Inside Gan Eden: What Judaism Really Teaches About the Afterlife

Gan Eden is the ultimate promise for anyone who lives as a good person, keeps mitzvot, and brings benefit to themselves and to the world. What is actually in Gan Eden?

In Islam they promise very physical pleasures, so why in Judaism are the descriptions of Gan Eden not so concrete? In general, why is it so worthwhile to work so hard for something we’ll only receive in a long time from now?

The most famous description of Gan Eden in Chazal is: “The righteous sit, their crowns on their heads, and delight in the radiance of the Shechinah.”

What does that actually mean? “Chazal are using a parable for a kind of pleasure that belongs to the world of souls,” explains Rav Zamir Cohen. “You can’t speak there about drinking, eating, and other physical enjoyments that exist in this world, because there is no body there, no desires, no drives, and no pleasures of the kind we know in the material world. It’s a different level of pleasure altogether.

“And when the Sages said ‘on their heads’, it doesn’t mean they have an actual physical crown on their head.

“The crown represents kingship – freedom from dependence and enslavement to desires – as opposed to a person who arrives in the spiritual world still bound and chained to various urges, without any ability to fulfill his cravings. In contrast, the tzaddik is like a king – his pure soul is able to connect back to its Divine Source, in proportion to the extent that it fulfilled the 613 mitzvot, or the Seven Noahide Laws in the case of non-Jews.”

How is it that throughout history no one asked for a more concrete description?

“The Rambam actually asks why there is no detailed description of Gan Eden in Judaism, like in other religions,” Rav Zamir says. “And he answers that just as you can’t explain color to someone who was born blind, you also can’t explain to a person, while he is inside a body in this world, what Gan Eden is.

“A physical person simply cannot grasp pure spiritual, soul-level pleasure. And since the Torah is a Torah of truth – it doesn’t try to fool people, trick them, or give them promises of material things that are not correct – the promises are more abstract.

“In other religions, who took from Judaism the very idea of Gan Eden, they tried to promise all kinds of fantasies. Any thinking person understands that such ideas don’t really belong to a spiritual world.”

Isn't all that spirituality a bit boring?

“In the introduction to the Zohar, it tells that Rabbi Chiya asked to see the place of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai after his passing,” says Rav Zamir. “Only after he fasted for forty days, twice (eighty days) did he merit to see him giving over a shiur in Torah in Gan Eden to tzaddikim, and when he finished his lesson he ascended to a higher chamber.

“In the Kabbalistic works it is explained that even though a person who learns Torah in this world does feel pleasure and inner fulfillment – each according to his level of effort and purity – he still does not experience the true pleasure of the soul. The physical body serves as a barrier, like a screen in front of the light of the sun.

“In Gan Eden, together with the delight of attachment to the Divine Source, a person delights in Torah learning and also ascends from chamber to chamber in accordance with his spiritual level.”

It’s difficult to work hard for a reward we don’t really understand

It’s still hard to accept a “payment” whose nature we don’t really understand. It’s like working for an employer who promises you some sort of compensation in a currency you don’t really know.

“The real question is whether we’re dealing with a believer or a non-believer,” Rav Zamir says. “If someone doesn’t believe – then even if you promise him a million dollars in cash, he won’t believe it and it won’t move him.

“But a person who does believe that there is a Creator, and that this Creator wants to give him pleasure – because the entire purpose of Creation is to do good to us, relies on the Creator that He will certainly give him much more than all the pleasures of this world put together.

“Chazal say: ‘One hour of spiritual tranquility in the World to Come is better than all the life of this world.’ And ‘spiritual tranquility’ means that you’re still not even enjoying the thing itself – just the “aroma,” so to speak.

“It’s like when you walk past a bakery and smell the scent – you already get a bit of enjoyment. The Kabbalists explain: if we were to gather together all the pleasures of all humanity – from Adam HaRishon until the end of days – including the luxuries of kings, the joy of huge prize winners, fine foods throughout all generations, and so on – all that would still not equal even one hour of spiritual tranquility in the World to Come.

“This is because material pleasure is limited, and spiritual pleasure is unlimited.”

Is this the same Gan Eden as the Garden of Eden of Adam and Chava?

“Before Adam and Chava sinned by eating from the Tree of Knowledge,” Rav Zamir explains, “Gan Eden was fused into this world, like a spiritual soul inside a physical body.

“Adam HaRishon experienced a completely different kind of illumination. It is written, for example, that he could see ‘from one end of the world to the other’ – meaning, the whole physical reality was on a completely different level.

“The Vilna Gaon writes that then, everything was concentrated: the soul of Adam HaRishon contained within it all the souls that would ever exist; one mitzvah – the mitzvah concerning the Tree of Knowledge – contained within it all 613 mitzvot; and so on.

“When Adam sinned – everything scattered and fell apart.

“Today we are working to bring the world back to the state of Adam before the sin, and even beyond that – to reach the complete tikkun that Adam HaRishon was supposed to bring about if he had stood up to the test of the Tree of Knowledge.

“At the end of this process, in the days of Mashiach, the Upper Gan Eden will once again merge with this world.”

Why change my life now for a reward that will only come much later?

Rav Yiftach Sofer offers an interesting answer: “Even in this world we see that people are willing to work a whole week, a whole month, and only at the end receive their salary,” he says.

“There are those who study at university for several years, and in parallel work at all kinds of jobs just to pay tuition – all in order to get some future degree. A person tells himself: ‘I’ll suffer for a few years now, and later I’ll get a good job without problems’ – even though he knows it’s not guaranteed, and there’s no certainty he’ll ever work in that profession. But still, he tries.

“The Mishnah in Pirkei Avot says: ‘Trustworthy is your Employer that He will pay you the wages of your labor.’ Meaning: you can be sure that the Master of the universe will pay your reward.

“According to the Torah and countless testimonies, it’s clear that there is a World to Come, and it’s clear that a tzaddik and a wicked person do not receive the same reward. There is compensation – not maybe, not possibly, but definitely.

“And that reward, as we’ve said, is beyond all comparison – it is ‘the greatest delight of all delights that can possibly exist.’”