[Avodah] mei marom

[Zev Sero]

Eli Turkel wrote:
>> I don't see how this is relevant, though.  His Olam Haba was not the
>> result of teshuvah, but rather a reward from RChbT for helping him
>> ("tzadik gozer, veHKBH mekayem").  IOW he got it despite his sins,
>> not because they had been wiped away>>

> Rabbi Yehuda haNasi said said some get their olam haba after many years
> and some get it immediately.

There are three stories about which Rebbi said this.  One was a goy,
not necessarily a rasha, who died in order to save the Jews, and who
circumcised himself at the last minute.  There's no indication that
he did teshuvah, or even had anything from which to do teshuvah.
Technically he wasn't a ger, because there was no beit din, and no
tevillah or kabalat hamitzvot, but a bat-kol announced that he would
go straight to olam haba, and Rebbi commented "yesh koneh olamo
besha'ah achat".  The second story is that of Rabbi Elazar ben Durdaya,
who got his OHB "besha'ah achat" through teshuvah.  And the third story
is the executioner of RChbT, who got it without either doing teshuvah
or attempting to convert, but simply through the gift of a tzadik.
I don't see how you can mix the stories.


> RYBS assumes that means the hirhur teshuva that the executioner did
> and that is obviously simple pshat.

Really?  It's not at all obvious to me.  Where do you see that he
did any kind of teshuvah?  What words in the gemara indicate any
such thing?


> The executioner jumped into the fire as a sign of his teshuva.

Where do you see that?  The most obvious reason he jumped in is to
save himself from being tortured to death for his "crime".


> Had he just saved RChbT  and returned to his sins he would
> have been entitled to nothing special except for one mitzvah against
> many sins

And what would have been with RChbT's promise?  It seems clear to me
that this guy had a free pass to OHB, and if he could have persuaded
the Romans not to kill him he could have gone on to do as many averot
as he liked, and when he died all he would have had to do was invoke
RChbT's name and demand payment.  What could he have been told?  An
oath is an oath.


-- 
Zev Sero                      The trouble with socialism is that you
zev at sero.name                 eventually run out of other people’s money
                                                     - Margaret Thatcher