Category Archives: Jewish Thought

2:2:4

Mercifully, there’s another means of achieving a place in the World to Come.  It comes down to a different way of being purified if you’ve been very wrongful but not wrongful enough to be annihilated [1], and it involves the realities of Gehenom [2].

Those individuals would be disciplined there [3] and then could be a part of the World to Come when the latter comes about. In fact, in the end there’d be very few who’d be annihilated — only the utterly wicked [4].

Thus there are three realms in which we’re judged: the World to Come. this world, and the Afterlife. But the particulars behind all of this are known only to G-d since He alone knows all of the details involved and the appropriate reactions to them [5]. All we know is that at bottom His intention is to allow for a community of perfected beings who’d be able to bask in His presence forever to come about, and that that requires all of these details.

Footnotes:

[1]         As we discovered in 2:2:3, the  utterly wrongful and evil will be annihilated in the end, while the somewhat or even very wrongful will not. But how then would the wrongfulness of the very or somewhat wrong be undone enough for them to be a part of the World to Come?

[2]         That is, by experiencing Gehenom the wrongful could experience the World to Come in the end.

There are two facets of the Afterlife (which we began to explore in note 4 to 2:2:3, and addressed in note 2 to 1:3:4 and note 2 to 1:3:11): “Gan Eden”, and “Gehenom”. Gan Eden (which translates as “The Garden of Eden” since it’s the spiritual counterpart of the earthly Garden depicted in Genesis) is where the soul delights in G-d. And Gehenom (which is usually taken to be “hell” but is actually different) is where the soul suffers the consequences of its misdeeds.

The point is that there’s yet another realm, aside from the world we know of, in which we’re to be judged, the Afterlife.

While punishments will be meted out in Gehenom, to be sure, understand of course that they’ll be spiritual in nature. After all, the body will have been buried in the ground by then, so whatever happens afterwards would be non-physical by definition. The sort of “pain” the soul suffers in Gehenom can perhaps best be depicted as an existential anguish and moral discomfort brought on by catching sight of oneself for the first time.

And while there will be reward in Gan Eden for the righteous that’s somewhat analogous to the World to Come experience of basking in G-d’s light, it’s still-and-all a far more dilute version of it.

Thus, the Afterlife is where the soul goes after death, and the World to Come is where body and soul re-unite after the Resurrection of the Dead (see 1:3:10-11).

See Ramchal’s remarks in Ma’amar HaIkkurim, “Gemul” and “B’Gan Eden v’Gehenom; Klallei Pitchei Chochma v’Da’at (10); Kina’at Hashem Tzevakot (2); Otzerot Ramchal, “Iyov” p. 185; and see Rambam’s introduction to Perek Chellek in Mishna Sanhedrin, Ra’avad’s introduction to Sefer Yetzirah, and Ramban’s Sha’ar HaGamul on Gehenom.

[3]         Notice that the term “being purified” is used above rather than “being disciplined” as used here. The point is that the discipline isn’t an act of revenge on G-d’s part or of a mean-spirited “settling of scores” so to speak. For G-d doesn’t benefit by one being disciplined — the individual himself does, in that he’s cleansed of his sins and thus becomes fit to be in G-d’s presence in the World to Come.

[4]         In point of fact, though he doesn’t say as much here (perhaps because Derech Hashem was intended to be a popular work with fewer fine distinction than others of his works) Ramchal indicates elsewhere that not a single one of us will be annihilated!

He says that, one way or another, we will all be cleansed well enough to be present in the World to Come. See his comments in Da’at Tevunot 38-44 and in Klach Pitchei Chochma 1-4. Also see Leshem Shevo v’Achalma, “Hakdamot v’Sha’arim” from 6:4 to the end of Ch. 9 there which cites numerous classical sources; and Sanhedrin 104b, as explained by Reb Tzadok HaCohen in his Likutei Ma’amarim (16).

