The World to Come

Rabbis are impartial observers—not swayed by fashion or fad.

As Jewish authorities, our job is not to play favorites.

We don’t prefer one prophet over another--Miriam and Moses, both have strong messages to share.

We don’t favor one holiday over another--Passover, Purim, they’re both great.

We don’t support one sandwich over another--whitefish salad and pastrami both have their strengths.

But when it comes to Torah portions, it takes a stronger rabbi than me to remain impartial.

Some parshiyot are just better than others.

And this week’s might be my favorite.

It is parashat Nitzavim, deep in the Book of Deuteronomy, Moses is once again promising--and threatening--and cajoling us into brit (covenant) with God and our people.

“I make this covenant, with its sanctions, not with you alone,” says Moses, in behalf of God. This covenant is made, “both with those who are standing here with us this day before Adonai our God and with those who are not with us here this day.”^[1]

What does it mean to make a brit with “those who are not with us here this day?”

Hundreds of interpretations over thousands of years--including Rashi, ibn Ezra, Nachmanides, the giants of rabbinic scholarship--felt this meant all of the Jewish people who were yet to come.

They say, God was including those generations not yet born so that, today, we would all feel included in, and responsible for, our sacred covenant.

But there is an earlier tradition--one that takes a slightly different tack.

Midrash Tanchuma, another ancient interpretation of the Torah, suggests that “those who are not with us here this day” includes all people--including those who existed in the past together with those in the present and those yet to be, in the future.

In its commentary, the midrash teaches, “that every soul, from Adam to the end of the world, was formed in the six days of creation, and that all of them were present in the Garden of Eden and at the time of the giving of the Torah, as it is said: ‘with those who are standing here with us this day, and also with those who are not with us here this day’^[2].”^[3]

A place where all the souls ever to be created exist together is one of our visions of Olam haBa, the World to Come.

“Afterlife” or “heaven” isn’t exactly the right term—because in this place, the souls of those who have been can mingle with those whose lives have yet to be.

This midrash from the ancient world was brought to sparkling, breathing life by Dara Horn in the final chapter of her novel, The World to Come.^[4]

She describes a paradise of learning and gathering, of arguing and trying.

A place where we gain wisdom as we are shaped by ancestors and descendants we will never know in life.

And then, when it comes time for us to be born--we get booped on the lip, forget all the wisdom we have gained, and emerge squalling into this world.

That Olam HaBa, that World to Come, exists for each of us, even if we can’t remember it while we live our lives upon the earth.

We started there, and we eventually return there--a cycle of love and comfort and belonging.

As in so much of Jewish tradition, this midrash has more than one mission:

It comforts us when we think of our loved ones who are no longer with us—giving us a sense of peace when we think of them reunited with other loved ones past, or sharing the lessons they learned with the generations yet to be born.

There is magic in imagining this commingling of generations—in this time travel of the spirit.

But this World to Come also contains, hidden within, another kind of magic.

It contains a gentle invitation , a call to awareness and action in this world, here and now.

It invites us to hear tonight’s Torah portion and not only see ourselves among the generations before, standing with them at Sinai or in Eden—but it invites us also to see all those generations that came before and those yet to be as if they are standing here with us, right now.

How might we live our lives differently, if we saw ourselves always surrounded by ancestors and descendants—

if we saw our words and deeds as chances to show all of those personal witnesses what we’ve learned and how we’re growing?

If we saw this world as our world to come?

If our ancestors - and our descendants - could see us, accompany us…

We could show what we’ve learned from our ancestors’ examples—their strengths amplified, their shortcomings mitigated in us

We could offer our own victories, our own weaknesses, as honest lessons to our descendants for them to learn from

I love this Torah portion because it offers us so much wisdom—but also so much space for interpretation—for bringing ourselves into the text.

In my reading, my interpretation, this parasha gives us the encouragement we need not to wait until some perfect afterlife, but to see the world we have as a place of connection and inspiration.

In this parasha we are told, lo vashamayim hi—it is not in heaven, it is not beyond the seas.

It—the presence of all the generations, our ability to act in ways that keep them always with us—is here, in our hearts.

All we need to do is remember, call the generations to mind, and invite them into our words, our actions, our lives.

We read parashat Nitzavim twice each year: Once at the threshold of the new year; and again when we’ve passed over into the new year on Yom Kippur morning.

When you hear this parasha again this Yom Kippur, might you be able to call the generations to you, so you are standing all together?

Not you with them—back at Sinai; but them with you—here and now.

Not in heaven, not across the seas, but here in your heart.

And, standing all together, you can choose to speak the words and take the actions that you and all your generations will recall with satisfaction and joy when, one day, you return to the World to Come.

^[1] Deut. 29:13-14

^[2] Deut. 29:14

^[3] Midrash Tanchuma on Parashat Pedukei 3:4

^[4] Horn, Dara, The World To Come, 2006, pp 283-310