Rabbi Friedman - The Soul and the Afterlife: Where Do We Go From Here?

so I'm sitting in the Habad house in Minnesota and I get a phone call from a college student he says I'm on my way I need to ask you a question and he sounds very anxious he pulls up in front of the house screeching to a stop just out of the car and in a panic he says rabbi am I going to hell I said I don't know what have you been doing lately he says no no I'm serious I said why where's this question coming from he was not particularly religious or observant he says I have a roommate on campus who is an evangelist and he's been telling him that if he doesn't convert he's going to go to hell so for a couple of months he humored him for a couple of months he tried to ignore him now it's getting to him and he wants to know am I going to hell I said why did you have to come all the way from Minneapolis to st. Paul to ask me there's a rabbi on campus why didn't you ask him he says I did what did the rabbi say the rabbi said we don't believe in Hell so I said you don't like that answer he says that's not an answer if I end up in hell what am I going to say my rabbi doesn't believe in this I don't want to know what you believe I want to know if I'm going am I going or not are we going to hell do we even know what it is what happens after life is there life after death was a very sad story there was a woman up in Duluth where Bob Dylan was born she lost her husband at a very young age and they had two little girls she went into trauma she went into therapy for many years she was doing fine but her children had grown a little bit and they were asking where's daddy she didn't know what to answer so she's doing laundry in a laundromat and there's a Catholic woman who she knew was doing laundry next to her and she says the girls are asking where's daddy I don't know what to tell them so the Catholic friend said tell them that Daddy is now with God he is in paradise in heaven among the Angels and so on and she thought what's that's beautiful I'm gonna go tell my children but then she thought wait a minute that's Catholicism so she called a rabbi in Minneapolis which is three hours drive from Duluth and she made an appointment to come down to see him she came to see him and she asked him do we believe in life after death and he said well personally I don't my wife does so you can believe in it or not she was very offended she was too polite to say anything to the rabbi but she told her friends back in Duluth I didn't go there to ask him his personal opinion or his wife's opinion I wanted to know what Judaism says she was offended that he gave her a personal opinion she went back to the Catholic friend and she said tell me more my religion doesn't know luckily there was an Israeli couple there and she spoke to them as well and they said you went to the wrong rabbi we say Kaddish we do you skir what do you mean we don't know anyway so she came down and we had a long talk I meet this rabbi at some convention and I say you know this woman from Duluth she's really angry at you he says why is it because she came all the way down to hear what the Torah says about life after death and you didn't give her a satisfying answer he says oh these people they all want simplistic answers I said why simplistic simple maybe everybody wants simple answers but why simplistic he says because there are no simple answers you know that in the Gomora there are five opinions as to what happens after death I said Jimmy we know that much about it and you couldn't tell her anything give her one of the five opinions what do we know about life after death first thing is there life after death it's a ridiculous question life is alive life lives life can't die just like death can't live life can't die living things live so the question is there life after death it's a nonsense question is there death after life can a living thing die that's a good question and the answer is no no it can't so what happens is this the soul that is a living being enters the body and the body borrows life from the soul because inherently the body is not a living thing the soul is a living thing and when they separate and go their own ways what happens the body returns to dust from dust you are and to dust you shall return and the soul goes back to being a soul among souls you can call it heaven or you can call it hell but you're describing the continued life of the living soul so is there life after death what dies is dead what's alive lives so what lives what lives on every aspect of your life your emotions your memories your relationships your wisdom your knowledge your pains and your pleasures they all live on because they are all aspects of life and life only knows how to live life can't die it's an oxymoron so the question of is there life after death it's an unnecessary conundrum life lives bodies go back to the dust there's a beautiful poem if I can remember it a second here from a famous poet life is true life is real and death is not its goal from dust you are and to dust returnest was never said about the soul so from thus you are and to dust you returned that's the nature of the body it is not a living thing it goes back to being a mineral the soul on the other hand always was alive and will always continue to live so when we say Kaddish when we say you skir we are in relationship with a living being that is as real if not more real than a body in fact the reason most Jews will go to you skir and they don't go to any other to Allah and the other governing is because the soul for whom they are saying you skir will not allow them to stay away whatever strings they have to pull up there they'll do whatever it takes to get you to say you skir because they need it they need your cottage they need your you skir they need that sudoku you give on their behalf they're very much alive can be otherwise life lives we are told that in the future after Messiah comes there will be the resurrection of the Dead what is Thea Thomason it means the resurrection of the body the soul does not need to be resurrected the soul will return to its resurrected body how do you resurrect the body in case you're interested you know how a movie can be played backwards and the building that apart brick by brick comes back together brick by brick a body disintegrates resurrection means restructuring that same body putting all the parts back together when that happens the body