Berakhot 073

Just as a blind man cannot appreciate colour, the deaf man sound, the eunuch the pleasure of sexual intercourse – so the physical cannot appreciate non-physical pleasure. Just as a fish cannot comprehend fire because its medium is the very opposite of fire, so we in this physical world cannot know the pleasure of a non-physical world. This is because in a physical world we can only experience physical pleasure. Non-physical pleasure, on the other hand, is constant, and bears no relationship whatsoever to physical pleasure. If we follow the Torah, it would be wrong of us to suppose that angels … do not sense pleasure – metaphysicians and philosophers agree with this! Rather do they have a very great pleasure in that they have a greater understanding of the Creator, which is for them a constant and uninterrupted pleasure. But they have no physical pleasure: since they do not have sense as we do they do not sense as we sense. Similarly we, if we were to become ethereal after death and reach that rank, we would not comprehend physical pleasure and would not desire it.

If you think carefully about both kinds of pleasure you will soon come to realize the baseness of the one and the superiority of the other – even in this world! Most people – perhaps all – will work themselves to death in order to achieve greatness or honour, neither of which are physical pleasures like eating and drinking. Similarly, many people enjoy the feeling of revenge over physical pleasures. There are many who refrain from the greatest of physical delights for fear that people will think less highly of them or in order to achieve respect. If this is our situation in this physical world, how much more are we likely to appreciate spiritual pleasure in the non-physical world which is the Afterlife [Olam ha-Ba], where we shall comprehend the Creator as non-physical beings. That is a pleasure that cannot be defined or metaphorised. As the psalmist says [31:20], "How great is Thy goodness that Thou hast in store for them that fear Thee, that Thou hast made for them that trust in Thee!" The sages put it this way: "In the afterlife there is no eating, no drinking, no washing, no combing, and no intercourse; the righteous simply sit there with their crowns on their heads enjoying the radiance of the Divine Presence" [Gemara Berakhot 17a]. What they meant by "their crowns on their heads" is a reference to the soul as a discrete intelligence, which philosophers have treated but which would take too long to detain us here. (By the phrase "enjoying the radiance of the Divine Presence" they allude to the pleasure that they have in what they comprehend of the Creator.)

The Reward, the ultimate 'objective' is to reach this exalted state, to exist in this spiritual form eternally, like the Creator who is the cause of that existence which enables the soul to comprehend Him. This is the great and incomparable good, which is eternal and has no purpose; how could it be compared to that which perishes? In the Torah [Deuteronomy 22:7] God says "That you may have a long and good life"; the sages give the traditional interpretation: So that you may have good in the world which is absolute good and life in the life that is absolutely long.

The ultimate punishment is the extinction of the soul, that it will perish and cease to exist. This is the 'excision' mentioned in the Torah. Excision means the utter extinction of the soul. In the Torah [Numbers 15:31] we read "that soul shall be absolutely cut off", and the rabbis have explained that as meaning "cut off in this world, cut off in the next". Anyone who has sunk into physical pleasure to the exclusion of the truth is cut off from that attainment and remains excised matter.