[Avodah] punishment for the wicked

Micha Berger micha at aishdas.org
Mon Jul 18 11:11:04 PDT 2022


On Tue, Jul 05, 2022 at 05:13:22PM -0400, Joel Rich via Avodah wrote:
> So perhaps you can help me think this through? The Rambam in hilchot tshuva
> (8:1) seems to imply that the punishment for the wicked is that they will
> cease to exist -- meaning to me that they will not participate in the world
> to come. If this is so, it seems to me that Pascal's wager seems less of a
> challenge...

First, there aren't too many if any shitos in which fear of eternal
punishment is realistic. After all, the list of people in Sanhedrin 10:1
who have no cheileq le'olam haba are heretics not likely to embrace any
traditional hashkafah. And mishnah 2 adds all of 7 people; mishnah 3 --
Noach's generation, the 5 cities around Sodom & Amora, the generation the
left Mitzrayim (!). And mishnah 4 is back to heretics (like mishnah 1),
the residents of an ir hanidachas.

All in all, it seems that it's someone who doesn't believe there is an
olam haba or a Dayan who doesn't get there. So, they're not worried.
Or, someone you don't have to worry about being because they lived
millennia ago.

So, whether this mishnah here is discussing who gets revived (Bartenura,
or the Ramban's take on "olam haba") or who gets reward in the post-death
existence (whether that reward is in opposition to punishment or to
cessation), normal people have some portion of reward. Eternal torment
is for exceptional cases. (Again, most of whom wouldn't be worried about
it.)

Second, I think more people are more afraid of not existing than of
existing in torment.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 If a person does not recognize one's own worth,
http://www.aishdas.org/asp   how can he appreciate the worth of another?
Author: Widen Your Tent                - Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye,
- https://amzn.to/2JRxnDF                author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef


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