On The World To Come

Feb 25

My father was a very frum (Orthodox) guy…so frum he was VP of the World Agudath Israel and was active in Munkacs with them even before the Holocaust. When he, an Auschwitz survivor, was diagnosed with terminal cancer (he’s been gone for 28 years), it was about just over a year after I founded Second Generation North Jersey, the first group in the State, and the first 2G group to agitate for mandatory public Holocaust Ed. programs in the public schools.

When he saw what I was doing, he asked me if I was buying my piece (chaylek) of Olam Habah (The World to Come) with my work. I, who had once been a Beis Yaakov girl, told him Olam Haba isn’t my concern. It was what THIS life was like that mattered. Bocharta be Chaim–choose life–means deal with the here and now.

Then I challenged him to find for me in Tanach where Olam Habah existed. Well, he looked and it’s not in the Tanach (Torah, Prophets and Writings). He, my late beloved father, a notable Talmid Chochom (scholar) in his own right, couldn’t prove me wrong, except for a Rashi commentary written in the 9th century CE, thousands of years after the fact.

That’s where it stood until he died a few months later. He promised to get back to me once he got there.

The Gemarah and Talmud were compiled after the Torah made it clear to the Israelites that good deeds get rewarded and evil gets punished. When the rabbis–after two Churbanot and much suffering of the people–couldn’t answer the beleaguered people’s dismay at being lied to in the Torah, since they saw evil being rewarded and good deeds go down the drain–the brilliant rabbis invented Olam Habah and Mosiach to give people HOPE.

Ever since then the rabbis have spent lots of time explaining to people why one person after another–from Jesus to Shabbtai Tzvi to Jacob Frank to Menachem Mendel Schneerson are not Moshiach.

Even my Dad understood why the prime directive is Bocharta Be Chaim. Choose life. Gan Eden and Gehennem are both here on Earth. That’s all there is. The rest is up to us.

Do we turn this world into Gan Eden, or let evil leaders (take your pick–from Hitler to Pol Pot to some of our own leaders in Israel and the US) turn it into Hell?

The Rambam (Maimonides) understood this very well. If you look at Melachim (Kings) in Mishneh Torah, you will see he makes it clear that there will be no nissim uneflaos (miracles and wonders), no ossos u mophsim (signs and symbols), no kolos u verachim (lightning and thunder) when Mosiach comes. He says we bring Yimei Moshiach ourselves by bringing peace and prosperity to everyone on Earth.

(BTW, though my Tati and others who have died promised to contact me from the other side, I am still waiting.)