Rambam’s Letters (Shiur 8) | Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz | September 9th 2025

here um is dedicated number one anonymously for the Rafu Schlay of Oxana Batluma may she have a raffle the Shah Israel and as well as Dr. Moshan Phyllis K and Dr. and Mrs. Harry Shapiro in loving memory of their father Rabbak Mendel beni zraa uh who loved and respected and revered uh learning to Torah and Tom on the occasion of his 58th yortsight. It's a long time but a great person is remembered forever and uh may the dra to Torah be eloy elo nishmato and again we thank uh the kors and the shapiro family uh for the for the dedication uh we are looking at the Rambam's letter uh remember what happens you know even the Rambam was not free of criticism so it gives us lesser mortals a certain amount of comfort Of course Mosher Raveno wasn't free of criticism. So even greater models than that. And the Rambam was accused of and being an Apicorus based on his own principles. Right. The Rambam's 13th principle of faith is uh that there is there is resurrection of the deads. The Rambam was accused by a number of uh important people prominent people uh that he did not believe in physical resurrection of the body. He only believed in resurrection of the soul. And as a result, the Rambam is an apicorus as a co-fair. And as a result, the Rambam felt he had to write a relatively long letter in Arabic translated into Hebrew uh defending his position and basically stating that he absolutely does believe in physical resurrection as is evidenced uh both by his commentary to the Mishna Sanhedrin where he enumerates 13 principles of faith and one of them is physical resurrection as well as in the Mishna Torah where the Rambam says He who is co co-airum does not have a share in the world to come. Uh nevertheless as I mentioned last week and I'm going to elaborate on it some more. Uh the Rambam does give cursory lip service to physical resurrection but uh he never spends more than a few lines on it and he always talks about the soul and not the body. And in the morim which was already written and translated he does not mention resurrection of the dead whatsoever. He totally omits it from the morim. So there might be a legitimate argument. Did the Rambam I mean I hate to go there but people do go there uh including the critics at the time that the Rambam did not truly believe in what he said. He was giving lip service to a popular belief but when it came to the MS uh the Rambam did not consider physical resurrection to be important and the Rambam wrote his defense. Now many people say even after the defense the Rambam does not consider it that important as we will see and there is even a view among some historians that the letter on resurrection was a forgery and was not even written by the Rambam again uh that's a minority view in academic historians but it is a view that is maintained uh however uh even if we assume the Rambam's authorship I think once we will see his definition of triatim you might think that some of the accusations might in fact be accurate. Yeah. >> Yeah. So the p the primary origin for the belief inm is not in the Torah itself. Now the Gammorian Sanhedrin gives some indirect proofs which are not necessarily so conclusive. For example uh in the keshma it says that Hashem is speaking to the midbar and saying that you and your children shall live long on the land. Now the the midbar did not enter Israel. So this might says this may be an indicator of but the most explicit proof is actually safer donal at the end of safer donal in don peric bay uh the puk says those who are sleeping in the ground meaning the bodies that are buried in the ground yakumu shall arise that is considered to be very explicit and in point of fact the Torah itself is not very explicit about we have a lot these indirect proofs but Donil the Rambam himself says is the main. Now to really understand the Rambam uh the Rambam Shittita we need to examine both the predecessor of the Rambam Rav Sajjon and the successor of the Rambam the Ramban and only when you have a picture of Rav Sajjon's view and the Ramban's view can you then put the Rambam in perspective uh so I'm going to start actually with the view of the Ramban. Now remember the Ramban is the generation after the Rambam. Uh their lives over overlapped a little bit but the Rambam died when the Ramban was a child. So they did not they did not know each other. Ra Mosha ben Nakman Rambam lived his life uh primarily in Islamic Egypt. Ramban lived his life in Catholic Spain except for the last few years where the Ramban actually came to Erit Israel and was Zoha to to live in Erasel. The Rambam is buried in but the Rambam was not Zoha to live in Eric Israel except for a brief time during his adolescence. Ramban actually was Za uh to to live here. I'm going to start with the Ramban because in a sense the Ramban actually became the mainstream view of Judaism and it is probably the view that you are most familiar with because it is what we would teach uh in yeshivos and be shakov and and and the like. So it's easier to start with the more familiar idea and then we'll move to Sajjon and the Rambam which are actually less familiar ideas that are commonly not taught. Ramban we know of course wrote a great many things. Um the Ramban wrote his monumental commentary on the Torah which is second in importance only to Rashi. No question about it. Uh the Ramban wrote uh commentaries on much of the Talmud. uh but one of the very interesting swarim that the Ramban wrote is a