Parshas Ki Savo
By Rabbi David Zauderer (Toronto, Canada)
The great Torah scholar, philosopher, and Jewish leader Rav Saadiah Gaon (882-942) lists ten reasons for blowing the shofar on Rosh HaShanah.
The last reason he mentions is that the sounding of the shofar serves to remind us of Techiyas HaMeisim (the “Resurrection of the Deadâ€), a time in the ultimate future when the dead will be awakened from their graves by the sound of the shofar and will live again on this earth together as body and soul, as the verse in Isaiah 18:3 states: “All inhabitants of the world and dwellers of the earth … you shall hear when a shofar is soundedâ€.
The question is why is it so important to remind ourselves about the Resurrection of the Dead during the blowing of the shofar?
Rabbi Shlomo Levenstein shlitâ€a writes in his sefer (book) U’Masok Ha’Or that we can understand this with the help of a Mishnah (Torah teaching) in Ethics of our Fathers (4:22): “… and better one hour of spiritual bliss in the World to Come than the entire life of This World.†This means that if we add up all the bliss of all the generations in the history of the world, it would not equal an hour of bliss in the Next World.
So we can then ask why do we need This World in the first place? Why can’t we go straight into the World to Come? And why are we yearning for Techiyas HaMeisim so that we can come back to this world when all the greatest pleasure is only in the next one??
Of course, the answer to that question can be found in the first part of the Mishnah in Ethics of our Fathers quoted above: “Better one hour of repentance and good deeds in This World than the entire life of the World to Come …†In other words, only in This World with body and soul together can one elevate himself spiritually; in the World to Come he can only enjoy the reward for his accomplishments here. For this reason we yearn for the Resurrection so that we can do more mitzvos and repent – something we simply cannot do with our disembodied souls in the Next World.
It is told that when the Vilna Gaon (1720-1797) was on his deathbed, he held his tzitzis (knotted ritual fringes) in his hand and wept. When his disciples asked why he was crying, he replied that he would soon be leaving a world in which a few kopeks could buy him an eternal mitzvah such as tzitzis, and was heading for a world where a mitzvah could not be acquired for a million rubles.
The famed Maggid (itinerant preacher) of Kelm once shared the following powerful mashal (parable) to help illustrate this concept:
“One day there was a great tumult in Heaven. A Heavenly Voice declared: ‘We looked through the deeds of city so-and-so and found it to be very righteous and deserving of a special reward. As it is known that once a person dies he can no longer repent or do good deeds, it has been decided to grant a golden opportunity to all those ‘neshamos’ (souls) that inhabited city so-and-so since its founding: They will be allowed to come back to life on earth with body and soul together - for just one hour - before their souls return to Heaven and their bodies return to the dust!’
The time for the resurrection was set for 10:00am the following morning. Shortly before ten o’clock there was a great tumult in the celestial realms, as all the souls who had inhabited that city in their lifetimes gathered together at the place of the Heavenly Court to receive their reward. And all the meanwhile, the inhabitants of the city on the earth below had no clue as to the miracle they were about to witness.
At 10:00am the inhabitants of that city started hearing loud noises coming from the edge of town. Then someone told them that he just seen the most unbelievable sight – it seems that hundreds of ‘dead’ people had gotten up from their graves dressed in their white burial shrouds and were now walking around the cemetery like some zombie convention!
And then an amazing thing happened - the live people started to recognize their family members. One person said, ‘Saba! There’s my Saba! Hey, Saba! And there’s my great-grandmother!’ Another one said, ‘and there’s my brother Yaakov who died young!’ Soon enough, all of them recognized their departed relatives who had now come back to life and were standing in front of them in their shrouds!
But here is the strangest part … as much as the live people were trying to find and reconnect with their formerly departed relatives, the dead people were ignoring them, as if they didn’t even recognize them! The dead ones said to their relatives, ‘What do you want from us? Let us get through! Move!’
One of the ‘dead’ people finally explained their strange behavior. ‘You see, my dear brother, we have to take advantage of the precious little time we have here on earth! So we are rushing to the nearest shul to learn Torah, to pray and to repent before G-d – we need to ‘grab’ as many mitzvos as we can while we still can!’
It finally dawned on the people of that city that this wasn’t the beginning of the Messianic Era or the Final Resurrection that they were witnessing. Rather it was a temporary resurrection that was granted as a special gift from Heaven to those neshamos who had dwelled in that city – and it wouldn’t last for too long. So it was no wonder that the ‘dead’ people weren’t spending time schmoozing with their still-living relatives, but instead were heading to the nearest shuls where they could elevate themselves spiritually as much as possible in the limited time they were given. Soon enough all the shuls in the city were packed with ‘dead’ people doing teshuvah and praying until not a seat was left to be found!
As time ticked on, the intensity of the learning and praying increased, and the sounds of Torah and prayers emanating from each shul could be heard from far and wide.
Soon it was already more than half-way through the hour – but not one ‘dead’ person could be found wasting his time frivolously talking to his neighbor – for they knew that there was very little time left before they would all have to return to their graves.
At one point – with only ten minutes left – someone stood up at the bimah in one of the shuls and cried out: ‘My dear fellow Jews! We have so little time left so let’s make these final minutes really count!’ Upon hearing the man’s inspiring and heartfelt plea to take advantage of the time granted to them from Above, the whole shul erupted with screams and crying, and all present prayed to G-d to accept their repentance.
Finally, there were only ten seconds remaining in the hour … then 9, 8, 7, 6, 5 … almost over, 4, 3, 2, 1 … silence!
The ‘dead’ had spent their special hour back here on earth wisely, amassing tremendous merits for their souls with all the Torah that they studied, the prayers that they recited, and the Teshuvah and repentance that they did – bringing them ever closer to G-d in the Next World … and then they were gone. But by spending their hour this way, they taught a lesson to their still-living relatives about what is ultimately important in This World.â€
The Maggid of Kelm concluded his thought-provoking parable with the following words:
“Why should we do less just because we have more than one hour left to live? Why should we waste precious hours of our lives in This World just because we are lucky enough to have been granted this special hour 24 times each day, and 30 times each month?!â€
Now we can understand – explains Rabbi Levenstein - why it is so important to remind ourselves about the Resurrection of the Dead during the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah. The entire purpose of the Resurrection of the body here on earth is to give us the opportunity to amass even more hours of Torah study, repentance and good deeds – something we can only do here in This World with our body and soul together.
And when we remind ourselves on Rosh HaShanah about the Resurrection and why we yearn for it, each of us will also remember the Maggid of Kelm’s powerful challenge:
“Why wait until the Resurrection to start running around trying to grab as many mitzvos and good deeds as we can? We are alive right now!!!â€
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