Better left unsaid

Perhaps the most brilliant aspect of Torah is what it doesn’t say.  Conspicuously absent from the Torah text is any mention of the existence of the next world in explicit terms. There are small hints that the Rabbis hone in on as proof for something beyond but that is it.  The Torah did such a good job hiding it that many Jews today think the whole notion of an afterlife is a Christian concept which it’s not.  And even when the Rabbis do elaborate in the Talmud, the statements are not immediately motivating.  Images of the righteous dancing the ‘horah’ around G-d isn’t my idea of a good time, at least not right now. 

                There is a technical reason why this is so, and that is that the Torah is a prophetic document. Prophecy deals only with what the human mind can picture. We call prophets, ‘seers’ because they get a vision of what will happen in the future in this world. Or, they can penetrate behind the proximate causes of  events that have happened in this world and find the spiritual cause. Nonetheless, everything is limited to a perception of something explicit that is in this world. But the notion of a reality without a body, the next world, is not a reality we can fathom no matter our prophetic powers. For this reason, the Torah doesn’t mention it. 

                But that doesn’t stop us from believing in it.  Just because something is not said explicitly or that it can’t be viewed in a tangible way has no bearing on whether it exists.  Our minds were given to us to try and grasp things that aren’t tangible, that aren’t concrete. And since our mind is the tool used to conceive of that beyond, it is a safe picture that doesn’t sweep us too deeply into its grasp lest we forget to live fully in this life.  In fact, during our short time in this world it is our job to build our little space in the next world our self so the more time we get to do so the better. 

As Channukah approaches it is the time to reflect on this insight. Channukah is a time where the miraculous did penetrate the thick layers of nature but only in a subtle way.  It was meant to reassure us that there is something beyond nature but it is not meant to sweep us up into a frenzy. Just knowing it is there is enough, but don’t lose focus on the task at hand.