Soul Or Body?

לזכות ר' יואל בן פנחס הלוי לברכה והצלחה וכל טוב סלה

A well known and brilliant Rosh Yeshiva was recently asked why in the more "modern" world [his constituency] there is much less talk of the after-life than in the more "observant" world. He proceeded to offer a complex lengthy answer which included an intricate analysis of the Rambam in hilchos teshuva followed by more analysis.....

I am not nearly as smart as he is and not as knowledgeable either. But I believe that the problem with geniuses is that sometimes they over "complexify" simple issues. The gemara calls this לפום חורפיה משבשתא - He is so sharp that he confuses matters. Paradoxically, their intellectual aptitude beclouds their perspicacity [is that a correct sentence?? Sounded good to me so I wrote it:)].

In my humble opinion the answer is much more simple [to be honest, I don't even know what his answer was. All of the verbiage left me searching in vein for the nucleus of the explanation. Part of what I write I base on an idea of Rav Eliyahu Lapian זצוק"ל]: There are people who are called "Bnei Olam Haba". These people live in our world but since they are spiritual and this world is phyiscal they feel like strangers here and only feel at home and in their comfort zone when doing "Olam haba-dike" things, such as learning, davening or any mitzva for that matter. Others are very materialistic and don't connect to the supernal world. They like lots of good food, nice vacations and many of the creature comforts that our world has to offer. They are not fired up by spirituality. They may keep Shabbos but not as Shabbos is supposed to be kept. At the table they will discuss what one mechalel shabbos said about another mechalel shabbos in order to gain popularity [i.e. Israeli politics] or how one group of over sized, tattoo-riddled gentiles wearing underwear managed to put a cows hide in a net more than another group of over sized, tattoo-riddled gentiles also wearing underwear but of a different color [i.e. basketball]. That is not Shabbos. When such people daven and they say על כן נקוה לך .... לתקן עולם במלכות ש-ד-י we anxiously await the time when the  world world will be fixed under the dominion of the Almighty, they are hurriedly putting away their tefillin so that they can rush not for the Almighty but the Almighty Dollar. The idol of Mamon .

They don't relate to G-d and aren't terribly interested in Him either. When they raise they children they talk about the kids future. The "future" invariably means the next fifty sixty years of the child's life and not his eternity. Activities that purify the nebulous soul are foresworn if they impede one's advancement in matters of the Body [I capitalize the idolatry] and Its wants and desires.

People who ARE spiritual [regardless of the material of Kippah on their heads or hashkafic allegiance] think of everything [to varying degrees] in terms of the future when they will divest themselves of this temporary shell and live in the Real World.

Our job is to too make Olam Haba RIGHT HERE and thereby insure ourselves that when the time comes we will have Olam Haba over "there". Our motivation for doing this is because it is the will of Hashem.

In a word - whether people about the physical or the spiritual will determine how interested they are in the after-life when there will no longer be a physical.

כך נראה לעניות דעתי ואם שגיתי השם הטוב יכפר.