safer called toasa Adam and toasa Adam is a hakic compendium on the laws of mourning a very very complete safer on the laws of morning and in fact it is the primary source for both the Torah and the in the laws of morning if you want to know where they took the from it is from the safer Torah Part three of Torasa Adam though, so this is part three of Torasa Adam is a self-contained work that is often printed separately called Shah Hagamul, the gate of reward of recompense. And here after the Rambam I'm sorry after the Ramban finished his discussion of he then discusses what happens after a person dies. So Shagamul is technically not a separate book. It is part three of Torah but to Adam the first two parts of Torasa are all and part three deals with the issue of what happens after death. And here the Ramban again this is not the Rambam's opinion that's important. The Ramban divides things into three stages. There is there is and there is and these are three distinct uh se sections or parts of things that happen to a person. Of course, Mashiach in a way can happen when you're alive too. But but basically say a person died now. So it would be three. Now before >> that's exactly right. This mirrors exactly the world. There is nothing like you God in all. But then it says angel um well we don't know I mean norm normally the keshma were written by the ane kessa sanidola uh but there may have been pim that were added later for example kodon is almost certainly added later uh is part of kodon that that would be the that would be the question. So we do have four terms that are mentioned in which is just this world but mashiach the Ramban goes with these three ideas although he's going to change the nomenclature a little bit so I'm going to I'm going to have to revise what I just said and that is the following when a person this is ramban this is not yet Rambam in fact I I don't even know if I will get to the Rambam today even though that's our that's our course But you can only understand the Rambam if you can compare it to the Ramban which is mainstream. According to Ramban, when a person dies, the nama is separated from the gof. The goof is buried in the ground and the goof can decompose except in the rare case of phenomenally great sadikim that even the physical body does not uh decompose. But that's the body. But the real person is the nishama, the breath of God, the image of God. And the nishama goes to akadesh and there is a judgment after death for good or for bad. Uh some nishot maybe most nishot have to spend a certain amount of time in what we call gehenn. Um you know I had a vivid you know gay gay benam of course is actually just the name of a valley uh in Jerusalem. And the reason why hell or purgatory, however you want to translate it, got associated with gehennam is simply because in that valley some of the bad kings of the Jews, they used to burn human sacrifices and the like. So that became associated as a mock t. But recently I think there's like a a wedding hall or something. They make weddings in gehenn um and uh so I had to I had to go uh some wed some weddings are some weddings are gem. Okay. But I had to I had to go to the wedding and you have to walk over this bridge. That's a very and you're walking it says says this is the the way to gay benam etc. So you know u it makes you think as you're walking over this rope this rope bridge that's a little swaying sway in in the wind. Uh but basically uh what gehenn is uh according to the Ramban is a purgatory not of the body not of the body it's a purgatory of the soul and the purpose of gehennam is not so much to punish it's to purify so that the person's nishama gets rectified gets repaired like physical therapy right physical therapy can be excruciatingly painful let's say god forbid a person broke their legs broke their hip And you know they have to walk they have to exercise and they may literally even an adult may literally be crying may literally be screaming please let me go to bed and the family might have tears in their eyes but you know you got to keep doing this you got to keep doing so I think it's helpful to view gehenn actually in that particular way that we don't know exactly the pain the pain is described as fire but obviously when you're talking about the nishama you're not dealing with physical fire. But whatever it would be, uh some describe gehenn as we feel all the pain that we caused other people in our lives without any of the defense mechanisms that we give ourselves. Or some look at gehenn as uh you're watching two movies. You're watching the life you lived and you're watching the life you could have lived. And when you compare the two, we get a sense of ganim. Whatever it is, uh it is uh primarily a spiritual purification ritual. Some people don't have to go to gahan. Some people go to gahim for five minutes. But as you know there is an old rabbitic tradition in the garamaria itself that uh even the most evil person you know we're not we're not talking about Hitler but you know the the evil within the parameters of normal evil only goes to ganim at a maximum of 12 months and that is the basis of the minog that kadesh for a parent is only recited 11 months because kadesh is to keep the parent away from Gahan or out of Geahan and uh one does not want to declare that their parent god forbid is a Russia. It is brought down strangely enough maybe it's not strange that if one has an honest belief that their parents might be a Russia you actually do say kadesh for 12 months uh because you're doing something