[5]         For only He can read and hear out our hearts; only He can catch each and every nuance of good and bad in every choice we make; and He alone knows what will rectify each individual soul in the end.

(c) 2015 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

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AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

The class can be found here.

2:2:3

Given free will, people and their actions can either be wholly good or bad, or mostly good or bad [1]. But that fact would seem to thwart the existence of a realm in which all are good and perfect that we just spoke of. What, then, does G-d do to ensure such a realm? He judges our actions and beings in the different ways, as we’ll see.

Now in fact, it wouldn’t be fair of G-d to judge only some or even only most of a person’s actions and overlook the rest [2].Each and every thing we do, be it momentous or not, a part of the majority of our actions or not, will indeed be judged [3]

But G-d decided to proffer the reward or punishment for each deed both in this world and the World to Come, the minority, mostly out-of-character actions here, and the majority, mostly in-character actions there.

Now, since the latter is the realm in which one’s ultimate judgment is to be carried out [4]. The reward for one’s goodness in the World to Come will be a constant and eternal state of attachment onto G-d’s presence [5], while the punishment there will be the denial of that [6].

G-d made it so that one’s experience of either one of those realms of judgments would depend on the majority of his deeds. So, the few good things that the wrongful will have done in life and the few bad things that the righteous will have done will be judged in this world, and one will either succeed or suffer here accordingly [7].

That way, every action we take will in fact be judged, not just the majority of them, and the World to Come will be comprised of souls that would be utterly free of blemishes [8], and the souls of the righteous there could full bask then in G-d’s presence without the incidence of any wrongful elements which would have no claims to a place there.

Footnotes:

[1]         The latter is true of most of us, for in truth none of us is monolithic; each one has his or her good and bad side, or at least a relatively good or bad one. And there’s not a thing we do that isn’t a veritable cacophony of good and bad intentions and elements at the same time. Who among us, for example, hasn’t donated to charity to impress others? The charity has been helped to be sure, but we’re often still the callous and self-centered person we were when we started. And who hasn’t been insensitive to others when meaning to “help them grow”?

So it’s never quite right of anyone to claim to be wholly righteous or wrongful. Still and all, the great majority of us are mostly good with a smattering of self-serving badness, while some of us are mostly bad, and somewhat good.

[2]         That is, since most of us are an admixture of good and bad, how are we to be judged? If we’d only be judged for some — even for the majority — of our actions, then not everything we do would seem serious enough to be taken into consideration, which simply isn’t true. So, …

[3]         That’s so the wrongful can be rewarded for their few acts of goodness, and the righteous can be penalized for their few wrongful acts, proving that each action does in fact count. After all, wouldn’t it be logical to penalize the mostly-wrongful since they were wrongful over all, and wouldn’t it likewise be logical to reward the mostly-righteous since they were righteous over all?

See Messilat Yesharim Ch. 4.

[4]         That is, while one will be judged in this world as we’ll see below as well as in the Afterlife (see 1:3:4,11 above), one’s ultimate experience of reward or punishment will only come about in the World to Come. That’s because of the nature of the reward or punishment that comes about there, as we’ll now see.

[5]         Indeed, can there be a better reward than that?

[6]         And indeed, can there be a harsher punishment than that?

[7]         That way one will have been cleansed of his few bad deeds if he’d been predominately good in life and he’ll be found to be wholly righteous in the end accordingly. And conversely, one’s few good deeds will have been recompensed for if he’d been predominately bad in life, and he’ll be found to be wholly wrongful in the end accordingly.

This solution touches upon an ancient point of contention that still irks at many people: why do the good oftentimes suffer in life and the wrongful prosper? We’d expect truly righteous people to be blessed and to enjoy life’s bounties as much as we’d expect wrongdoers to suffer right out. After all, isn’t G-d just, and wouldn’t that be the fairest of all circumstances?

This will explored in 2:2:5 and 2:3:8 below and elsewhere in Ramchal’s works.

