olam haba in the torah

(1) The goodness which is in store for the righteous is the Life of the World to Come – Life which has no Death, Good which has no Evil. This is what is written in the Torah: that it may be well with you, and that you may prolong your days (Deut. 22:7), and from tradition we learned: that it may be well with you, in a world that is entirely good; that you may prolong your days, in a world that is entirely long; and that is the World to Come. The reward of the righteous is that they will earn this pleasantness and never be cut off or die; and the punishment of the wicked is that they will not merit this life, and will be cut off and die. And anyone who does not earn this life is the dead who will never live, but is cut off in his wickedness and lost like an animal; and this is the “cutting off” that is described in the Torah, as it says, that soul shall utterly be cut off (Numbers 15:31). From tradition we learned: cut off, in this World; utterly, in the World to Come, i.e., that soul which has separated from the body in this world will not earn the life of the World to Come, but will also be cut off from the World to Come.

(2) The World to Come has no body or corporeality – only the souls of the righteous without bodies, like the Ministering Angels. Since there is no corporeality, there is no eating or drinking, and nothing of all the things that human bodies need in this world. Nothing that happens to bodies in this World happens there, such as: sitting and standing, sleep and death, sadness and joy, etc. Thus said the First Sages: “The World to Come has no eating or drinking or relations, just the righteous sitting with their crowns on their heads enjoying the glow of the Divine Presence” – let that prove to you that there is no body there, since there is no eating or drinking. And the fact that they said, “The righteous sitting” – this a form of riddle, meaning that the righteous are present there without expending and work or effort. And the fact that they said, “Their crowns on their heads,” meaning that the “knowledge” that they gained, through which they earned the Life of the World to come, is present with them – and it is a crown for them, as King Solomon said: the crown with which his mother crowned him (Song of Songs 3:11). Similarly, it says, everlasting joy shall be upon their head (Isaiah 51:11), but joy is not physical such that it could rest on someone’s head; so too, the “crown” that the Sages mentioned here is knowledge. And what about their statement, “Enjoying the glow of the Divine Presence?” It means that they know and grasp the Truth of the Holy Blessed One, which they can not know when they are in the dark, lowly body.

(17) He would say: One hour of repentance and good deeds in this world is better than all the time in the world to come. And one hour of pleasure in the world to come is better than all the time in this world.

I will (as it were), walk with you in the Garden of Eden as though I were one of you, and you will not be frightened of Me. One might think (that this implies) you will not fear (i.e., have no reverence) for Me. Scripture, however, states ([but] I will be your God (that is, although you will be with me in the Garden of Eden and not be frightened of Me, you will still possess reverence for me.)

Rambam in Mishneh Torah, Sefer Ha-Madda (Hilkhot Teshuvah 9:1): The rewards promised in the Torah only serve to remove impediments that could distract one from serving God. But the Torah never mentions the ultimate reward of Olam ha-Ba. Why? In order to reach the religious/intellectual level in which service towards God can be for its own sake (li-Shemah), and not for the receipt of reward or fear of punishment.

R. Abraham ibn Ezra in Parashat Ha’azinu (Deut. 32:39): not even one out of a thousand people can intellectually grasp the notion of olam-ha-ba, but the Torah was given to all the children of Israel. Keli Yaqar adds that since a physical being cannot understand the non-physical nature of olam ha-ba, the Torah simply hid mention of this from the masses, due to their feeble intellects. But the ultimate reward is in the World to Come.

R. Bahya ibn Pakuda (Keli Yaqar refers to him as R. Bahya Ha-Zaqen; “the Elder.” This appellation apparently serves to distinguish him from R. Bahya ben Asher, student of the Rashba and author of a popular commentary on theTorah. This view is also cited by the ibn Ezra in Parashat Ha’azinu, and the Ramban appears to have inclined to his view as well.): The rewards of the Torah are all supernatural. For how else can the meteorological phenomenon of rainfall be dependent upon a certain people observing specific commandments? But the soul is by nature a metaphysical being, and it is not unnatural that it will (eventually) leave the body and this physical realm. Indeed a verse in Psalms (37:34) essentially states this. From the fact that only the wicked who receive karet do not merit a share in the world to come, one can deduce that as a matter of course, one who is not wicked will indeed receive a share. Hence, there was no need for the Torah to mention the obvious!