good for your parent there's also a tradition this is not in the Gmorra it's in the zor that shabas is a day off in gehennote uh get freed from the gehenn on shabas which is one of the reasons why there's mitzvah to prolong shabas to give them a little bit of longer. Be it as it may, after gehennam, the the nama has now been cleansed. It's now been purified. It's now been repaired. There is what we call hanat the soul gets reunited with God. Now, for most of us, we call that olhaba. But I I do want to correct right off the bat that the Ramban does not call the world of the soul olaba. He actually calls it ganeden. So this will be a a terminology change that's significant. And ganeden is a spiritual existence. There is no body. There is no eating. There is no drinking. And even though khazal often use physical, this is all in shahagul. Even though Khazal often used physical metaphors like eating and drinking and the Leviathan and cups of wine and rivers of balsam oil and the like, these are simply michalim. These are simply parables to let us feel a little bit how delightful and infinitely pleasurable this connection with God is. It is the connection of the soul to the creator and that is called ganeden. that is called olmanote. For many of us, the term olhaba is often used for that. But but as I say, you'll see there's a reason why the Ramban does not call that olabah. But he does say after ganim or if you don't need if you don't need to go through ganim right away, you have what is called this ganeden which is the spiritual the spiritual pleasure of your soul being reunited with God. And on this Oo says that even one second of this experience is greater than all of the pleasures of this world. Yeah. >> What's the significance of uh imagining that uh or having this arguments whether it's uh we're talking spiritual or physical what what's the advantage of the physical world uh in terms of in comparison to the spirit? >> Right. I I'll get to it. And in in me in in many many ways, the question you're raising is at the core of the Rambam's deemphasis of ultimately that that's exactly the Rambam's point, I think. Uh but we'll see that the Rambam does have a different view. So I I'll I'm doing Rambam right now and I'll I'll try to address that question as we go on. But they say uh your thinking I think is very much in line with the Rambam's orientation. I mean again I hate to I hate to say it this way but I think it's largely true. Meaning the Rambam was stuck with a doctrine called physical resurrection. He didn't see it as very important but he was stuck with it. So he had to stick it in but he tries to relegate it to a relatively insignificant corner as opposed to Ramban who makes it very very uh primary. Okay. So this is olaba. Now at some point in well okay I keep on saying because I'm so used to it but again in Rambadan's terminology it's genen or or the other name is olam han shamat and the key to this is there is no gashmot. There is no physicality whatsoever in the olam hanes. It's all about your connection to God and the intensity of the connection and the depth of the pleasure depends on how righteous you are. Meaning even a bad person after he's gone through gahim he he's had some mitzvot in his life. So he'll get some olaba some connection. A righteous person gets more of a connection. Meaning everybody may wind up in Olahaba >> but you know do you are you getting bleacher seats or uh you know whatever it would be there are infinite levels of infinite levels of of seats and infinite levels of connection and generally speaking >> you're kind of well this is interesting you're generally frozen based on what you were when you died because that's the judgment and yet we do know that there are various things that children in particular can do to elevate the nama that's called the nama should have an aliyah and explains that because there are ripple effects in our actions the ripple effects can change things so for example let's say that you were za in your life to bring one particular family to mitzvah to one particular person to shat mitzvah and the person you know and then uh the makarev dies but because of the thing you did with that one person they get married they have children in other words it keeps on accumulating so every yard site it is said Hashem judges based on the accumulation now god forbid that can work the other way as well if shalom through hashem you drove one person away from Yiddish, you can be held accountable in future years for all of the things that might have been done had you not done something negative. Right? So there are ways therefore that even after death a person's level can be elevated or god forbid even downgraded based on ripple effects and based on what their children do and their toidum do. But generally speaking the primary judgment is based on time of death. What was the what was the person? Okay. Now at some point in Olam Haz there will be something called Yamote Mashiach. Now Yamote Mashiach exists will exist concurrently with Olam Hanes. I mean right now somebody dies there's Omhan Shamos. There's Ganed. Okay. So so they're not here when Mashiach comes. But at some point in this world Mashiach will come. And uh this is a descendant of David Hamelik and Mashiach has a number of functions. He will bring all the Jews back to Erit Israel if they haven't come already. Uh he will rebuild the Beth Mikdash. Uh he will bring in world's peace into the world. Uh all of the nations again it's not that Mashiach will have political sovereignty but all of