The Body, the Soul and the Afterlife - Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller

[Music] if you were to ask the average person let's say in um Santa Monica do you have a soul what do you think people will say how many of you would say yes I think almost everybody would if you were to ask them where is it would they have an answer no what would they say in my heart in my heart do they mean their heart physically no so what I want to point out by this is that there's an aspect in everybody which is their essential self their real self that isn't physical so this non-physical self also isn't just a collection of your memories when you study psychology people will often try to paint a picture of what being a human is about in which everything has to do with memory everything is about what you experiened as a child but I want to show you that there's something more so I'm not saying that this isn't true but I'm saying is that there's an additional component what's the additional component I want you to go back to your earliest memory go back as far as you can three earlier I want you to think about all these memories I'm not going to go through all of you because I did come a couple of minutes late which is unfortunate but um there was a person there before all of those later memories came there was still you isn't that true okay so that essential self is what we mean when we say soul so when you talk about your soul your soul and your body don't always have the same plans could you see where this is so so there's a famous Parable in the talud once there was a king and the King had an orchard two thieves entered the Orchards they wanted to steal fruit one of them was blind and the other one was lame okay so the lame Thief says to the blind one this is the best fruit I have ever seen in my entire life you don't even know like this fruit is amazing and the blind man said I don't know where to get it and the lay man said I have an idea go on my shoulders I'll take you wherever you need to go you pick the fruit and we'll split it 50/50 okay so what's this parable about it's about the body and the soul the soul sees everything it could see from one aspect of reality to the next this is why we have dreams this is why we have aspirations this is why we go be Beyond today but it can't get anywhere without the body there's no such thing as giving if you have no hand there's no such thing as envisioning if you have no eyes but the body is completely blind it lives in the absolute present and because of this it has no aspirations Beyond pleasure right now the body lives in the now and it's oriented towards immediate gratification the Soul lives in the past in the future and in the present and it wants depth so their agendas sometimes Clash so this um war between body and soul is what our lives are about so I want to tell you what the resolution isn't in Judaism in virtually every other major world religion the re the answer to this problem of the Body Soul conflict is negate the body so where were any of you ever interested in eastern religion if you were don't say and Mrs heler said we should investigate Buddhism okay um if you were you would see that their entire goal is to be able to silence the body and its desires completely they see desire is the root of all evil and the body is the root of Desire so the goal is to silence the body in Christianity all Christianity flows from Catholicism as you know in Catholicism the monastic idea being celibate being poor being in total obedience to the hierarchy was another way of negating the physical world and making it less threatening could you see where this is so I can't resist telling you a joke I should resist but I have so little verbal control that it's ridiculous okay so this is I can't believe I'm doing this okay so this goes back a long time in the Middle Ages as you know literacy in the Middle Ages was maintained in the monasteries right so there are two monks and They're copying manuscripts an old one and a young one the young one looks at the old one and says you know I'm a little concerned I'm copying your manuscript but what if you made a mistake I'll be copying it and passing it on so the old one says well there isn't a mistake so he said how do you know people make mistakes and he said well we check it against the really ancient manuscripts in the basement of the monastery every so often and the young man says you know I've been here 5 years I never saw anyone check anything tell me the truth how often do you check so the old man looked at him and said you know the truth the truth is we never check but I'm going to go down right now so he takes the manuscript he was copying goes down to the basement of the monastery comes back his eyes are red he's been weeping and the young man said what happened you had a mistake and he said yes and he says well what was it he said I wrote celebrate but it says celebrate okay so in any case so so Judaism is the religion of Celebration it's the religion in which we say the the soul can't get anywhere without the body the body is a gift treasure it but don't give it your identity take care of it enjoy it but don't give it your identity the body takes you to the world world of having the soul takes you to the world of being don't sacrifice being for having so this is what all the mitzvot are about okay so now we understand the body and the Soul so with this in mind we could begin to talk about the afterlife so now that you understand that the body and soul aren't the same thing right the soul isn't the body as we said at the beginning if you were to ask someone where does the soul live it doesn't live in the body we use the word heart to mean emotion but not the actual physical heart so when the body dies the soul doesn't die because the soul was never the body the soul was never the body so what happens to the soul so