258 - Olam Haba (Part-2)

We've discussed that the Torah commentaries outline to us what Hashem's perspective is. The only absolutely unmistakable perspective with regards to what we are doing in this world. Step number one. Although Hashem doesn't need anything outside of Himself, He nevertheless decided to go ahead and create this world. And the only reason He decided to do so was because He desired to share His goodness with us and give us the ultimate pleasure. Step number two. The ultimate place where we are destined to experience that goodness and pleasure is in the next world, in Olam Haba, and not in this world. And step number three, that being the case, what are we doing here exactly? Why didn't Hashem just place us directly in the next world? And as the commentaries explain, Hashem wanted to give us the opportunity to be able to reap the greatest form of pleasure, and in His great wisdom, He understood that when we are given the opportunity to earn that eternal reward for ourselves, that then will be the highest form of pleasure which b'ezrat Hashem we will reap in the next world. 

And step number four. As we've discussed many times, the Torah commentaries mention that although there are many branches to the tree of Judaism, such as the great mitzvah of learning Torah; or the many mitzvos that we have; the efforts we are supposed to make on character development and the like, nevertheless, the trunk of the tree and core of the entire Torah and all the mitzvos can be summarized in one word - Emunah. We've spoken a lot about Emunah in this daily inspiration and b'ezrat Hashem we will continue to do so. Because as discussed many times, although the concepts and theory of Emunah can be learned in a relatively short amount of time, but our ultimate purpose in this world is not just to know the information, but rather to take that information and make just a little bit more effort each day to internalize the concepts and try to live by their values with more and more sincerity. 

We've been discussing how seeing as the ultimate destination that b'ezrat Hashem we are all due to make our way to is Olam Haba, the next world, it is certainly worth our while to try gain an appreciation and understanding of where we are going, seeing as this is our final destination for eternity. Some people don't like to talk about death, but the truth of the matter is that death is something that is inevitable to every single one of us. And although we should certainly make an effort to remove negative thoughts and connotations of some ideas we might have heard about death, and as always, it is much more beneficial to move in a positive direction, however, just to ignore the topic because one is afraid of what's coming might be comparable to any area of our lives which there is potential to cause us stress.

Let's say I have an important exam in three weeks time from now and I am extremely stressed and perhaps nervous about what the outcome is going to be. Of course the wrong and perhaps the silly approach would be just to forget about the whole thing and focus on other areas of my life and just ignore the fact that I have this exam in three weeks. Because at the end of the day, although during this three-week period, if I forget about the fact that I have an exam, I might be able to relieve the stress from myself, but when that day comes and I now have to face the fact that there is an exam taking place and there will be consequences for the fact that I am unprepared, I will then have to deal with a lot more stress at the sudden shock of being unprepared for the exam than I would have been throughout the three weeks of preparation. 

And although we might compare what's coming to all of us - death which ultimately leads to the next world - Olama Haba, to an upcoming exam, however the truth of the matter is that our preparation for what's coming in Olam Haba for all of us, needs to be treated with much higher priority than an exam or anything else in our lives, because ultimately everything in our lives is temporary and it will always come to an end, whereas our destination, where we are due to go after this world, is our final destination forever. 

There is a parable offered by Turk commentaries where there are twins inside the stomach of their mother. And as the mother gives birth to the firstborn of the twins, the one who is still in the stomach yet to be born begins to cry and starts to mourn over the fact that his sibling has just died. Because again, in his vision of what he sees of the world, his entire world exists just of his mother's stomach. And the fact that his sibling is now gone, to him means that his sibling has died. But in reality, his sibling has just been born to a vast world, much bigger than the small space of one's mother's stomach. And similarly, when people die in this world, of course we are supposed to follow the halacha as the Torah prescribes, to mourn over the individual. However, without learning about the topic, we might feel like this individual is now gone, but the truth of the matter is that death is just the beginning of life.