nations will acknowledge the Jewish people as the nation of God. they will come to the basa mikdash etc. So Yo Mashiach is a very very wonderful time. Uh but Yamote Mashiach in contradistinction to Ghana and Olam Hanes is very much a physical thing that's happening in this world and in fact people will still die. Uh Mashiach will die and Mashiach will be replaced by son of Mashiach. It'll be a hereditary monarchy just as David's monarchy was hereditary. So do not confuse Yamote Mashia with Maba. And if people I'm sorry I keep on saying I want to be more exact. U according to the Ramban it's not don't confuse Yo Mashiach with Ganeden Hanes. uh and when people die during the period of the messianic era they will go to deden etc. Okay. Now the final stage is at some point and uh this will be after Mashiach comes and this may be immediately after Mashiach comes in which case there will not be death or it might be a thousand years after Mashiach comes or it might be 10,000 years after Mashiach comes or it might be a million years after Mashiach comes. At some point there will be the final stage kind of what you might call the end of history in which Hashem is going to reunite all of the nishamat in Ghana in Manat. They are going to be reunited with their physical bodies. And in a sense what is happening is God is collapsing the wall between the physical and the spiritual so that even the physical becomes spiritualized. Now the Ramban is not so clear that when the soul comes back into the body and there's resurrection of the dead which will be forever and ever and ever and ever there'll be no death. Uh will that be a physical existence? Will there will there be eating or drinking? Or is it a different idea that Hashem brings the spirituality into the physicality? In a sense, the whole trajectory is a 360 degree journey to bring us back where we were when Adam and Kavu were created. We're back in the Garden of Eden. Now, the Ramban calls the hat, the world of resurrection. That is what he calls alam haba. Alam haba is the new world that god creates when the dead are resuscitated and there are no longer uh going to be death in the world. There's no longer going to be illness. Essentially it is ganeden with a physical body. Meaning even the body kind of joins with the soul in ganed. Now the thing is there is a mahlo. Okay, let let me let me share with you a gamorrah and a very interesting explanation of the maharal. Uh we know that one of the prohibitions in the Torah. We read about it last week is you're not allowed to wear shness, right? You're not allowed to wear garments that are wool and linen that are sewn or combined together. By the way, if they're separate garments, it's mudra. can wear um you know you can wear a linen belt and a a wool uh jacket or whatever it would be. It's only when they're sewn together uh that there is a problem. Of course, a neck tie is actually a shila because some say the necktie itself is like no if you have a linen tie in a wool shirt or vice versa the tie itself is connecting them whatever it will be. But there's an isser of shness. So the Gmorra discusses the following question. Uh you bury a mace, someone dies, you bury a mace in burial shrouds. Now let's say for some crazy reason the only garments you have to put on a dead body is wool and linen shas. Can you b can you bury a dead person in garments that are wool or linen? So the garra says the following. Well, there is no problem with the sin of shness because wearing shness because of a well-known idea that once a person is dead, they are putter from mitzvah, right? So uh to put shness on a dead body is no sin because the dead body is not transgressing any a uh this is homalytically derived from the verse inimal the dead cannot praise God meaning they don't do mitzvah fact that's why even in Maba they're a little sad that they don't have a chance to do more mitzvah now but here's the problem the gammorra says But the problem is eventually there's going to be resurrection of the dead. And apparently the assumption is whatever garments you were wearing you're going to be resurrected. And even though those garments may have decomposed but Hashem will bring them back. So the problem is yeah there's no shotness problem when it's on the dead body but you're going to cause the the person to sin when there's resurrection of the dead. So the Gorus says okay so this problem depends on a shila called mitzvot the future which here means after resurrection right the word blessed love is a very ambiguous term by the way sometimes it's geden sometimes it's mashiach sometimes it's resurrection blessed love is one of those catchall terms that can mean anything and you got to examine the context but in this context is talking about post-resurrection. So there is a shila are the mitzvah going to be nullified in this perfect world of maybe there's no need for a Torah anymore. Everything is perfect. So if I hold the mitzvah are not going to apply in the world of resurrection then there's no problem. Let him wear shness. Uh you're allowed to wear shness. If on the other hand I follow the view that the mitvot are going to be operative then I'm not allowed to bury the mate in shness lest he get up wearing shness. The gammorra leaves this as an unresolved question whether the mitzvot are going to be nullified or not. Now, Maral asks a very good question based on one of the Rambam's 13 principles, which is not the principle we're discussing, but a general principle that don't we believe that the Torah is eternal? The Torah is