Many people ask, how is it that there are folks who deliberately lead lives that go against the Torah and yet seemingly enjoy a healthy and happy life. Rabbi Shneur Zalman, in his treatise on Teshuva in Tanya, frames the questions more specifically. In the Torah there are transgressions for which there are court administered consequences. Then there are those acts for which the Torah prescribes Karet – excision of the soul. What is Karet? The sages explain that the person’s life force flowing from the soul diminishes to an imperceptible trickle, and they must therefore die at an earlier age (50-60). That soul then experiences the tormented afterlife of being excised from heaven. Yet, the Alter Rebbe asks, we find that there are people who have violated those transgressions and live long lives, far beyond the prescribed age.
He explains that the description we offered applied only until the destruction of the Temple, when the world was more spiritually sensitive and people’s connection with their soul’s G-dly energy was direct. Therefore, once the life force stopped flowing from the soul, it was impossible to continue living. However, with the decline of the world’s spiritual state, the energy of the soul does not directly vivify a person. Rather, the soul’s energy is rerouted in an indirect manner, and the person is not as dependent on the soul’s energy for survival. That “slow drip” indirect flow of a person’s life force can carry on long after the excision of the soul was decreed. The imperceptible trickle of Divine life force is sufficient to keep a person alive for longer.
So, our state of existence is so pathetic and so removed from spiritual sensitivity that even “death” doesn’t care to claim us.
Now for the silver lining.
Rabbi Yisrael Salanter was walking home from the Synagogue late one night and saw a light burning in the tailor’s home. He peeked in and saw the tailor at his bench mending clothing. Upon inquiring from tailor why he was working so late, the tailor replied, “Rabbi, as long as the candle burns, once can still mend.” The Rabbi said that this was a deep message about life. As long as the candle (of G-d - the soul) is burning (the person is alive), once can still mend. If we are still alive, we can do Teshuvah and mend our flaws.
So the extra years of “slow drip” life that we have these days, despite the sins we have committed, afford us an opportunity to mend our ways and become people worthy of a reinstated connection with Hashem. In fact, through Teshuva, our connection with Hashem is not only reinstated, but it returns in a more powerful manner than before the sin.
This indeed is a redeemable quality, one that leads us to the ultimate redemption speedily!
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Mendel Rivkin