Ask The Rabbi

Ask The Rabbi

category:  Chassidut

Going to gehinom – or not!

The Rav Name: Rabbi Yitzchak Arad

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

Shalom and thank you for such a beautiful question! It is an excellent question. How does HaShem put a ‘piece of Himself’ in each of us and still have Himself?

This would be a problem if HaShem was only something physical, something like a pizza. If you divide a pizza into eight pieces and Joey gets two, Sarah and Moishy get only one each because they are much smaller, and the twins Berl and Menucha get two each because they really love to eat pizza, then the pizza is finished and you have to order another one for Mom and Dad and for Yanky when he comes home from Yeshiva. One tray of pizza is enough for only a few people.


When Mommy lights Shabbat candles, she may light a special large match, or small candle, and with that she lights many candles, one for ‘shamor’ – to keep the Shabbat holy, and one for ‘zachor’ to remember the Shabbat, and then one for Yanky, another for Berl, and for Menucha, for Joey, for Sarah and for Moishy. The candles are all lit and glowing. All of a sudden, there’s a knock on the door. Tante Malka has come for Shabbat and there’s still time to light, so now Tante Malka picks up a match and lights it from the candles that are already lit. Two more Shabbat guests arrive also in time to light, Sally and Eliana. The one flame that Mommy lit was enough to light those other candles, and you know what? You could keep taking candles and lighting them from the other candles. That first flame is still burning in a candle. It didn’t lose anything by lighting other candles. That is the nature of fire, that is the way HaShem made fire. You can light a flame,  then another flame from the first, and another flame from the second, and so on and so on! That first flame doesnt lose anything from itself!


This is a little bit like HaShem. HaShem breathed life into Adam – the first person. That means that HaShem made Adam’s body and then breathed a soul into it so that it would live. When you breathe out you are taking air from inside of yourself to the outside. So HaShem breathed a soul out of Himself into Adam and then he made Chava and breathed a soul into her. All the people in the world came from Adam and Chava, just like the candles that all came from the first one that was lit.

King Solomon wrote in Proverbs “נר השם נשמת אדם’. ‘A candle of G-d is the soul of man…’ Just like the candle that Mommy lights, from which you can keep lighting more and more candles and it doesn’t lose anything of itself, so G-d breathed a soul into us and it doesn’t take anything away from Him.


In the book of Tanya, (in Chapter 37 in the section for 18 Adar 2,) which is a very important book written by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, it explains that there are six hundred thousand Jewish souls. All the souls of all the Jewish people in the world come from these six hundred thousand souls. There are millions of Jewish people and each one has a soul that is a spark of one of the six hundred thousand that received the Torah from HaShem at Mount Sinai, just like candles that are lit from other candles.


Why did HaShem create these souls? HaShem creates souls so that they should help make the world a very good and nice place to live. HaShem wants the world to be a place where people learn Torah and keep Mitzvot,  like Shabbat and keeping kosher, and giving Tzedaka and teaching Torah and helping people. This way the world will become better and better until everybody will be doing good things and nobody will be doing bad things.


There are six hundred and thirteen Mitzvot in the Torah. Each mitzvah that we do makes us close to HaShem. Unfortunately we can’t keep all the Mitzvot properly until we have the third Beit HaMikdash, the house of HaShem. When the Moshiach comes we can all visit the Beit haMikdash and do Mitzvot that we couldn’t do before. Our souls want to keep Mitzvot and make the world a better place so that Moshiach can come and we will have the Beit haMikdash in Yerushalayim and the world will be completely fixed up!


So what Mitzvah are you going to do today so that your soul will shine and make this world a better place?



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