is now created by God just like the bodies of Adam and hava in GaN Eden and therefore those bodies will never die unless they eat from a tree they're not supposed to eat from and then the whole thing happens all over again but there isn't going to be a tree the next time around so a resurrected body doesn't have any element of death to it so it will live forever and its soul will come back and enjoy the reward of the Resurrection the Gemara has an interesting description of this there was a lame guy and a blind guy and they wanted to steal some fruit from an orchard but there was a wall around the orchard so what they did the blind guy took the lame guy on his shoulders the lame guy directed the blind guy to where the fruits were and he was able to reach and steal some of the fruit when they were caught the judge said who do i punish the lame guy or the blind guy and he decided that neither of them could have committed the crime alone it was a combined effort so he said the only way to punish them properly put the lame guy back on the blind guy's shoulders and punish them as as a couple as a pair on the positive side for every Mitzvah you do who gets the credit your soul or your body the body without a soul can't do mitzvahs a soul without a body can't do mitzvahs so how is God going to reward you for having done mitzvahs you can be rewarded only when you're back together again like when you did the mitzvot and so the resurrection simply means every soul that had been in a body and had fulfilled mitzvahs and every soul fulfills mitzvahs will have to come back into the body to receive its reward what about the reward in heaven that's just for the soul it's not enough so eventually the souls in heaven will come back to their bodies on earth and receive their ultimate reward let's look a little bit about how this thing actually works what is hell a guy goes on a long journey to seek his fortune because at home he's not making a living so he sets sail to find some fortune elsewhere he shipwrecked on an island he wakes up on the beach and there are diamonds everywhere he gathers them up and rushes into town and wants to buy something with these diamonds and they laugh at him they say diamonds aren't worth anything here they're all over the beach here what we use for money is onions they're scarce so he settles into this new life earns many onions becomes very wealthy multi owned onion ear and after many years he thinks it's time to go home he builds himself a ship loads it up with all of his wealth all his onions and set sail for home getting home took over a month by the time he gets to the harbor the onions are getting a little a little odorous he pulls in can't wait to show his family how successful he's become and they take one look at this cargo and I said this thing stinks this is horrible what did you bring here we don't barter in onions same is true with the soul the soul comes down to earth in heaven it knew about diamonds on earth he comes down he says the soul says let's do godly things let's amass a lot of godliness and the body says we don't deal in godliness here here we deal with tomatoes potatoes soul gets used to it and eventually amasses a great wealth of onions potatoes tomatoes and such now the soul leaves the body and goes back to being a soul and he comes to heaven and it smells of onions that's hell when a soul comes back to the world of souls and doesn't smell like a soul that's hell the fires of hell in which a soul burns has got to be the fire of shame it burns with shame it's the only it's the only fire that a soul can feel so shame can linger for a maximum of 12 months being in heaven for 12 months that smell wears off because it's only physical how long can it last by the end of the year after 12 months the soul is clean it's a neshama among the genres it's now sitting in heaven those 12 months are basically a cleansing refreshing process where the soul peels itself away from the memories the sights the smells of the physical world we say Kaddish for 11 months because that adjustment is eased and made smoother by our Kaddish we say it only for 11 months because we don't want to insult any soul by suggesting that it needed the entire 12 month cleansing but just in case it did we say 11 months after that the soul is at peace comfortable in heaven now some souls come back to heaven after a hundred and twenty years and it's as if they never left that's called going straight to GaN Eden the mourning period which i think is very fascinating there's the 7 days the 30 days the year in the seven days the first three are more intense than the last four why is all that morning interim doesn't mean feeling sad grief in Torah doesn't mean being in pain the tells us what the soul of the departed is going through and we being empathetic with the departed share its experience when it's in great pain we grieve intensely when it's getting more comfortable we grieve a little less when it has become completely comfortable then we stop grieving because grief is not about us grief means don't let go of the soul remain in touch and share the souls experience so the Torah tells us the first three days after a soul leaves the body that wrenching change is most intense the next four days is a little easier at the end of seven days it has settled in to its experience in heaven and that's why you are obligated to get up and put an end to the to the Shiva that famous joke about a guy who brings home a non-jewish girl to his traditional mother and he's very worried about her reaction his girlfriend is an Indian her name is running deer and he has to introduce her to his mother he brings her home and he says ma this is the woman I'm going to marry she is running deer and to his surprise his mother was very calm she said hi glad to meet you I'm sitting Shiva sitting Shiva means seven days and not an hour more because if you start to grieve on your own if you're not reflecting what the neshamah is experiencing this is not the real grief this is feeling sorry for yourself which is fine but it's not a Jewish ritual it's not a mitzvah anymore at the end of 30 days the soul has made another step into settling into heaven and so at the end of 30 days we lighten our grief even more until the end of the year and by then the soul is in heaven what are you grieving so it's an amazing and beautiful thing that sitting Shiva and mourning the the death of a of a loved one is really