the conundrum of human existence for Qoheleth. Human beings are endowed with the capacity to look beyond the immediacy of life, to suspend oneself, however delicately, above the fray to sense the eternal but are never quite able to grasp