Ein Ayah (Gemara Shabbat 83b):
Even at the moment of death, one should not refrain from going to the beit midrash or from engaging in Torah study, as it is stated: “This is the Torah: A person who dies in a tent” (Bamidbar 19:14).
This statement of our Sages is puzzling, to say the least. Can a person on the verge of death really be expected to present himself in the beit midrash, let alone have the clarity of mind to engage in Torah study? What are our Sages trying to teach us?
A proper understanding of this teaching requires us to understand that our Sages are making a broader point about the purpose of Torah. The basic goal of any moral code is the functioning of a stable society that advances human welfare. For this reason, the realm of morality is concerned with man’s this-worldly existence. As long as a person is alive in this world and a member of broader society, he must adhere to this basic level of morality.
The Torah shares the goal of advancing human welfare and creating a well-functioning society, albeit it in a more perfected and holy form than could emerge from any human mind. However, the Torah’s concerns are much broader and far-reaching. Every law and every detail of the Torah, even those that seem pragmatically oriented, transcends the narrow concerns of this world and roots man in the eternal world of pure spirit (lit. חיי עולם).
For this reason, even if a person is on the verge of death and is no longer concerned with mundane matters of worldly existence, he should not be any less connected to the Torah. The Torah’s laws and details root us in a realm of eternal and illuminated holiness, and are not only for this world.
This explains why our Sages did not suffice with asserting that a person on the verge of death should study Torah – they went out of their way to add that he should even “attend the beit midrash.” In other words, one might have thought that the beit midrash, where Jews gather for communal Torah study, is primarily a sociological institution. Instead of studying in private, Jews come there for companionship and the pleasure of intellectual engagement (lit. חידוד של בית המדש). Our Sages are alluding that the sociological and worldly is but one dimension of the beit midrash – and by extension, but one dimension of the holy Torah.
We see that this statement of our Sages is not meant as impractical advice about funerary planning. It is intended to guide all of us to a deeper appreciation of the uniqueness and sacred character of our precious Torah.
Food for Thought
Rabbi Shalom Carmy (“Is Contemporary Orthodox Judaism Racist?” in Tradition 50:4): When you ask about Orthodox Judaism and racism, speaking in your role as an educator of young Jews, at the root of your vexation are these insidious muttered imprecations amplified around dinner tables, in classrooms and shuls, often regurgitated by people who have suppressed or never knew the pain and betrayal whence they may have originated. Modern Orthodox identity, for many of your students, is more about these scenes of socialization than it is about religiously formed convictions and theological propositions. That socialization supposedly enables our young people to uphold the reality of a transcendent G-d, whose commands override human preferences, devotion to the singular destiny of a people separate from the nations of the world, and a way of life sharply at odds with secular values, and to resist the powerful attractions and pressures of that world. When our socialization indulges and even encourages racist utterances, the Orthodox community finds itself in the wrong on a clear-cut moral question, the one question that, in the eyes of liberal secular culture, takes precedence over all other moral questions.
Rav Soloveitchik (Divrei Hashkafa, pg. 254-255): I recoil from all talk that goes round and round a single topic: that the observance of mitzvot is beneficial for digestion, for sound sleep, for family harmony, and for social position… When man meets G-d, G-d demands self-sacrifice, which expresses itself in struggle with his primitive passions, in breaking his will, in accepting a transcendental “burden,” in giving up exaggerated carnal desire, in occasional withdrawal from the sweet and pleasant, in dedication to the strangely bitter, in clash with secular rule, and in his yearning for a paradoxical world that is incomprehensible to others. Offer your sacrifice! This is the fundamental command given to the man of religion.