in consideration of their experience not feeling sorry for ourselves did i beset something really emotional and and profound one day he said there's a custom on Pesach when you ask the four questions you preface it by saying Tata you've revealed by dear Fred in fear Cassius you address the questions to your father and the tradition is that even after your father has passed away at the Seder you continue to say Tata you revealed by their flagging fear caches there I became very emotional when he said this he said it's very painful for a soul in heaven to get back in touch with what's happening on earth but when your child wants to ask you a question then you will do everything to hear him and give him an answer so this custom of addressing your father after he is in heaven means that it is worth whatever pain the soul has to experience to reconnect with earth in order to answer your child's question the soul is very real let's describe the soul for a moment what is a soul what is Anna Shum when God created the world he created things that never existed let there be light and there was light had never existed before let there be a firmament i heaven had never existed before the Sun the Moon the Stars the water they're all new never existed a soul a Jewish soul is a little piece of God that always existed just as God always existed this little piece of God is of course alive why God is alive my dad Allah Fenella Melek hi God is a living being a little piece of him is a little piece of life what does this soul bring with it we know that God is kind Hesed the soul is capable of pheasant we know that God is all-knowing the soul is capable of intelligence we know that God can be strict and severe the soul has a capacity for justice judgment even anger and hate in other words the soul has the ten faculties with which God functions as a creator so the soul has intelligence and emotions that's a soul a soul can love and it can hate it can understand and it can reason it can be stubborn it can be determined it can communicate these are the ten functions of the a human soul is similar except that it's created its mortal we have two souls a godly soul with ten godly functions and a human soul with ten human functions now sometimes in your own mind your thinking makes perfect sense for me to do something that isn't kosher but on the other hand it doesn't make sense if it's not kosher I'm a Jew why am i doing that these are your two souls reasoning each in their own way the intelligence of your godly soul of your Jewish soul understands things from a godly perspective godliness makes sense the human soul understands things from a human perspective godliness doesn't make sense the trick is your godly soul must teach your human soul to appreciate what is holy and godly that way when the soul leaves the body at the end of one hundred and twenty years it has no foreign smell it comes back to heaven as if it had never left in fact it brings with it some of the human souls energy that has now become holy so every time we do a mitzvah we're getting our human soul to participate in holiness that's called tikkun olam when you elevate your human soul to appreciate holiness and godliness to feel for holiness and godliness you have elevated the physical to godliness you've made earth into heaven and that is the whole purpose for which the soul is willing to spend a hundred and twenty years body on earth here's a beautiful analogy a princess marries a peasant they go to live on the farm the peasants farm peasant is very devoted to the princess after two weeks of marriage he notices that the princess is sad he doesn't want to question her thinks to himself what could possibly make her sad and in his peasant orientation he assumes that what making her sad is that there aren't enough potatoes so he works harder and he brings home more potatoes she's not any happier he realizes silly me she doesn't like potatoes it's Tomatoes that are lacking she's sad because there aren't enough Tomatoes so he works really hard he brings home more Tomatoes she's not happier so he fixes something in the house the leek the road she's getting sadder finally he loses his patience and he confronts her he says what is wrong with you I've given you everything a human being can possibly want how can you not be happy so she says I was raised in the palace in the palace we had the greatest philosophers and teachers and thinkers who came and delivered lectures he was a pleasure we had the greatest orchestras the greatest musicians would come and perform we had the most exotic plants and the Royal Gardens these are the things I miss I'm a princess and when I see you trying to make me happy by giving me potatoes tomatoes and such it makes me even sadder because I realize you have no idea what it takes to make a princess happen that's the predicament of a godly soul in a body the godly soul is a princess the body is a very devoted husband but it's a peasant the body feels the souls sadness sometimes we call it guilt we call it conscience we call it search for meaning finding ourselves really what it is the soul is unhappy and the body is trying to please the soul but what is a body no the body assumes that potatoes tomatoes and such will make the soul happy and the soul becomes sadder so what is the solution when the princess marries the peasant the father the king should send along with the princess little pieces of the palace some royal stuff so that on the farm the princess will feel somewhat at home she'll feel like a princess and that's what God does for us when he sends the godly soul down to earth he sends along with us pieces of heaven the Mitzvah the Torah when we do mitzvahs we run a home according to Turin we're importing deporting down porting stuff from heaven that keeps us in touch with who we really are so that even living in the body on the farm on earth the soul can feel like a princess and can feel at home that is the mystery of the souls coming and going that is the justification for putting a delicate sensitive princess into a very indelicate and insensitive condition and place but in the end the soul will have proved itself every soul has a beneficial effect on its body the body and the human soul become refined because there's a godly soul there when you get 10 godly souls together it generates a degree of holiness that allows us to read the Torah to say certain prayers it's a collection of souls