Rabbenu Nissim Gerondi, in his comments on Parashat Bereshit, utilizing an idea that is already found in R. Yehudah Ha-Levi’s Kuzari, writes as follows: at the time when the Torah was given, the nations of the world denied the possibility of Divine Providence. They also asserted that whatever was done in the world was done out of necessity, not out of choice. The Torah wished to strengthen the concept of Divine hashgahah (and of human free choice as stimulating the possibility of hashgahah) as a cornerstone of Jewish belief. Had the Torah mentioned the reward in the World to Come instead of reward in this world, people would have simply persisted in their erroneous belief. (However, by emphasizing that the fall of rainfall, for example, was not necessary but was contingent upon human action, the Torah sought to refute that view.) Keli Yaqar approvingly cites the remark of the Khazar King to his Jewish friend (the haver), to the effect that people would not mind delaying their reward in the World to Come, if they could live a little bit longer here on earth. Thus, even though the ultimate reward is in the World to Come, the Torah presented a reward that people naturally desire, and taught that it is in human power to achieve it.

R. Sa‘adiah Gaon, in his Emunot be-De‘ot, and the Rambam in the 3rd part of his Guide for the Perplexed both write that the nations of the world at the time when Moses received the Torah sacrificed towards the stars and constellations in order to receive agricultural benefits (rainfall and the like). When God gave the Torah, He wished to wean the children of Israel away from these behaviors, and therefore emphasized that observance of the laws of the Torah will yield these benefits, whereas any sort of idolatrous worship will produce the opposite result. But He did not need to promise them anything regarding the world to come, for the nations of the world were not promised success in the World to come for their efforts in the first place.

The Torah actually does hint at the World to Come. For when the Torah writes such verses as I will be ever present in your midst (Lev. 26:12, the aforementioned verse upon which Rashi comments that “the righteous will walk with God in Gan Eden” ) it is referring to the propinquity between the Shechinah of God and the virtuous Jewish soul in this world. One can now utilize a qal va-homer and deduce the following; if the soul can cling to the Shechinah even in this world, surely it will be able to cling to the Shechinah in the non-physical world to come. Keli Yaqar notes that R. Yehudah Ha-Levi, at the end of the 1st Book of the Kuzari, writes how the Torah promises children of Israel rewards in the World to Come, just as the other false religions promised their adherents bliss in the World to Come, and this is seen from the words of the Prophets of the Bible as well. Keli Yaqar writes that R. Nissim Gerondi in his Derashot made this point as well.

..(7) Finally, Keli Yaqar quotes R. Joseph Albo (Sefer Ha-Iqqarim, chapter 40), who presents an idea found already in the Ramban to Parashat Eqev (Deuteronomy 11:13) that the mundane rewards cited in the tochachah are meant for the Jewish nation as a whole. But the reward of any individual person can only be according to the (sum of his) deeds.

After mentioning these seven views, Keli Yaqar adds his observation. The Torah tells us the extent of the love of God for Abraham Isaac and Jacob. If rewards in this world was the sum total of the rewards that God would give anyone, how could Abraham claim to have had more success than Nimrod? The latter ruled over the world, whereas Abraham lived as a nomad his entire life. The same point could be made for the other two patriarchs Isaac and Jacob. It would not do, he adds, to write that that the blessings that their descendants received would constitute their blessings, for what good would that accomplish for someone after his death. The only way to make sense out of the life of the patriarchs, he concludes, is to posit the existence of a World to Come in which the righteous will indeed prosper. To be sure, he finally concludes, this portion in the World to Come was not the exclusive property of the patriarchs, it was (and is) the reward that God promises to all the righteous people through the ages, for they all possess the same Torah.