[8]         By then.

(c) 2015 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

The class can be found here.

2:2:2

There are two aspects to attaching onto G-d’s presence in the World to Come [1], There’s one’s own personal achievement of that and there’s all of humankind’s. One’s own comes down to his striving for perfection through his own efforts [2] while humankind’s comes down to all of it striving to attain the World to Come as a whole [3].

Now, since humans have a yetzer hatov and a yetzer harah, and free will [4], it necessarily follows that there’d be both righteous and wrongful people[5] in the world. In the end, though, the wrongful will be undone and the righteous will be gathered together in the World to Come as a perfected community where they’ll enjoy the true good. But there’s a lot involved in all of that, as we’ll see.

Footnotes:

[1]         Refer to 2:2:1.

[2]         And to thus attain a place in the World to Come…

[3]         That’s to say that while each one of us is to try to attain a personal experience of the World to Come, all of humankind as a whole is to try to bring about a universal experience of it.

The point of the matter is that while humankind itself has an overarching universal spiritual goal, each one of us has our own that’s aligned with that, to be sure, but separate from it too. For each one of us is alternately a simple single, rank part of the whole of humankind and yet a unique manifestation of it. That paradox — and the struggle it implies touching one one’s place in the whole versus his own individual needs — defines so much of the human experience.

The rest of this chapter will concentrate on humankind’s struggles in all of this while chapter 3 below will concentrate on the individual’s.

[4]         See 1:3:1, and note 2 there.

[5]         One of the implications of this very significant remark  is that wrongfulness and wrongful people prove the existence of free will — they’re not merely products of it. Since free will is a fundamental factor in everything, it follows then that the wrongful must somehow earn a degree of ironic “merit” for being so. Nonetheless, once their role will have played itself out with the advent of the Messianic Era, they’ll still-and-all be undone (as Ramchal will soon make the point).

(c) 2015 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.

The class can be found here.

2:2:1

As we already pointed out [1], man’s goal is to merit attaching himself onto G-d’s presence in the World to Come. As such, the ultimate goal of everything that occurs is the World to Come. G-d has nonetheless seen fit to have us start off in this world, dependant on its laws of nature, and He saw to it that that would be the first stage in the ultimate goal [2].

Everything that occurs in this world is thus rooted in the idea of it being a stage in what’s to follow it in the ultimate realm — the World to Come.

Footnotes:

[1]         Refer to the entire second chapter of section 1 as well as the first chapter of Messilat Yesharim.

That’s to say that attaching ourselves onto G-d’s presence in The World to Come is our raison d’être laid out plain. For it’s there that we’ll enjoy the sort of repose and tranquility that only someone who had achieved a magnificent, all-encompassing, and long sought-after goal could enjoy. After all, true happiness only comes when one’s dreams are realized and his worst fears averted, and the greatest dream of the soul is to cling on to G-d while its greatest fear is that it won’t.

[2]         Given that we were purposefully placed in this world and its contingencies, it’s thus clear why it’s nearly impossible for us to transcend our physicality.

In fact, some might argue that it would seem better for us to have started out in the World to Come so as to have avoided this so very long and seemingly unnecessary excursion into the world with its many snares and risks. But G-d purposefully deemed it necessary for us to start off here and to be bound first by its exigencies.

(c) 2015 Rabbi Yaakov Feldman

Feel free to contact me at feldman@torah.org

———————————————————-

AT LONG LAST! Rabbi Feldman’s translation of Maimonides’ “Eight Chapters” is available here at a discount.

You can still purchase a copy of Rabbi Feldman’s translation of “The Gates of Repentance” here at a discount as well.

Rabbi Yaakov Feldman has also translated and commented upon “The Path of the Just” and “The Duties of the Heart” (Jason Aronson Publishers).

Rabbi Feldman also offers two free e-mail classes on www.torah.org entitled “Spiritual Excellence” and “Ramchal”.