and that is an awesome amount of holiness the baal shem tov said that where there are ten jews in one room angels are afraid to enter this godliness transforms the world we fix the world tikkun olam because the creator of the world has a plan it's his world he has a vision of what he would like it to be and we are his agents and partners in turning the world into his kind of world a world that pleases him that welcomes him so that he can have his home in the lowest of worlds by yom how who he has Shem ephod Busch Mahad as a result of our serving God doing Mitzvah bringing holiness and godliness to the world that they will come when God will be one and his world will be one with him but that's due to our efforts so the soul yearns to go back to heaven feels uncomfortable encumbered by a body but it knows its mission and it is humble enough to accept the mission so it goes about doing MIT's vote it goes about absorbing the holiness from Torah and then sharing it with his human soul with his body and with the rest of the world the soul comes into the body not suddenly shockingly but in stages in increments 40 days before conception the soul is told that it's going to be born conceived that's why everywhere until right now if you noticed this the angel comes to tell Sarah that she is going to have a child what does he say this time next year now we know that it doesn't take a year only takes nine months why is it always this time next year it's because gestation is nine months but a soul has to be given some time to adjust to the idea of being born so it actually takes a year so first the soul is told to get ready the soul is not thrilled by that idea to leave heaven to be constricted into the limitations of a human body to share that body with a human soul that has human demands not an appealing prospect but if God says the soul gets ready that's the first step second step of course is conception Dava de melech says this is really awesome and beautiful the velum Elif says my mother and father abandoned me and God gathered me in a V V me azov' Unni my mother and father abandoned me and God took me in the Gemara says David was not bad-mouthing his parents he wasn't catching he was marveling because he remembered being conceived what is it like you're this tiny little being all alone because your mother and father are sleeping so the Gemara describes it graphically the soul looks to the father he's sleeping looks to the mother she's sleeping and this soul is going through the most traumatic moment it's more traumatic than birth and birth you just go a few inches from one place to another this is going from zero to 60 so this tiny little thing I don't what it's called before it's even a fetus is looking around to see who's in charge who's babysitting and the parents are sleeping so what reassures this conception God's presence he remembered being comforted by the fact that God was there when his mother and father were sleeping in another place in two hiland of it says even as I go in the valley of the shadow of death I am not afraid for you are with me the Gemara says what is this valley of the shadow of death and why does he keep going there fine you're not afraid because God is with you don't go there stay away from these places and besides why is dove describing himself and we have to read his experience so the Gemara says dove it is talking about every soul that was ever born every soul goes through the valley of the shadow of death and that is the birth process the valley is that blank space between life in the womb and life outside the womb that's the valley and it has a little danger to it so that there's a touch of death there life in the womb is wonderful you're taught the entire Torah it's being in heaven leaving the womb is very traumatic living outside the womb is life again so da vada Mela said how did I survive the trauma of birth it is so traumatic that it erases your memory of nine wonderful months it would be much more traumatic if God wasn't there so how does every feat is born into this world survive that trauma it sees God present God is there to see it through the experience so the valley of the shadow of death is really the birth process so people who have been through a near-death experience relive their own birth it's a flashback every birth is a near-death experience and what enables us to survive it we are conscious of God being there so every feat is born into this world has had an experience with God so where does our faith in God come from we can't prove it we have no we have no arguments we have we don't need it we remember God's presence when we needed him the most at conception and at birth so every near-death experience anybody who's been through it comes out the other end believing why is that because he's reliving and re experiencing his own birth you know some some experts say near-death experiences people seeing themselves in a dark tunnel there's a light at the end of the tunnel there's an angel they're all white urging you to come into the light you get the picture you're being born you're going through a dark tunnel and there's this guy dressed in white or pale green urging you to come out because he doesn't want to get sued the trauma also brings the memory of the trust and the comfort you got from God's presence so where does a Munna come from from having experienced God now when the soul leaves the body it goes through the reverse process it doesn't leave all its instantly completely it hovers it doesn't want to say goodbye so it separates from the body and stages the moment of death for three days seven days 30 days a year the Torah tells us this so that our own existence is expanded greatly we know what happens even though we can't see it we can stay in touch even though we can't see it so our horizons are much broader and much greater and the world needs to know these things because it's a blessing to know these things and we as the Jewish people have an obligation to be a light to the nation's to share with them the knowledge that comes only from Torah because we know things that can't be seen make sense we've run out of time you

Channel: Sinai Indaba

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Keywords: Afterlife (Media Genre), Soul (Quotation Subject), Jewish, Judaism, Sinai Indaba, Rabbi (Profession)

Id: YzFUXKk2B4I

Length: 43min 40sec (2620 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 08 2012