Rav Yuval Cherlow (In His Image, pg. 166, 168): [T]he Bible does not contain any explicit mention of the World to Come. It is absent even in places where we would expect it to appear. It does not appear in the passages that discuss reward and punishment, all of which refer to material consequences in this world. The World to Come is not the answer given to the never-ending question of why bad things happen to good people — even though it is the primary response given by the Oral Torah. It is also not the answer given to the question posed by Ecclesiastes — “What profit has a man of all his labor wherein he labors under the sun?” (Eccl. 1:3) — even though it should be the natural response. The disparity must be addressed…. [One of many approaches in our tradition] is presented by Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi. He explains that the Torah’s silence in relation to the World to Come reveals how minimal its significance is in Man’s consciousness. The Torah wants Man to devote his attention to constantly striving to bring about G-d’s manifestation in this world. Man encounters G-d in the framework of life, not death. In the words of Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi, the two reasons serve as one: he stresses the remarkable purpose of the encounter with G-d precisely in the world of the living — “and I will walk among you” — as well as the consequences of this fact on the subsequent certainty that the World to Come exists: “The ultimate good is reserved for the [people of the chosen] nation, who are closest to G-d during their lifetimes. After death the degree of a person’s closeness to G-d is assessed according to his level before death.”
Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch (Collected Writings Vol. 1, pg. 202): For those who have achieved this inner harmony, this blessed peace of mind, there is no longer any contrast and disharmony, any conflict or chasm between heaven and earth, between time and eternity, between temple and home, altar and table. For heaven and eternity, bliss and supreme happiness have entered the daily, temporal concerns of such people. Their psycho-physical existence, their material and spiritual being has been changed into something heavenly and eternal. They are able to assemble their families around the table of G-d. And, in the presence of G-d, together with wife and children they can enjoy these eternal values which transform every moment of our fleeting existence on earth into a taste of eternity.
Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch (Collected Writings Vol. 2, pg. 185): [T]he element of eternity… is inherent even in the transient, fast-fading present. For this reason… and in spite of the fleeting character of our earthly existence, our Sages refer to our human world as עולם, though this term is usually reserved for the concept of eternity. Is the present not indeed a segment of eternity? Is not every drop of water in the sea a part of the ocean that ebbs and flows forever so that even this tiny drop has a portion in the ocean’s infinity? Is not even the most fleeting moment of the present a permanent part of eternity? And if this eternity has one King, the One G-d, and even the present, the temporal world with all its cares and griefs, despite all its errors and frailties, is subject to the command of this King – is not the present, too, a part of the Kingdom of this One Ruler? Does not, then, even the most ephemeral, most sorrowful moment of the present, if it is spent beneath His sovereignty and in His loyal service, offer and assure us all the joys that can mature only beneath the sunshine of His eternity? Must we seek eternity only in the world to come? Does not our eternity already begin here within ourselves? Are we not already in the midst of this realm of eternity, beneath the banner of מלך העולם.
Rambam (Hilchot Meilah, 8:8): It is appropriate for a person to meditate on the laws of the holy Torah and know their ultimate purpose according to his capacity. If he cannot find a reason or a motivating rationale for a practice, he should not regard it lightly. Nor should he break through to ascend to G-d, lest G-d burst forth against him. One’s thoughts concerning them should not be like his thoughts concerning other ordinary matters… The mishpatim are those mitzvot whose motivating rationale is openly revealed and the benefit of their observance in this world is known, e.g., the prohibitions against robbery and bloodshed and honoring one’s father and mother. The chukim are the mitzvot whose motivating rationales are not known. Our Sages said: “I chukim and you have no license to question them.” A person’s yetzer ha’ara confronts him concerning these laws and the nations of the world challenge them, e.g., the prohibition of the meat of a pig, milk and meat, the calf whose neck is broken, the red heifer, and the goat sent to Azazel… Through the performance of the chukim and the mishpatim the righteous merit the life in the World to Come. And between the two of them, the Torah lists the chukim first, as it states (Vayikra 18:5) “And you shall heed My decrees and judgments which a person will perform and live through them.”
Questions for Discussion
- In observance of a certain law or mitzvah, is it possible for there to be a conflict between the Torah’s “this-wordly” concerns and its concerns for Olam ha’Ba? If so, how would we reconcile or resolve such a conflict?
- Why does the Torah have laws to further the stability/welfare of society? Why not just leave that up to human wisdom and legislation?
- How does observing laws of the Torah earn us Olam ha’Ba?
- What is Olam ha’Ba?
- What happens if a person’s religious observance is too focused on the benefits of Torah in this world? What if it is too focused on Olam ha’Ba?