not changeable. Uh so, how could there be a Shila if the mitzvot are going to be nullified in the world of resurrection? Isn't that a contradiction to the idea of eternity of Torah? And Maharal answers very very convincingly that the rule about eternity of the Torah only applies within the confines of this world. Meaning there will never be a time in this world that the Torah will be nullified. And that's our that's our argument against Christianity and that's our argument against Islam. And when Mashiach comes indeed all of the mitzvotes are going to be kept. But the moral says the world postresurrection when the dead come back that is a new world. In that new world things could change meaning the morale is between where for sure the is not going to be changed and the which is an perhaps there can be changes. It is a new world. uh the bodies come back right after they've died. uh now I want to mention another question which is not relevant to our subject but it's an interesting question that Tossos asks. The Gomorrah posits that the only problem with uh the shotness is the problem that after resurrection there may be a prohibition of shotness and you're not allowed to cause that sin and if the mitzvah is nullified there would be no problem. Toss says there should be another reason why it's saucer. The Gomorrah says and we follow this that when you're within four amos of a grave the men who are wearing titis have to put in their titus. You're not allowed to wear fillin within four amos of a kev. You're not even allowed to learn Torah within four of a kev. And this is based on a in Mish that criticizes people that are low lash. Low egg lash means you make fun of a poor person by flaunting your wealth. As if to say you have a person who uh only has a piece of bread and I eat a fancy meal in front of that person with a piece of bread. That's cruel. You're making fun of a person who doesn't have the resources. How does that apply here? Once the person is in Ghana or Habah, whatever you want to call it, they cannot do the mitzvot anymore and I'm next to them and I'm doing all of my mitzvot that's low rash. They feel a certain pain that they can no longer dab and they can no longer learn. They can no longer put on. Right? This is garbanos. There is a principle of lowe laash rash r shin not to do certain things in front of the dead. So Tossa says if I put shotness on a dead body and the n is shama is aware of it forget about the problem of future of aos am I not a lowe because I'm telling the guy you can wear shadness you're dead you don't have mitzvos anymore meaning why does the garra connect the discussion to the shila of mitzvos leasid leavo uh why isn't there a low egg lash problem. That's a good that's a good question. uh toos uh I'm sorry not to the mesh wants to say that lowe laash only applies to doing positive commandments that the mets cannot do like fill in talis Torah learning but in terms of negative commandments like not wearing shness if the mace doesn't have the negative commandment there's no problem mean meaning you're not really making fun of him because there's nothing that he's missing unlike a positive commandment where you gain gain kaduca now let me just mention Though there is one minog that we have about sites that is very problematical in in light of lowe that is when a man is buried in a talis right the talis is over the so the custom is that one of the corners is cut either one of the situs is cut uh or the corner is rounded so it doesn't have situs there to show that the person is no longer obligated in situs. Now that is seems to be low eglar rush because that's a positive commandment that you're telling the person you don't have anymore. So because of this there this is the min. This is to this day this is the min. But there were gdole Israel who were also great makubalam who left instructions that they wanted to be buried in a complete talis. And we have two stories. Uh one the vnagon and the other was more or less almost a contemporary of the vnagon. Rebel Alexander Ziskin dear was a tremendous sadic. He wrote a safer called Yod Vishod one of the great great musers for uh fact the used to say Hashem had Rahmanas and Mnagdim for not being so he gave them the rashod who was a misn uh but both of them left instructions that they wanted to be buried in a an intact talis and both of them different things happened that their wishes were frustrated. Let me tell you the story with the vil nagon first. The vil nagon died his side is coming up. The vagon died ko sukus uh and uh he had left instructions to his toidim. He was already in an alma his wife was not alive. He left instructions to his toidim that he wanted to be buried with the complete talis. Now to them were with him like 24 hours a day. But for Sukus, the Talmud that was Mishanim went to see his parents just for Sukus for for Yamch. And then when he gets word that the G was nif, he runs back to Vna as soon as he can. And he's already the middle of the Leva. They're about to lower the Vong with the talis that was cut and he stops the funeral. This Rafaj was the name of the Talmud. And he says, "Stop. stop. The guy left instructions that he is supposed to be buried in a kosher talis. Well, uh it's the middle of Levia, you know, Levia great great person. So the basin of VNA stopped the proceedings and they actually adjudicated do we listen to the Villagon's request or do we follow the Minag is that even the Vadon is bound to the Minhag is and they actually the fact that we didn't get news of this request