"May it be [God's] will that the fear of heaven shall be upon you like the fear of flesh and blood."
On his deathbed, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai is visited by his students and begins to cry, explaining that if he were only going to see a human king then he would certainly cry - but he is in fact goign to stand before the King of Kings whose judgements last forever.
But when asked for a blessing, he offers the above blessing, that the fear of heaven should be to his students like the fear of human beings.
So which is primary? Fear of God or fear of mortals? In this story, Rabbi Yochanan seems to switch between the two.
It seems that perhaps we are seeing two perspectives, one when close to death, and one as a way to live one's life. Rabbi Yochanan is on his deathbed, and so from his perspective it's the intangible, wrath of the divine that he most fears.
But for his students, he offers them a more tangible basis for their faith and for their future good behaviour, to be at least as afraid of God as you are of human beings. For earthly life, earthly fear is the proper foundation on which to build ethical action.
Showing posts with label dead. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dead. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Speaking with the Spirits - Brakhot 18
Today's daf has several stories relating the frailty of the divide between the world of the living and the world of the dead. The following story attempt to show that the dead know, and can communicate, who will join them next:
"Come and hear; for Ze'iri deposited some money with his landlady, and while he was away visiting Rav she died. So he went after her to the cemetery and said to her, Where is my money? She replied to him: Go and take it from under the ground, in the hole of the doorpost, in such and such a place, and tell my mother to send me my comb and my tube of eye-paint by the hand of So-and-so who is coming here tomorrow. Does not this show that they know? — Perhaps Dumah announces to them beforehand."
The conversation continues on tomorrow's daf, but I doubt the rabbis, like ourselves, ever truly resolve it. We, like them, seem to have pretty good evidence for some level of interaction between the living and the dead, but we still lack any proof that such a thing is possible.
"Come and hear; for Ze'iri deposited some money with his landlady, and while he was away visiting Rav she died. So he went after her to the cemetery and said to her, Where is my money? She replied to him: Go and take it from under the ground, in the hole of the doorpost, in such and such a place, and tell my mother to send me my comb and my tube of eye-paint by the hand of So-and-so who is coming here tomorrow. Does not this show that they know? — Perhaps Dumah announces to them beforehand."
The conversation continues on tomorrow's daf, but I doubt the rabbis, like ourselves, ever truly resolve it. We, like them, seem to have pretty good evidence for some level of interaction between the living and the dead, but we still lack any proof that such a thing is possible.
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