The Jewish View of the World to Come: Unity, Soul, and Divine Reward

Dror asks: "I heard a powerful lecture by Rabbi Zamir Cohen, in which he said that the spiritual world is one, without separations, and that each soul experiences God according to the spiritual level it built in this world. I would like Jewish sources for further study. Thank you."

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Shalom and blessings to you, Dror, and thank you for your interest.

Our sages said explicitly in the Talmud (Chagigah 15a):
"In the World to Come, there is no sitting and no standing, no back and no exhaustion."

They taught us that in the next world there are no physical states like sitting or standing, no separation and no connection in the physical sense, because the World to Come is not material.

The sages also taught (Berachot 17a): "In the World to Come there is no eating, no drinking, no marriage, no business, no jealousy, no hatred, and no competition; rather, the righteous sit with their crowns on their heads and enjoy the radiance of the Divine Presence."

All the rabbinic descriptions of eating and drinking in the next world are only metaphors and imagery that human minds can relate to.

Misunderstanding “The World to Come”

Many people misunderstand the concept of Olam Haba (the World to Come). The Torah often speaks of God judging souls for all their deeds: the righteous receive reward, while the wicked receive punishment.

As it says (Kohelet 12:7, 13–14): "The spirit returns to God who gave it… Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether good or bad."

Belief in Divine reward and punishment is one of the principles of Jewish faith. However, what exactly Gan Eden (paradise) or Gehenna (hell) look like is beyond human understanding. The Talmud describes them in imagery humans can grasp, but they are far beyond our perception. Trying to understand the World to Come is like a fish trying to understand life outside of water.

Rambam’s Teaching

Maimonides (Rambam) writes in Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Teshuvah, Chapter 8: "The World to Come has no body or physical form, only the souls of the righteous without a body, like the ministering angels… Nothing that happens to physical bodies in this world occurs there — no sitting, no standing, no sleep, no death… And when the sages said 'their crowns are on their heads,' it means the knowledge through which they merited eternal life remains with them — that knowledge is their crown."

Unity in This World

Even in this world, which misleads us into believing in divisions, there is oneness. Everything flows from the Creator. The separations we perceive are only illusions as everything derives from His absolute unity.

As it says (Yirmiyahu 23:24): "Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord." The sages compared it to the way the soul fills the entire body. As the Zohar says: “There is no place empty of Him.” Even nature itself exists only through miracle.

Because God is absolute oneness, all reality is connected and unified through Him. The World to Come is the true reality, where we see things as they really are, without the shell and distortion of this world.

With God’s help, through keeping His commandments, we will merit to remove those coverings and perceive His unity more clearly.