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category:  Chassidut

Going to gehinom – or not!

The Rav Name: Rabbi Yitzchak Arad
  • Question

Why do the chachamim explain the Torah in a way that makes Klal Yisrael judged more harshly than seemingly necessary. If we know that gehennom is not a good place to be and the rabbis learn the Halacha that causes more people to be over the aveirah then is it not the rabbis causing more people to go to gehennom. When we think of all the bad goyim in the world most of them have done physical harm to the Jewish people, not spiritual harm. Why when we explain the Torah or Halacha in such a strict fashion is it not causing spiritual harm to the Jewish people. (Sorry for asking the same question three times)

I think my question pops up in three main areas.

One: Understanding the a clear pusak:

…and a man must not wear a woman’s garment… (Deuteronomy 22:5)

On the simple level it means just don’t cross dress which can be understood why it’s an abomination however the rabbi understand it to include acting like the opposite gender. If the pusak would have said do not act like the opposite gender I could understand how that would include cross dressing however since it specifically says “do not dress” why would one think that if they pulled out one white hair amongst black hairs now they are over the aveirah? If they would have learnt the pusak the way it is written all those men who look into the mirror would not have to suffer the fires of gehennom.

Two: Making Gezara
We are not allowed to tan hides on shabbos. The rabbis include pickling uncooked food. Now included in picking is not salt fresh vegetables. Add on to that we are strict not to salt a plate of fresh vegetables. (Rabbi Cohen Halacha of Shabbos 2 page 371). So here you have a guy who puts salt on his lettuce thinking he is not doing anything wrong but he is over the derabbanim of of tanning.

Three: : Being Machmir
As one increases the size of kezayis one will decrease the amount of people who will have fulfilled the mitzvah of eating Matzah. This can show up with any number of mitzvahs so in the end a person can think they have been fulfilling a mitzvah their entire life only to find out they have not.

Thank you in advance for reading and responding to my question, Chaim

  • Answer
Shalom and thank you for your question! I hear from the details that you have provided here,  that you are a sincere seeker of knowledge about and connection with your Judaism. As such, you are rightfully concerned about how the average Jew in our day can cope with the very detailed requirements of Jewish law,  in a manner that does not make him/her a candidate for the punishments meted out for infractions of the law.

First and foremost,  our generation can be described in the category of ‘tinokot shenishbu’, ‘children that were kidnapped.’

What  does this mean and how does this help us?

It means that most Jews today have either not received a Jewish education at all, or not in a manner sufficient to give them the spiritual strength needed to deal with modern challenges.

Medieval non-Jewish artists painted G-d as a man in the sky, and many people conceived of Him as (G-d forbid!!) a rather mean and vengeful one at that …

The same Torah and Talmud that teaches about punishments and Gehinom also teach us that the world is founded on the attribute of kindness.  G-d is not a ‘mean

 man in the sky’. G-d is not out to get us!!

We are taught that good is eternal while the opposite of good is not.

It is true that we are here for the struggle of using all the resources G-d has given us to go on the path of Torah and overcome  challenges as much as possible. However we must believe that G-d is rooting for us and wants us to succeed.

In all the cases you mentioned, as well as many many other possible scenarios, if a person is doing the mitzvah to the best of his knowledge, and making a sincere effort in general to increase his Torah knowledge,  slowly but surely, it is not likely that he will be judged harshly.

Halacha is very complex.  On the face of it it may seem that it is easy to transgress unintentionally,  but the more knowledge you have, the more you may find that there are ways OUT of the difficulty.

It is not forbidden to salt your vegetables on Shabbat. It is forbidden to do it before the meal because then it falls in to the category of pickling as you pointed out,  but it IS permissible to do it just before serving the food or at the table.

A garment that is no longer considered a differentiation between men and women in our generation, according to some opinions is no longer forbidden. Therefore according to that approach a woman may wear pants, and that could even be better than an immodest skirt. The ideal is that the garment should be modest, and most orthodox people do not accept pants for a woman,  but my point is that halachically there are many shades of grey to protect the innocent! The man who plucked out a white hair not knowing that it is forbidden will not be judged harshly. G-d is however,  waiting for people to seek Him and learn about His holy Will and Wisdom.

A person who sits at the Seder and intends to fulfill the Mitzvah of eating Matzah will certainly be rewarded for his/her actions and intentions,  and if the quantity was lacking…it all adds up to the fact that a Jew needs to be constantly learning Halacha AND the aspects of Torah that help us love and fear G-d – the G-d who is rooting for us and wants us to succeed.

In Chassidic teaching,  Gehinom is not a place with devils and pitchforks,  as depicted by Dante… rather, it is a gathering of the righteous basking in the Divine Presence, where the soul in ‘Gehinom’ is sitting further away and is not in on the action,  so to speak… that is indeed not a pleasant situation.

Our job is to make sincere effort to grow spiritually and help OTHERS grow.

When we do this,  the Lubavitcher Rebbe promises us that we become blessed LITERALLY a thousand times over.

The Chassidic approach is not to be preoccupied with the afterlife. G-d will help when we go forward doing our best!!

The Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Chassidic movement,  taught that G-d’s love for each and every Jew, is more intense than the love of elderly parents for an only child born to them in their old age!

With such a love, we may trust that our sincere efforts to come close to G-d will be reciprocated a thousand fold indeed, as the Lubavitcher Rebbe taught.

Sources

[4] ראה שטמ””ק ספ””ב דכתובות ד””ה ולא.שיחת שבת פרשת ויחי תנש”א, התוועדויות תנש”א חלק ב עמוד 116 ספר מעלתן של ישראל עמוד 5 ואילך.