What Happens When We Die [Not That I Want To Find Out Anytime Soon:-)]

Continuing the thoughts of recent posts as constructed on my way home from shul this morning in the delicious New York City snow....


What is death and the world to come??


It is the time when a person confronts ABSOLUTE, TRUE reality. Punishment is seeing how our lives were lived in ignorance of what is real and true. Example: Let us say someone tells a boy about a girl and paints a picture of who she is. The boy becomes very interested and prepares to meet her. The night of their date arrives upon which he is informed that she doesn't exist. She was all a figment of his imagination. In this world we assign value and importance to things which lack value and importance. We also ignore what is really important and what really matters. Our perception of G-d is skewed [some people maintain a "special relationship" with Hashem allowing them to ignore many mitzvos because "He will understand". See Bava Kamma 50 כל האומר הקב"ה וותרן ]. In the next world we find out the stark truth.


If someone approaches me one day and pays me 5 thousand dollars for every hour I learned the previous week, I am surely going to regret every hour I wasn't learning. At the time I was quite at peace with the 2 hours I spent reading all of the news that is fit to print [and some things not fit] of the New York Times. In retrospect I cry "I could have earned ten thousand dollars in two hours and instead I spent the time reading about 'relevant' topics such as a minor crisis in the British Parliment and Barack Obama's vacation with Rebbetzin Michelle and the kids in the Florida Keys." We are going to arrive up there and see what we could have accomplished with every minute of our time and greatly lament our misappropriation of that time.


We are going to discover our many faults and foibles which were never properly addressed and mourn the lost opportunity to fix our souls for eternity. We are also going to learn about the tremendous potential we had to achieve great spiritual accomplishments which was drowned to death in a sea of materialism. We are going to find out that the opinion others had of us was a] not what we thought, and b] of little relevance in the big scheme of things. We are going to enjoy every little good deed, speech or even thought we ever had and suffer for every small, seemingly minor infraction oF the rules that govern the body and soul. We are going to learn that we were wired a certain way and our job was to appreciate that others are wired differently and that we were supposed to explore the ramifications and practical applications of this knowledge.


We are going to rejoice at every dollar spent on a spiritual purpose and lament all of the money we hoarded for ourselves for that rainy day that never came. We are going to discover our smallness in the presence of the Divine and all of the false gyveh that people grasp so tightly [due to insecurities and other reasons] will fall away like a leaf in November.


Our avoda in this world is to try to align ourselves as much as possible with what is real and block out all the distractions and misleading messages of this world [known affectionately as the עלמא דשיקרא - World of falsehood]. We do this by learning as much Torah as we can which guides us as to absolute reality, getting close to tzadikim who live their lives for what is real and eternal and constantly doing acts of kindness for others which helps break down the wall of egotism that surrounds us.


לזכות ר' דניאל שמחה בן חוה רייזל לברכה והצלחה בכל מעשי ידיו מתוך שמחה וטוב לבב וזיווג הגון בקרוב