when you were children you may have seen cartoons where you know where Roadrunner Bops somebody over the head boing and then the person turns into an angel you saw those sorts of cartoons that's not what happens okay so the best news and the worst news is that whoever you are now whatever the essential self that is you now that's who you take with you into the Afterlife your body is not there your soul remains what it is so I'm going to take you through the death of the total materialist now there really is nobody like the person who I'm making up right now I'm just making the person up okay so there's a young woman and you're from Los Angeles so I'll put her in Los Angeles okay she lives in Los Angeles and she's the total materialist could there be somebody like this not in Los Angeles okay so she gets up in the morning what's her first thought first thought of the day if you're living only with the body no what am I going what am I going to wear okay so she gets out of bed she goes into the closet notice I didn't say opens the closet I said goes into the closet okay and uh you know she chooses her outfit okay puts it down on the bed next thing makeup no shower please shower and there are choices to make what are some shower choices come on shampoo do I use today which shampoo okay conditioner conditioner okay the whole thing yeah body the whole thing this this is sh you've got it okay and then you throw something on not the outfit you're wearing for the day just like something because now you have to go sit down and eat breakfast okay what's for breakfast half a grapefuit half a grapefruit you got it okay and if you want to drink something what goes with ite green juice green juice you've got it please this is you have to watch you know like okay born and raised in La what born and raised in LA yeah okay so next you can't get dressed yet either you have to work out first okay so you work out in your home gym and then you take your second shower which is like shorter now it's time to get dressed you get dressed but that's not it's not enough to put your clothes on something else must be done before you're ready to face the world make makeup how long is that going to take this whole thing up to where we're up now when she opened her eyes until the makeup finished how long are we talking about this could easily be 2 and 1 half hours could it be longer could be longer could be M it could be longer but two and a half hours would be now if it's Monday Wednesday or Thursday she has a morning plan it is her personal trainer or her psychologist on alternative days or yoga or Ceramics any other possibilities okay now it's time for shopping okay now the afternoon activity is shopping okay and then maybe meeting friends again this time for coffee and then it's time to go home take another shower because now it's time to get Dr for night like what are you going to do at night go out for dinner go out for dinner or dancing or a pub or all three okay clear okay are there people who live like this more or less okay so now there's really no one who's this two-dimensional I just want to make I want to make stay honest but there are people who are not so far okay so here it is it's 4:30 what's she up to p.m. what was what is it latte time not yet that's 5 she's shopping okay and she sees it it from across the street in bergdorf's I just forgot the name of the branch who I wanted with red with red Souls what are they on lons lubaton she sees lubaton and they're on sale half price credit card okay how much will they be half price $1,500 15 no that's $900 900 it's half price okay lubaton for only you heard me only $900 and they're the right color what's the right color black matte black lupon with those red soul s only 900 so she's like she's worried like somebody else may get she hurries across the street she didn't look both ways oh no the bus she's gone okay okay so now we can begin talking about the after life okay gone she's gone she's dead she's it's over the story is over okay so what happens to her her body is gone Soul go so now I want to tell you how what happens after death is narrated both in our sources Jewish sources and in non-jewish sources because up to a certain point the story is the same story and then they diverge okay have any of you read um any of the non-jewish sources on life after death okay so here's what happens when a person dies many many people have been interviewed who had near-death experiences what a near-death experience is is when a person either through illness or through an accident is clinically dead meaning they have no signs that the doctors can detect and they're somehow resuscitated now between when they're declared clinically dead and their resuscitation people have unusual experiences so these have been documented and I want to tell you the most important kind of documentation not only from one Society also in the western world and also in Africa and not only adults but also young children but kids haven't read the books so they don't know what the right answers of are so if you say what's the right answer you know okay but they don't know the right answer and that everyone tells the same story so the story has several chapters chapter one when a person is clinically dead even if their eyes are closed they're aware of what's going on around them they could tell you afterwards who was there what they were saying they have full awareness and this awareness is why according to Jewish law when a person dies you have to treat the body with respect because it's a premise that there's still awareness so in Judaism what happens when a person dies is whoever is with them is supposed to close their eyes cover their face with a sheet why so I want to tell you why have any of you ever seen a dead body how does a dead body look different than someone who's asleep definitely greater peace and definitely