|
ACHAREY MOT 5783
Life After Life
Today’s Torah portion opens with Hashem speaking to Moses acharey mot (after the death), after the death of 2 sons of Aaron. I want to speak to you today about the concept of acharey mot—after death. Death is so final; death is so conclusive; death is such closure. It’s irreversible, it’s painful; it’s unbearable. And yet, having a sense of acharey mot—of what happens after death can be helpful in facing it. So, let’s take a look at acharey mot—of what happens after death—both from the perspective of the one who dies and from the perspective of the ones left behind!
When considering acharey mot (after death) from the perspective of the ones a person leaves behind, let’s begin with Abraham—the 1st Jew—of whom the Torah (Gen. 23:3) tells us that after the death of Sarah: Vayakam Avraham meyal pney meyto (Abraham arose from the presence of his dead). Abraham lost his other half—his wife Sarah. It was so devastating to him that—as Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik points out—we don’t hear much from Abraham again. Abraham’s impact upon the world slows down considerably when he loses his life’s partner. As the Talmud tell us (Sanhedrin 22b): Eyn isha meyta ela l’baala (When a woman dies, it’s the husband who is mostly affected). The worst loss, the most devastating loss is a spouse—someone’s other half, someone who is completed by that other person.
But Abraham knows he has responsibilities. He knows that people are counting on him. And so he digs deep, as the Torah tells us: Vayakam Avraham meyal pney meyto (Abraham arose from the presence of his dead). Vayakam, that he arose, shows that capacity, that superhuman ability in the face of loss to nevertheless get up, to nevertheless rise, to nevertheless go on.
How do we end Shiva? By going for a walk. When we’re walking, we put one foot in front of the other. In the same way one goes for a walk by putting one foot in front of the other, similarly, when one is emotionally distraught, one goes for a walk, one puts one foot in front of the other acharey mot (after death). How? By Vayakam, by rising up and moving forward despite the loss.
A little more than a week ago was Yom Hashoah uGevura (Holocaust Memorial and Heroism Day) and last Tuesday was Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day) for those who lost their lives in securing the modern miracle of the State of Israel—and for the victims of terror still. Just this past Monday, a Palestinian rammed his car into pedestrians in Israel’s busy Mahane Yehuda open market as the country prepared for Memorial Day and Independence Day, wounding 5 people.
The contrast between Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day) TuesDAY and that NIGHT Yom Haatzmaut (Independence Day) … the celebration of that miracle of independence and sovereignty that is a fulfillment to an extent of the acharey mot (after the death), after the death of 6 million, of more than 1/3 of our people in the Holocaust … that contrast is exquisite! The Jewish State of Israel demonstrates that acharey mot, that after death there can be a vayakam, a capacity to arise and go on.
Consider the contrast between the Memorial Day in America and the Memorial Day in Israel. Memorial Day in America is not personal. Who knows anyone killed in a recent war? And so, the American Memorial Day is characterized by sales at the mall, by a BBQ in the back yard, by an outing to the park.
Memorial Day in Israel is personal. Every family has either suffered a loss or knows someone close to them who was killed defending the Jewish state. On Memorial Day, countless families tearing off the scabs on their scars, reopening their still painful wounds. We are only here because—acharey mot (after all the deaths) in the Holocaust, the survivors, had the capacity of vayakam (of arising) after tragedy, of going for a walk, of taking those steps—something we all must do when tragedy strikes, and it will strike every one of us.
Now let’s consider what happens acharey mot, after death from the perspective of the one who dies. The Torah is teaching us here that there is an acharey mot—there is a life after death. We Jews believe in Olam Haba—the World of Souls where the soul goes when a person dies. A human being is a combination of body and soul. The body, according to the Torah, comes from the dust of the earth and is therefore material, hence mortal. As the Torah (Gen. 3:19) puts it: “From dust you come and to dust you will return.”
The Torah (Gen. 2:7) also tells us how Gd gave life to this “dust of the earth” to create a human being: vayipach b’apav nishmat chayim (and Gd blew into the human’s nostrils the soul of life). Gd blew into Adam of His Spirit, a holy neshama, an eternal soul which is the Image of Gd in us. The obvious conclusion is, if Gd is immortal, then we who have some of His Spirit within us must be immortal as well—hence our eternal soul.
However, if you are too steeped in rationalism and secular science, if you are too much like the Missourian who says, “Show me! What you can’t prove doesn’t exist, and hence there is no afterlife. After all, nobody ever returned to tell us about it.” I refer you to countless articles, books and even movies by non-Jews, that have reported “discoveries” in our time of what happens after death—discoveries that confirm and correspond exactly to what Kabbalah teaches are the ultimate truths of life after death, or better life after life. Just read some of Raymond Moody Jr. and the discoveries he makes in his trailblazing book Life After Life, documenting what are called “near-death” experiences. We now have reported tens of thousands of such cases where people were clinically dead, hovered over their bodies, ascended to an intense light and met familiar relatives who had passed coming to greet them. They were told it was not their time and they had to go back—and they did! So much for people never returning to tell us about the after life!
If you will ask me, “Rabbi, can you honestly believe all of this?” Let me tell you a beautiful story, perhaps based on the Midrash, by Y. M. Tuckachinsky:
There were once twins in the womb of a mother about to be born. [Imagine that they had consciousness and were aware of their circumstances as much as they could hear, see and feel. Imagine that they could talk and that they were having a conversation. One was an optimist and one was a pessimist.] The pessimist says, “It looks like the end is coming soon for us, because I can feel movement, and we will probably be expelled from here soon. I don’t see how we can possibly survive.”
The other twin responds, “Stop being a pessimist. There has to be some reason why we are here all 9 months. It would be absurd for us to be here all this time just to go to extinction.”
The pessimist says, “Sure, you and your religion. You are a fanatic. [You’re probably an orthodox rabbi.] You are an optimist, but we are doomed.”
The optimistic brother responds, “I just have a feeling, a belief that there is a reason and a purpose and that we will go on.”
The pessimist says, “All right, if you’re so smart, tell me how can we continue to exist. Here we are surrounded by this water, connected with the tube of life that is sustaining us, obviously without all this we will die. Can you describe life out of the confines of this palace that we live in? It is impossible.”
The optimist responds, “I don’t know how, but I know that it will be.”
Suddenly the mother goes into labor, and as fate would have it, the optimist is expelled first. The pessimist inside is most anxious to hear what is going on the other side, and strains very closely to the walls of the womb and hears from without crying and screaming. He says, “Too bad for my brother, I guess I was right after all. Poor boy, he is gone.”
While on the other side at the very same moment, happy mother and father are wishing each other mazal tov at the birth of a new child, who has gone from one kind of existence to another. While in the other kind of existence, no one would be able to describe, predict or imagine the other.”
The point of the Midrash is that even as there is one kind of existence leading to another in the birth of a baby as we enter this world, so too we believe that acharey mot, after we die, when our story is finished here, and we hear the cry and the scream as we leave this world, someone in the World to Come is saying, “Mazal tov, welcome home, glad to have you back!” Amen!
|
