Q:
What could we do to help ourselves visualize Olam Habo and Gehenom in a realistic way?
A:
Like we said tonight we’re here in the world trying to learn how to acquire yediah chushis, physical awareness. How do we get that physical awareness?
Now, Shabbos is me’ein Olam Habo. As you’re sitting at the Shabbos seudah, think, ‘This is a picture of Olam Habo.’
Of course it’s not but it’s a remez in a small way. We’re sitting at the table together. The family is with you and you’re eating good things. After the seudah, you’ll take a little nap too. Everybody is happy. It’s me’ein Olam Habo; it’s something like Olam Habo. Yes. Only that in Olam Habah the joy will be magnified a million times more; a million times greater than the pleasures of Shabbos.
But still we should utilize the Shabbos as a me’ein Olam Habo. You have to enjoy the Shabbos, and the more you enjoy it the more it’ll be a clear-cut demonstration. As you’re eating, let’s say the cholent, and you enjoy potatoes a little bit brown; you enjoy the chicken well done. There are onions and garlic there and you’re enjoying it very much. You’re smacking your lips and eating it, and you’re thinking, “Whatever I’m enjoying now, it’ll be a million times more in Olam Habo, in Gan Eden.”
Is Gan Eden going to be a place of eating? Let me tell you. Whatever you can imagine the happiness of eating is, it will be a million times greater in Olam Habo; whatever the happiness is. But it’s me’ein and so that’s one opportunity. From Shabbos you gain yediah chushis. It’s מעין עולם הבא יום שבת מנוחה.
Now let’s say it’s the weekday. By accident you come to the tea kettle to get some hot water and you don’t know it’s hot. You put your finger on the tea kettle and your finger is scalded. Scalded! It hurts! So you should think, “It’s a lesson. Fire is one sixtieth of Gehenom, the Gemara says. A fire is one sixtieth of Gehenom (Brachos 57b).
So imagine now, let’s say it wasn’t your finger; let’s say it was your tongue. And your tongue was pasted to that hot tea kettle; you couldn’t remove it. That’s what you get for lashon hara. Yes, in Gehenom they’ll tell you, “Put your tongue on this hot tea kettle.” But it’s sixty times as hot as the one on your stove and you can’t take your tongue off. And it’ll be there quite a while. And you’re screaming. Nothing will help.
That’s how the fire of this world should be utilized, even a tea-kettle. Of course you have to run and get some Vaseline and put it on your finger to soothe the hurt. That you should do. But don’t lose the opportunity. It’s a golden opportunity to think of Gehenom.
So whenever a housewife burns her finger over the stove, let her think it’s a lesson. Maybe she said something wrong on the telephone. She was talking about her mother-in-law on the telephone. “Oooh,” Hakodosh Boruch Hu says, “Watch out! I’m giving you a lesson what’s going to happen to your tongue; not to your finger.” It’s not a joke. It’s very serious.
There are many lessons of Olam Habo in this world. Many lessons. We can utilize also the experiences that we see others have. Why wait until you have some experience? Look what happens to others. Look what happened to this person here. What a tzarah happened to him! A tremendous trouble happened to that person! Think, “Boruch Hashem, it didn’t happen to me but who knows what could happen to me chas v’shalom? Who knows what I might get in the World to Come. What he’s getting now is bad enough but there I might get it a million times worse.”
And all kinds of tzaros exist in this world. And the purpose of seeing tzaros by other people is to remind you about Gehenom. You have to utilize it. When people live that way, they’re getting yediah chushis of Gehenom.
TAPE # E-135 (April 2, 1998)