no animation there's no soul there and you could tell that there's no soul there so in a certain sense the seeing Thief is no longer there all that's left is the blind Thief who doesn't know what's happening who's inanimate okay so the next step the person finds themselves drawn through a tunnel in every possible culture they talk about a tunnel they drawn towards the tunnel and they begin to walk through as they walk through this tunnel they see their entire lives I once heard this like amazing interview on Israel radio there was um a young Ethiopian fellow who was a policeman this took place around eight years ago there was the Arabs threw an explosive on Strauss Street downtown he saw this happened he threw himself on the explosive and he took the shock of the explosive with his body and he survived which is a great miracle so he had a long and difficult recovery but he was being interviewed so the interviewer had an agenda the interviewer's agenda was to get him to say something political but I want to tell you what actually happened he said and what were you thinking when you saw the man throw the explosive what were you thinking so he said my first thought was I better do something because I'll die anyway so and when you threw yourself on this explosive what do you remember next now the right answer for his purposes would have been waking up in the hospital but that's not what the man said he said I remember being drawn to a tunnel I could see my whole life I was back in my Village in Ethiopia I could see my grandfather and he's been dead many years saw my whole life so the interviewer didn't like where this was going so he said what do you think the government should do to prevent this kind of terrorist activity in the future and he said you didn't get what I'm saying there's something bigger there I saw the whole thing and the man said well do you think that the liid is doing enough and he said it's not about that it's about okay and then like the two ships sort of youit went on their way in different directions but what I'm telling you is that people who were really clinically dead not as seriously injured and are resuscitated all speak about this tunnel and sometimes people are resuscitated very rapidly sometimes it's just an hour less than an hour sometimes more it could be days or even months but they all tell the same story and even people who are resuscitated right away recall having seen seen their whole lives which is like certainly something that's not natural okay what's the next step the next step after and this is again in our literature and in theirs the people see what they'll describe as something beautiful light a source of pleasure and a different cultures they'll use different vocabulary to describe what pleasure is and they're drawn to it now people who come back to life people who are resuscitated obviously didn't follow this all the way to the place where there's no return then the people who resuscitated say but the pull drawing me back here my family my whatever was stronger than my desire for this pleasure and I was able to come back the people who were not able to come back or who didn't want to come back obviously can't be interviewed okay so I want to point out and that's where our stories diverge okay because in the non-jewish world that's as far as the story could go because they could only interview people who came back what happens next though and what was happening until now from a judaic perspective so the soul left the body behind it's the soul sees the whole story the whole life their whole life and um how if you were to see your whole life I'll give you you a half a minute to think about it and I'm not going to ask you for and let's share okay are there moments that you would like to delete I want you to think about the moments you would like to delete I'm giving you half a minute again I'm not going to ask you to share this it's far too personal I would never do such a thing but I'm going to ask you one thing these moments you would like to delete are they painfully for you just by thinking about them how many of you would say that they are okay so I want to tell you about a process that you may not know about all of this is spiritual the way God created the world is that there is a delete button but it could only be activated here once a person is dead it can't be activated any longer so this delete button could only be pressed after three things take place you admit to yourself and to God what was wrong you said cuz if you don't know what's wrong there's no way to press that button the next is after you admit to yourself and to God this wasn't where I wanted to be you let yourself recognize that the painfulness of us of it is because you recognize that this bad choice whatever it was was painful to you not just to anyone else who you may have harmed and the third thing is that you resolve honestly to live a life in which this is not going to recur which means you have to think through why it recurred and what you could do to change but once you do this the magic that God puts in is that the delete button is pressed so you don't have to revisit those places but I want to tell you something very interesting about the way life is here when you're going through this tunnel time doesn't exist so you see everything in this world now we forget everything it's like we we we have chronic Alzheimer's from when we're born everything is forgotten because new things arise so I want to illustrate this to you imagine you found the right guy and he loves you and you're getting married and you look gorgeous and you're facing him at the ceremony and his mother even likes you if you're fantasizing why not okay so you know and would you be very happy at that moment okay now let's say you have a good marriage I'm not talking about a bad marriage you have a good marriage but it's