Paradise, Hell, and Everything in Between

Hashem gave Israel the Torah to observe, and made a condition with them saying: "Whoever keeps the Torah - paradise is before him, and whoever does not keep the Torah - hell is before him." (Exodus Rabbah 2)

Rabbi Shmuel said: Anyone who performs one mitzvah in this world - that mitzvah precedes him and goes before him to the World to Come. And anyone who commits one transgression in this world - that transgression envelops him and goes before him on the Day of Judgment. (Tractate Sotah 3b)

Have we ever felt deep regret? The kind of regret that fills the heart with profound, bitter sorrow? The kind accompanied by an intense desire to turn back time and correct a terrible mistake we made?

Everyone sometimes feels regret in their life - to some degree or another. But there is a regret so deep, so difficult, that no one in the world has experienced its like during their lifetime!

The Gaon Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna says: When a person is being taken from his home to his grave, all his senses are opened, and he sees what he could not see during his lifetime. They show him the punishments of hell and the pleasures of paradise, and he sees how he wasted his days in vanity... He then contemplates with his clear intellect how many pleasures of paradise he missed, and how many hours throughout his life were spent in idleness, when each and every hour could have earned him paradise with wonderful pleasures that no eye has seen... No person can imagine the magnitude of his heartbreak and regret, and then great is his desire for Hashem to grant him permission to return to his home and engage in Torah and mitzvot all his days. He tears out the hair of his head and rends his flesh saying: "Woe to me, how I exchanged a world of eternal pleasures for a world of darkness. And this pain is harder for him than all the sufferings of hell". (From a letter by Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Black, student of the Chofetz Chaim. Brought in the book "Likutei Ma'amarim")

The reward of paradise and the punishment of hell - we have absolutely no tools to understand their depth and meaning

There are foolish gentiles who depict paradise as a place of unlimited physical desires. As is known, they promise 'martyrs' a wonderful paradise where they will receive seven maidens every day, and other such pleasures. Woe to their souls, what hell awaits them. "Hell ceases, but they do not cease!"

But we know that the pleasures of paradise are entirely different. They are sublime spiritual pleasures that the soul enjoys tremendously, which we cannot describe at all.

Maimonides says (Laws of Repentance, Chapter 8): The great goodness that the soul will experience in the World to Come cannot be comprehended or known in this world. For in this world, we know only the goodness of the body, and this is what we desire. But that goodness is immeasurably great with no comparison. This is what David said (Psalms 31:20): "How abundant is Your goodness that You have stored up for those who fear You!" And how David yearned and desired the life of the World to Come, as it says (Psalms 27:13): "Had I not believed that I would see the goodness of Hashem in the land of the living."

Maimonides continues (ibid): "The goodness of the World to Come cannot be fully comprehended by man, and no one knows its greatness, beauty, and essence except Hashem alone... The prophets did not describe it through metaphors so as not to diminish it through comparison. This is what the prophet Isaiah said (Isaiah 64:3): "No eye has seen, O Hashem, besides You, what You have prepared for those who wait for You."

"Better is one hour of spiritual satisfaction in the World to Come than all the life of this world" (Avot 4:16)

A single moment of small pleasure in the World to Come is worth more than all the sum of pleasures and enjoyments that this world can offer us.

Conversely, the punishments and sufferings of hell are spiritual punishments, the depth and intensity of which are beyond human comprehension. Sometimes we see examples and descriptions of hell's punishments in the words of our Sages, and these are by way of allegory, to bring the concepts closer to our understanding. We might get some idea of the immense pain that the soul experiences through a metaphor describing physical pain. For example, our Sages tell (Kallah Rabbati Chapter 2) about Rabbi Akiva, who in one of his journeys saw a black and sooty man carrying a large pile of wood on his head, running like a horse. The appearance of the black man seemed strange and frightening, and Rabbi Akiva took pity on him and wanted to help him. However, the sooty man explained that he was not a living person but a dead one who had come from the World to Come, suffering severe punishment for his many serious transgressions. He was punished by being brought down to this world every day to collect wood for a bonfire, in which he was then burned. Afterward, they would restore him to life, bring him down again to collect wood and burn him, repeating this seven times each day for many years. The burning of the body illustrates the "burning" of the soul, which "burns" and suffers in immense pain, time after time, causing itself destruction and extinction, finding no rest.

Similarly, the punishment of "kaf hakela" (the sling) is mentioned in the prophet (1 Samuel 25:29): "But the soul of your enemies He shall sling out, as from the hollow of a sling." This too is a metaphor for the intense, harsh, and painful turbulence experienced by the soul, may Hashem save us. Nachmanides (Shaar HaGemul), in explaining the concept of the punishment of "karet" (spiritual excision), explains that the soul aspires to return to its spiritual source, where it can find its rest and enjoy a spiritual delight beyond compare, but if it has transgressions, these transgressions interfere and block it, causing it great suffering. "And the thickness of the iniquities and the coarseness of the sins that have separated between it and its Creator prevent it, and it is drawn and adheres to the fire of hell, and this thought being denied to it is suffering and great pain that has no investigation or limit, besides the pains of hell, and this is the matter of excision, to say that it is cut off from its foundation like a branch cut from the tree from which it lives."

The Weeping of Rabbi Yochanan

The Gemara tells (Tractate Nedarim 28b): When Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai fell ill and was about to depart from the world, his disciples came to visit him. When he saw them, he began to weep. His disciples said to him: "Light of Israel, mighty pillar, strong hammer [who illuminated the eyes of Israel with Torah and were a strong pillar] - why do you weep?!" He said to them: "If they were taking me before a king of flesh and blood, who is here today and in the grave tomorrow, whose anger, if he is angry with me, is not eternal anger, whose imprisonment, if he imprisons me, is not eternal imprisonment, and whose execution, if he kills me, is not eternal death, and whom I can appease with words and bribe with money - even so, I would weep. And now, they are taking me before the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He, who lives and endures forever and ever, whose anger, if He is angry with me, is eternal anger, whose imprisonment, if He imprisons me, is eternal imprisonment, and whose execution, if He executes me, is eternal death, and whom I cannot appease with words or bribe with money. Moreover, there are two paths before me - one leading to paradise and one to hell - and I do not know on which they are taking me, shall I not weep?!"