PIRKEI AVOT 4: 16

 

Rabbi Yaacov says: This world is like a corridor (prozdor) that leads to the World to Come. Prepare yourself in the corridor so that you will be able to enter the banquet hall (traklin).

Rabbi Yaakov says that this world is like a a corridor that leads to the World to Come. So as be ready to enter the banquet hall, one should prepare oneself beforehand in the corridor.

The language here seems strange: One “should” prepare oneself? Why is this only a suggestion? Also, both the World to Come and This World are expressed as worldly metaphors. Why? In what sense is there a “banquet hall” in the World to Come (preceded by an “antechamber”)?

We do find similar use of metaphor in the gemara Avodah Zarah 3a. There, it says that he who toils before Shabbat will eat on Shabbat. As to the one who does not toil before Shabbat, from where would he eat on Shabbat? One could say that this gemara is not speaking literally (that he who expects to eat on Shabbat one must prepare beforehand), but as a metaphor. The “work” it refers to is not the earning of money for groceries, the shopping, the cooking, and preparing one’s household. Rather, perhaps it refers to the Torah and Mitzvoth that one must perform in this world so as to merit the reward that one “eats” in the next one.

If one were to say that this reference to Shabbat is a metaphor (as I have), meaning that it refers not to Shabbat, but to the World to Come, it is striking how the metaphor chosen for the World to Come (Shabbat) is unlike that chosen in our mishnah. The mishnah’s is physical (banquet hall), while here it is spiritual (Shabbat). The Shabbat metaphor fits with other sources, which sometimes refer to the World to Come as the “day” that is entirely “Shabbat.” Shabbat is spiritual and the World to Come is spiritual. It is easy to see how that fits. Why,would our mishnah, though, choose a metaphor (Banquet Hall) that is strictly physical?

My answer is that the two sources differ in their intent. To review: My reading is that the gemara’s “toiling before Shabbat leads to eating on Shabbat” refers to to the Torah and Mitzvoth that must be performed in this world so as to merit reward in the next. This gemara is telling us what will happen at the time of Moshiach, when the Nations of the world offer their complaints as to not having received “World to Come” rewards.

“Why weren’t we given (World-to-Come-earning) mitzvoth for the physical world, just as the Jews were?” they will ask.

The response would be that they were, in fact, offered the Torah and Mitzvoth

before Yisrael was, but rejected them.

“And now you ask for reward? He who toils before Shabbat will eat; he who does not, will not. Yisrael said, guv vg , We will do and we will listen. They toiled at Torah and Mitzvoth in this world. Therefore, they -- and not you (the Nations) -- will eat on Shabbat. They --- not you -- merit reward in the World to Come.”

I would now like to address the anteroom / banquet hall simile.

The mishnah plainly says that This World is comparable to an antechamber and the World to Come to a banquet hall. It seems to me, however, that these are not just being compared to the World to Come and to This World, but to other things as well.

I refer to the gemara (Berachot 17a) that says, May you see [lit] “your world” provided in your lifetime and may your latter end be for the future world. There are many ways of understanding this gemara. I would suggest the following: When one’s sons and daughters are [successfully] being raised according to the ways of Torah and Mitzvoth, this is called seeing “your world” in “your lifetime.” And, if one fully deports himself in accordance with the Torah, and his family life in conducted with purity, his offspring will be like him. They will be his “glory” in this world.

In this sense, his home is like an anteroom before the ballroom. The children are like one’s “ballroom” and the glory of one’s life, for this is all of his “toil.”

However, if one does not conduct himself according to Torah, meaning that he does not live according to its mitzvoth, it is [next to] impossible that the children born from him will be mitzvah observant. If they had not experienced commitment to Torah and Mitzvoth in their own homes, why would they want to accept upon themselves a “burden” like this later on?

I frequently have parents coming to me, broken and crying because a child of theirs is about to marry a non-Jew. My first question to the parents is whether they have kept the Shabbat and kept kosher. Invariably, the answer is in the negative.

I then must tell them, “What, then, would you have expected to happen? These children had never seen real Judaism in their home, neither Shabbat nor kashrut. How, then, would they know what real Judaism was about?”

“They aren’t fully aware that a Jew may not even consider not keeping the Shabbat. Why should they be fully aware that they may not even consider marrying someone not Jewish?”

“Were your home have had a fully Jewish character, then your children would know that they were Jewish and would never have done this. Just as you have instead gone according to your own hearts’ desires, so have your children. Therefore, it is you who are at fault.”