Interfaith groups notwithstanding, major
religions of the world have a big problem with each other; it’s
called Hell. They don’t bring it up at the meetings on
religious tolerance, but the official Catholic policy is that
Protestants, Muslims, and Jews go to hell. Protestants say that
Catholics, Muslims and Jews go to hell. And Muslims say that
Christians and Jews go to hell. Although on an individual level
we can ignore this, theologically it is a wall that separates
major world religions.
Many liberal minded religionists are uncomfortable with this
perspective, but that remains today the official dogma. This
presents a difficulty in religions embracing one another as
valid roads to the same destination. How can I walk arm in arm
with someone who believes I am destined to pain and suffering
for eternity, whether I am a decent moral person or not?
A man and woman who were dating came to me for counseling.
She was a Jew for Jesus, he was a traditional Jew. I asked her
how she could consider marrying someone she thinks will burn
in everlasting damnation. She laughed nervously, “Well,
I haven’t exactly worked that out yet.”
From the tradition of Kabbalah a different viewpoint emerges
starting with the fact that there doesn’t exist the concept
of everlasting damnation and torture. There is no hell. The
Almighty’s justice is not served by punishing someone
forever. Justice means the punishment fits the crime. Since
we are finite and our sins are finite, then our punishment or
atonement must be finite. To take it one step further, the very
connection with wrongdoing is an act of connecting to that which
is temporary, physical, devoid of Godliness. On the other hand,
when you do a mitzvah, you become one with God who is eternal.
Evil and bad by definition do not exist forever; therefore the
atonement period for wrongdoing is a fixed period of time.
This temporary place of atonement is called Gehinnom, and
lasts for eleven or twelve months after someone passes away.
Which is, parenthetically, the reason why Kaddish is said for
that time period. The recitation of Kaddish atones for the soul,
which mitigates the suffering of Gehinnom. Also, the suffering
is not fire and brimstone, but rather something more directly
related to the transgressions. There are those who suggest the
nature of this punishment is actually the embarrassment of standing
before God, aware of your transgressions. What could be more
painful than that? This embarrassment wipes away the barrier
you created between you and God when you committed the transgression,
and therefore is a great benefit. The atonement process is not
so much a punishment as it is a spiritual dry-cleaning to rid
you of any blemishes you may have on your soul before you enter
the next phase, oneness with God.
Phase Two is known as the World of Souls and consists of all
the souls worthy of a connection with God. This experience is
still somewhat lacking until the end of days when the entire
creation is corrected and rectified. Until then righteous souls
exist in a minor temporary oneness with God. Even though it’s
not full oneness with God, this phase is still awesomely pleasurable.
Getting back to judgment, Gehinnom is not the same for everyone
who goes there. Each individual experiences the atonement for
his or her own specific transgressions. It’s a uniquely
personal event. Heaven, known as the World to Come, is also
a uniquely personal experience. You only have the closeness
to God that you’ve created. Every mitzvah that you do
is a piece of Godliness that’s incorporated into your
soul. In the next world you will realize what that closeness
means for eternity. Each person will only experience the bond
they have created. Like a football game, there are the fifty-yard-line
seats, and different levels all the way up to the cheap nosebleed
seats. If you’ve really blown it, you can end up in the
hotdog stand forever. Therefore according to the Jews, it’s
not necessary for you to be Jewish to end up in Heaven; it all
depends on your relationship with God.
It’s important to note that the World to Come and Gehinnom
are not mentioned specifically in the five books of Moses. It
is spoken about only in the books of the Prophets, the Writings,
and the Talmud. If it’s such a crucial part of Jewish
philosophy why is it absent form the Torah? Because we are not
meant to dwell on the reward and punishment that awaits us in
the next world. You can be a righteous person your whole life,
do every single commandment, stop hunger, bring about world
peace, save the whales and the ozone and cure all disease, but
if you did it all for your reward in the next world you’ve
lived a completely selfish life, which is the opposite of being
one with God. The Almighty needs nothing. He’s infinity,
and therefore every one of His acts is purely altruistic. Heaven
is missing from the Torah to emphasize the necessity to do what’s
right because it’s right, and not for the reward, or to
avoid punishment.
The Talmud not only gives us many guidelines regarding the
next world, it also relates many incidents of people who passed
away making contact with the living and telling of conversations,
debates, and other bits of information from the world beyond.
Similarly, many people, including myself, throughout time claim
to have seen a dead relative in a dream. Even with all these
“eye witness” accounts of the world beyond, we still
do not have a clear picture of what its like there, nor can
we, until we shuffle off this “mortal coil.”
One thing’s for sure, returning our soul to its source
is the ultimate pleasure a being can experience. Death, then,
is not a tragedy from a kabbalistic view. It is a realization
of our purpose, its coming home. The problem with death is that
it cuts off any further spiritual growth. We delay death as
long as possible, but once it happens, the soul is delighted
to be reunited with God. For this reason some kabbalists have
asked their students to celebrate at their demise. The anniversary
of the death of the greatest known kabbalist, Rabbi Shimon bar
Yochai, is celebrated in the spring by people all over the world.
Life is precious. We wish for long life, to do mitzvos, grow
spiritually, and gain the greatest closeness we can to the Almighty
in this world. But when the time comes for us to leave this
world, there’s no need to fear the next step. It’s
merely a step down the path to the ultimate pleasure of being
one with God.