eight years later you're sitting across the table from him now remember he was just as good as you thought he is are you thinking about how marvelous it is to be married from him on an a to him on an average day no you're thinking about whatever else is going on in your life so we forget our Noble moments our bad moments are easy to recall but our Noble moments and our and our joyous moments are easily erased so I want to tell you something that actually happened when my son my oldest son was 15 which was a long time ago um he was a junior counselor in a camp and the camp was go the camp was here in Israel they were going out in nature and part of the uh part of the trail involved going over a little wooden bridge over a stream the campers were 10 years old so some of the campers fell off the bridge be a little boy what does that mean jumped okay now here's what they didn't know there was a wool a Whirlpool under the bridge so the boy who jumped in was immediately drawn under by the whirlpool the counselor jumped in after him because he didn't know why the kid wasn't coming up and and he was drawn in my son saw this he realized what must be happening if the counselor can't get out of the water he grabbed a big branch and he was able to pull them both out okay so that could you see where that could be one of the most important things a person does in their life one of the most meaningful things okay it was a big deal it was don't thank you thank you it was you know you know certificate and the parents and this it was a very big deal in its time now he's in his early 40s how often do you think he thinks about this he has mortgage payments he has to deal with the orthodontist he has to think about you know like he has other things on he has a career how often do you think he thinks about this probably never except maybe like say I know him maybe right before yum Kipper when he's thinking about like where's my life taken me but otherwise never and the reason isn't that more important things happen it's just that more things happen so I want to tell you one of the big surprises you're going to get after you die you did far more good than you imagined that you did a lot of the good that you've done has been forgotten and good is never erased so what happens then you get to this place of goodness of light so everything that you did that was good stays with you but there's the other stuff as well so you are who you are so people when they talk about words that one is never supposed to use because they're so unpolitically correct heaven and hell it's not what you think let's talk about hell first because I'm from Brooklyn and I tend to be negative and that's where it's always flow okay um are we talking about something physical would that make sense make me a case for it would make sense make me a case for it wouldn't make sense hell yeah a physical hell of fire pitchforks devils like Dante okay so you see it as making sense anybody else sees it as not making sense so I want to tell you something the body is buried there is no physicality for the soul all of these images that you have are images some of which were painted by the prophets to describe the vast painful humiliation that we face if we live bad lives so I want to illustrate to you what I mean by this everybody who's here any amount of time goes to the T the Big Bus Terminal they buy a card oh yeah we have that you have cards you can go on the train with them you can go on the bus with them okay now you have there are two kinds of RAV covs one is the kind you probably have which are Anonymous ones right no picture okay they're cheaper ones but they the bus company doesn't want you to pass them on to your whole family they have your picture so most Israelis have their R COV which they hold on to for dear life okay clear okay so you get on the train and you realize after you're on already you forgot your RAV COV in your other purse what's going to happen to you if the inspector catches you aha no this is this is is he's not going to just say ma'am off the train there'll be a scene you this is Israel M you know like and you know and why why don't you have it and you have to be a thief for 650 and what's your problem and there's a big fine 180 sh okay it's a big deal okay clear but it's not just the money it's also the humiliation yeah so let's say you left your whole wallet at home not just the rub C how many of you could picture getting off the train and walking wherever you have to go on the chance that an inspector may get on the train and humiliate you how many of you could picture doing it he may get on he may not go on but if he gets on there's going to be a scene okay clear so those of you who can the reason that you can is that most people will go pretty far to avoid humiliation could you see where this is still so I want to tell you something important about humiliation the more you believe in yourself the more you love yourself the more painful humiliation is so I want to illustrate this to you okay rape is a terrible crime will all agree on this is it the physical reality of rape that's so terrible is that why it's such a terrible crime no no if a man who um committed a rape was to go before a judge and he was to sit say look I gave her a bad 10 minutes I'm willing to have a bad 10 minutes would anybody go for that no it's the humiliation it's the feeling of being nothing of being totally disempowered you could see what this is so so in the other world the humiliation of knowing that you aren't who you could have been is that severe and this is why by way way of illustration they'll talk about the pain of fire the pain of ice it's all allegorical but it's real so there are two allegories that are used one is fire when is ice so I want to talk to you about fire for a moment a a little while back I made you go back to your bad moments well their bad moments