Prayer Insight 18

we spoke last time about the idea that hashem gave us free will so we can earn our pleasures because earn pleasures are greater than receive pleasures and we just we described that really there's two time periods for this there's this world where we earn the pleasures that we have by putting in effort and by choosing and by creating but then there's the world to come when the body and the soul separates right and the soul is able to bask in the pleasure that it created in this world right and we said that really that's the place where we if you would think where's that infinite pleasure that an infinite god who created this world where is that pleasure i don't see it i don't feel it even to the most religious of people like i can't imagine they're getting this thing in this ethereal infinite pleasure it doesn't seem that way so he said you know no no this is the place of earning the world to come if you could experience one moment that would be the infinite pleasure so just share with you when i was once in israel on a bus bringing a group back of of of from an educational program and the the the driver of the bus said to me rabbi you believe in god but i know there was a god i said well how so tell me about it he said you know what 25 years ago i was on a kibbutz i was standing speaking to my mother i felt a pain in my finger and in my heart and i felt myself i fell to the ground and i my soul left my body and i could see myself on the ground and my mother was weeping by me and i and i just felt my soul going higher and higher and he said to me rabbi the pleasure that my soul felt at that moment when it when it when it separated out of the body was more than all the pleasures of everyone put together into one moment it was such a pleasure you can't imagine what it was right he said the end of the story was there's a certain time that he heard a voice telling him that he hadn't finished his job in this world he did an about term he went back into his body and he regained consciousness seven minutes later but the reason i'm telling you this story is because that's consistent with jewish philosophy which is that when the soul separates it's able to bask in that closeness of a relationship that it created with the infinite create and that's the place where you'll have that infinite pleasure now next time we're going to talk a little bit more about okay but really judaism is focused on this world and why would that be but for just us to understand it's a real world there's death is the ultimate deadline after which we take pleasure infinitely in all the good things that we created it'll be an incredible experience of closeness to god that you just can't imagine how pleasurable it'll be