[Avodah] Punishment

[David Riceman]

RJR:
> 
> I?ve often heard it said that one is better off getting punished in this world that in the world to come. Philosophically why should the sum total of punishment for any transgression be different depending on where one receives the punishment?
> 
> 
The function is different.  In this world punishment induces tshuvah. In the Ramban's analysis in Shaar HaGmul in the next world one's faults are removed and the wounds are cauterized, both (in an analogy that predates anesthesia) painful.

  The pain isn't severable punishment in either world, it's part of the procedure.  The difference is that in this world we can still improve ourselves, in the next we can just salvage the functional bits.

David Riceman