that were fire like screaming yelling anger maybe violence did you ever have any moments like this in your life not us but you know people who have okay but there's also moments of ice cutting someone off ignoring them not feeling anything for them in Hebrew the word for cruel is AAR which is actually two words combined the word AK means only and the word Zar means foreign AAR is when you treat somebody as though they're not part of you they're not part of your planet once you see somebody is totally aranged you could do anything for them to them so there's the hell of fire there's the hell of ice but there's also the reward the reward for being who you are the feeling of connection so I want to illustrate that to you think of your favorite food that should be easy how long does the pleasure last it lasts as long as you're eating and then it's gone it's real I'm not a Hindu I'm not saying it's all illusion okay it's real but it's short because it's shallow it's the pleasure of the body would you say everybody in the world knows this that and this is true for all physical pleasure it's all real but it doesn't last very long would you say everyone knows this so I want to tell you something everyone knows it here very few people know it emotionally the people who are willing to learn this emotionally which is not everyone still want this because it gives immediate pleasure but they want more now in contemporary Western Society the next address for pleasure seeking is in Beauty having gorgeous clothes living in a marvelous house great trips um art music dance all of this is called aesthetic pleasure what's your favorite what kind of beauty do you like the best of all of the things I just mentioned art dance music travel travel that's we're on the same any of you hike H okay A a that's the best okay see you there so if even that kind of pleasure lasts longer could you see where this is so the pleasure of the great hike lasts longer than the great hike could you see where this is so okay but only to a certain degree you know think about your dream outfit you go to the store perfect outfit perfect price Perfect Color perfect everything where's it going to be in 5 years trash okay and I want to tell you why all of these Pleasures even though they're for sure deeper than coarse physical pleasure they're still about having rather than about being so do you think everybody knows that that these Pleasures don't last forever does everybody know that no if everyone knew this you would never have this happen to you you're walking down the street and you see um what seems to be a teenager then she turns around and it's an old lady did you ever have that okay you know so yeah so I'm just saying beauty doesn't last forever no no okay so where most people will go if they acknowledge that that it's about being and not just having they they'll want most of all the pleasure of relationship so I want you to think of the person who you like the best I'm not going to ask you who it is you there but I'm going to ask you something else I'm not going to ask you who it is I'm going to ask why you like that person why do you like the person you like the best are these qualities of the Soul or are they qualities of the body soul the soul I want to ask you one more question suppose when you're with that person you feel the way you describe them as being you feel strong and you feel courageous and you feel compassionate you feel understanding and you feel like you get them you like them even better so the name of that feeling is spiritual bonding which is the highest pleasure there is it's soul to soul pleasure so remember at the beginning of the class I asked you what a soul is and you said it's a person's Essence so I want to tell you a little bit more the soul is the aspect of you that's a breath of God so what you love in your your fellow person who you the person who you love the most is their soul which is their godliness that kind of bonding is what the future life is about so the more that you did in this life to give expression to your higher self the greater your pleasure is there and we we can't always get it because again in this world as it is time keeps on pushing away pleasure so you could do things that are noble and beautiful and you forget it because somebody stepped on your foot okay but it's not that way there that's your eternity so I want to ask you to think about something and again I'll give you seconds I want you to think about the most noble thing you've done in your life I want all of you were able to think of something that you did that you're ashamed of so I want to point out to you isn't that interesting that the part of us that self-critical hides our nobility you've done Noble things I have no doubt about this your Seekers otherwise you wouldn't be here but the part of you that's self-critical conceals this part of your job here is to recognize your nobility and see your capacities what's the word would use to describe this the deed is that she nursed her friend back to health for 2 months what's the word you would describe that was an act of don't say nobility compassion compassion what else what is what's patience so I just want to conclude by telling you this people confuse themselves so you gave an extremely good illustration the word Aran which means people of light okay Define themselves through courage but in our our own times or at least in my times you all have memories still of Nazism where they consider themselves a superior race and they considered courage killing other people inferior people us so what the Torah does for you is it gives you a guide map it tells you where to put all of this part of you that's Noble and good in a way that's real so my braa to you is that you continue doing things of beauty and nobility and that you have wonderful portions in the future life okay you're welcome [Music]