until the Vil Nagon is already wearing a puzzle talis shows that Mina Shamayim even the Vagon has to follow the the min And that the vilon was buried with a pussle talis. Now the shab is a little different. He actually got buried. Not buried. He he he by the after the Tahara when they put on the they put on a kosher talis and as he was being lowered into the ground, you know, without a coffin, you know, like we do in what happened was that the corner of the talis got caught on a nail and it tore and that was said to also be a sim minim. Uh so that is a good katcha meaning it's one thing to say putting shness on the mats is not a problem because that's only a negative commandment and if he doesn't have the negative commandment there's no problem. Uh but when it comes to depriving the person of titus there you do have a problem. Uh that's like I mean I mean if I can't wear titus in front of a met because that gives the met pain then when I put on a talis puzzle I mean that should be the same thing. So that that is a good question. Yeah. When when is it that it says that whole when does that? >> Yeah. Uh the simple meaning of the PK is that that is referring to Yo Mashiach because that's referring to when Israel will do Chuva and turn to Hashem. So that's not referring to that is referring to Mashiach or at least the first part. By the way, Rev. Cook seems to say a similar thing because there's a famous passage in Rev. Cook's writings where, you know, as you know, well, maybe as you don't know, I mean, people like to say Ruff Cook was a vegetarian. Uh, in truth, Ruff Cook was not a vegetarian. Ruff Cook ate meat, but he ate meat sparingly. First of all, everybody in Europe ate meat sparingly because they were poor. And in Erit, people were even poorer. Uh but but the truth is RV cook does endorse vegetarianism as a spiritually superior life. Uh because uh he talks about the idea that reverence for life should even include animal life and the like. But RV cook has a very important caveat. This is important to keep in mind that he says that vegetarianism needs to be a higher step in the moral evolution of man. Meaning when we perfect our human relationships and when we disengage from violence and hatred, we then move to a higher level where the reverence even encompasses the animal and we move to vegetarianism. But he said it has to be the culmination of spiritual perfection visa v our fellow human being. And therefore if cook argues that if you try to jump levels I mean listen I I I know you can't prove anything by anecdote but you know Hitler was a vegetarian for example. Okay okay okay I mean I understand that you know there are good ve vegetarians too. Some of my best friends are are vegetarians. Uh but the point of Cook was making is that sometimes when you artificially jump to higher levels without mastering the foundational lower levels your priorities can be distorted. We actually see this with PETA, right? PETA is a uh people for the ethical treatment of animals where PETA has actually killed human beings in their desire to protect animals or when there was a suicide I I don't call the suicide bomb but at one point in the terrorist activities they sent a donkey instead of a human being a suicide bomber they um the terrorist uh put uh ammunition on an animal. So Peter protested and mean meaning when human beings were killed, men, women, children were being killed by terrorist activities, there was no protest. But when the animal got killed, all of a sudden that became a cause uh for an international demonstration. So Raf Cook was not a vegetarian, but but it is fair to say that he viewed vegetarianism as a spiritual level that one might aspire to. uh and Rafkuk then made the point that even the corbanote will eventually uh no longer be animal corbanote they will be vegetarian corbanote. Now this is a real problem uh because once again uh the Rambam lays down and Ramban everybody agrees that the Torah is not going to be changed and in fact the Rambam mentions explicitly corbanote as an example and in our own davin which cook certainly dabbed in the musf we talk about the restoration of the musf I mean and it mentions the animals right on this day you bring this and on this day you bring this you know certainly his is the carbon Oh no, they're not going to return. So Ruff Cook, of course, Kadaro does not fully explain. Ruf Cook is always beautiful, poetic, mystical, and enigmatic. So but but but the normal way it's understood is Rav Cook does not mean as soon as Mashiach comes. You know, we throw out animal corbanos. Of course, we're going to have animal corbanos, but he means there'll be developmental stages. Perhaps he's talking about the world after resurrection of the dead which is a different world a more perfect world and there as moral says it's possible that some mitzvot are going to change right is a different stage is the Adam and Eve adam in uh in ganed so cook might be understood the same way that the moral understands the issue of of shness okay so according to Ramban this is Ramban We have a fairly clear typology of events. We have death. We have judgment. We have ganam which may or may not be necessary. We have olam hanes shamat which is ganeden which is totally spiritual. At some point on this this earth there will be yos hamosch. But the final end point will be hameim where the body and the soul unite and uh that is forever and ever and ever with Hashem and that is what the Ramban calls olhab. Now, now the MS is it actually does not fit. This does not fit the doning because in the dening we mention and as two separate things when according to Rambanim is hab and what we call olabah commonly raan has another name for it or the olamat which means though according to the raman ghen is not eternal. It is the temporary reward for the righteous until such time as there will be the resurrection of the dead which is the ultimate uh which is the ultimate reward. This is Ramban and um this is the normal I mean the the only this is the normal account that we give. The only difference I think in the way we normally teach it is we tend to use the word olabah for ganeden and olam hanes. So our terminology is a little loose but according to the raan at least the precise terminology is that olamab is olam the world of resurrection. And and I have to say that this fits the word haba very well. You know the Rambam had to be matka. Why do you call it the future world? Olaba exists right now because when people die they go to Maba. But according to the Ramban it's very meduyak. That world isn't here yet. Olaba is not here yet. It is not here until resurrection. Now resurrection raises its own individual questions when you combine it with another idea which is not in the Gmorrah at all and that is the idea of Gilgal. Gilgal means reincarnation. The idea that the soul comes back a number of times to complete its mission. uh and that's independent of the resurrection of the dead at the end of time. So people raise all sorts of questions. If I've been in this world five times and my soul has inhabited five bodies and all of those bodies are dead and eventually there's resurrection of the dead that is eternal. Which of my five bodies get my soul? Uh right. How does that work with with reincarnation? Now, first I just want to say just parathetically this this this year she is not about reincarnation. I'm not going to give a whole share on it. Whether Judaism believes in reincarnation at all is not so posited by I'm not there yet but just in terms of reincarnation who was even before the Rambam Ravajon is more than 100 years before the Rambam basically says reincarnation is a foreign idea that is repugnant to Judaism and if it got into Judaism it got in by foreign influences and other religions. So obviously he was aware that there were people who believed in reincarnation in Judaism. He said it is absolutely false. So Sajon says no. Rambam says nothing about it. I think the implication would be that he also would say no because he simply did not even honor it with an honorable mention. Ramban on the other hand seems to endorse the possibilities of Gilgal uh in his commentary on the book of EV right the Ramban wrote in addition to Shahagmul and everything else he wrote a perish on the book of EV and EV of course deals with the great great enigma of human existence. Why do bad things happen to good people? And there are different answers and different approaches and different positions. And Eve's own friends are taking different positions on this since you know the book is a debate. Uh but Ramban throws into the mix of all of the different ideas an idea that laavil is very similar to Buddhism, but the Raban articulates it as part of Torah. And that is sometimes a person suffers in this life because of the sins that they committed in a past reincarnation, a past carnation. And therefore, the Ramban says Gilgal may be part of the explanation of why the righteous suffer. Be it as it may, I'm not going to investigate that particular thought, but just to make the simple point that Ramban clearly endorsed and validated the idea of Gilgal uh unlike Rafajon who absolutely repudiates it and unlike the Rambam who simply ignores it which I assume would be equivalent to a rejection of it. Now if you subscribe to Gil you immediately have the problem if my soul has been through five bodies you know which body gets it at the final resurrection. Now there are two there are two answers to this. One answer is it'll have to be the final body in which you completed your mission. The one that completed the race so to speak is the one that gets the soul. um that creates a little a few problems with husband, wives and the like. I'll get I'll get to that. Uh others say which is actually much easier to work with that God simply clones the souls. Meaning to say if you were in five bodies, so five bodies get your soul. Me meaning to say now you may not know meaning you literally have a soulmate out there. Uh now they don't look like you because there's a different body. They don't look like you. It's not like uh you know you're identical twin but spiritually they're your soul. Even though they may be in different countries, you may not know them and like that does make it easier because if you go with the that doesn't prove it's right, but that makes it easier because that avoids a lot of problems because if you assume only the last soul gets it, you got a problem where a husband if husband and wife were functioning at different levels. Let's say a man is married to a woman and he's in his fourth life. I'm using five as an example. Just let's assume five is your is your maximum. He's in life number four, she's in life number five. Uh but since he's going to be reincarnated and marry somebody else, you you know it's going to be a difficult matchmaking type of process. Mashen Kane if we simply understand that the clones I'm sorry that the souls are clones all right so uh there's enough to uh share share with everybody everybody is going to be everybody is going to be okay so these are difficulties of course the Rambam um okay uh does not hold of Gilgal so it wouldn't be a problem I also want to point out though I I I I don't want to overstate it when I said that it's clear that the Ramban subscribes to Gilgal this is based not in Shahagamal. This is based on his perish to the book of EV. So I do have to be honest with you and say that there are some that have questioned the authorship of the Ramban on that perish. Which means we cannot necessarily definitively say that the Ramban holds of Gilgal unless we knew for sure that he was the author of the perish. Now again most say that he was uh but uh there is a question unlike by the way just to give you more bibliographical information there's a commentary of the Ramban on Shirim and there almost everybody says it's not from the Ramban. So the commentary on Shir Shirim is more likely than not not to be the Ramban even though it's absolutely beautiful parish and the commentary in the book of E is more likely than not to be the Ramban but there is a bit of a question and therefore we can't automatically put the Ramban in the progil column at a 100% level of of certainty. Okay. So, I just need to be uh accurate in that particular description. Yeah. >> Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. No, no, no. So, so let me just take it a little further. Once we get beyond the Ramban and we go a few hundred years uh ear later, the time of Rav Mosha, the great Makubala means fat. Rav Mosha Cordo the Arizal the talum of the Arizal Vital then for sure Gilgal becomes a mainstream belief of Judaism there is absolutely no question whether it's in the Ramal the gra and earlier the Arizal Mosha Cordo Gilgal becomes mainstream fact Rafen Vatal wrote a big big big safer based on the AR teachings it is called Shah Hagilgulum, the book on reincarnations. In fact, if you go to kabad.org, you can even get an English translation of Shahhagilgulum. So, uh I would have to say that Gilgal is, you know, it's interesting, you know, um what did John F. Kennedy say when he visited um West Berlin when there was the Berlin Wall? He says, "We're all Berliners or whatever it is." Uh he said it in German, been a Berliner. So the truth is lav all of us are cababalists today. You don't realize this. Uh we are cabalists. Uh you you may never have opened a cabalistic book. The truth of the matter is the mainstream teachings of Judaism are largely cababalistic in many many ways. The Rambam is a very isolated voice in contemporary religious experience. Ravajo they represented a certain rationalist tradition and particularly when it's filtered through kasidas kabalo became mainstream Judaism. So as a result the prayer and keshma and the prayer at the end of of peric are from the makubala. Now peraksh itself is very very old but the that's from the anonymous but it's from the time of the mishna. So perk Shira is very very old but a lot of the prayers afterwards are are from the makubalam and mkubalam do of course go with gilgal that many people would say if you don't believe in gilgal you're anoris but I I don't think that could possibly be true but but nevertheless uh yeah but nevertheless it is it is the case that Gilgal has been endorsed uh ari rafim batal v nagon ram khal uh and many it's also found in the zo but but that that okay that gets you into see every everything is connected here now that gets you into the morass of how old is the zor now the traditional answer is the zor is from rabish shimono which gets you into the time of the Mishna earlier than the Mishna second century of the common era which would make it tremendously authoritative equal to the Mishna equal right. On the other hand, Ravakov took the position that because the zora was not even disseminated until the 1200s, it was the product of Rav Mosha D. Leon who was a great cabalist but uh much much later uh in kind of a reverse plagiarism in which uh instead of taking someone else's work and giving himself credit, he wrote the work himself and gave someone else credit in order that it should have authority. That's reverse plagiarism. uh again I don't want to get into that again the traditional view is of which would endorse Gilgal but if it's of Mosha de Leon it simply becomes a a later cabalistic idea okay so but as I say in Shahul the Ramban just talks about Mashiach he does not bring in Gilg yeah >> we are responsible for therapist Why does it seem to be only two stages? >> Yeah, that is a good question. Haba is not specifically mentioned, but in one of the amuna, it says God will give reward to those who do good and haba is included in the the reward and punishment uh system. But according to Ramban, of course, I know that an imams are not the Ramban's formulation. According to the Ramban, it actually makes sense because the ultimate eternal reward is only a holding stage until I'm sorry is a holding stage until like the Rambam. There'll be more of a question which which I'll get to. So again, my purpose today uh is to go over Ramb. I know our course is Rambam but I think if you internalize Ramban's what you might call which became the mainstream Shittita will then be able to understand number one how extraordinary is the Rambam's for reformulation uh and together with Zajon and also why the people who accused the Rambam of downgrading toim actually had a very very strong point based on what he is going to say in this letter. So in this very letter defending his position in a sense he is giving fuel to the accusations uh about his position. Okay, you have a wonderful week and take care.