Reflections Upon Completing Shas
Shas ends with these words (Niddah 73a): תָּנָא דְּבֵי אֵלִיָּהוּ: כׇּל הַשּׁוֹנֶה הֲלָכוֹת בְּכׇל יוֹם, מוּבְטָח לוֹ שֶׁהוּא בֶּן הָעוֹלָם הַבָּא, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר ״הֲלִיכוֹת עוֹלָם לוֹ״, אַל תִּקְרֵי ״הֲלִיכוֹת״ אֶלָּא הֲלָכוֹת (A teaching from the House of Eliyahu: Anyone who studies halachot every day is assured that he is a son of the World to Come [ben Olam ha-Ba], as it says [Chabakuk 3:6]: 'The ways [halichot] of the world are His.' Do not read halichot, but halachot). At first glance, this looks like a standard wordplay: the verse says halichot and Chazal tell us to read it as halachot. But if that is all that is going on here, the statement would be trivial. Anyone finishing Shas already knows the importance of learning halachah, so that cannot be why Shas ends with these words. The truth is that Chazal are teaching us a profound truth about how we experience life itself.
Halichot is not to be understood literally, rather it describes how life feels from the inside. To most of us, we define life as movement – walking, journeying, going somewhere – making progress: "I am on the way, I am becoming, I am developing, but I am not there yet." But Chazal come and tell us something extremely radical: "Don't read life that way. Don't read your inner reality as halichah, as endless movement. Read it as halachah – as form, structure, standing – as something that already is." (Of course, this does not replace halachah as law; it just explains what halachah does to the person who lives by it.) Chazal wants us to view life not as something we are heading toward, but as something we are already in, and the language they use to describe this is very precise. They do not say that such a person will go to Olam ha-Ba or that he will be in Olam ha-Ba. They say that he is a ben Olam ha-Ba – already. They are describing a state of being, not a future reward. A ben Olam ha-Ba is someone whose mode or perception of existence is already aligned with what Olam ha-Ba is. That's their point.
We see this idea – that Olam ha-Ba refers to a state of existence in which the act of standing takes place inwardly rather than outwardly – expanded by R' Yehudah bar R' Ilai, when he was explaining the deeper or 'cosmic' meaning behind the two letters yud and hei in Hashem's name, יָ-הּ (Menachot 29b): אֵלּוּ שְׁנֵי עוֹלָמוֹת שֶׁבָּרָא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, אֶחָד בְּהֵ״י וְאֶחָד בְּיוֹ״ד … מִפְּנֵי מָה נִבְרָא הָעוֹלָם הַבָּא בְּיוֹ״ד? מִפְּנֵי שֶׁצַּדִּיקִים שֶׁבּוֹ מוּעָטִים. וּמִפְּנֵי מָה כָּפוּף רֹאשׁוֹ? מִפְּנֵי שֶׁצַּדִּיקִים שֶׁבּוֹ כָּפוּף רָאשֵׁיהֶם מִפְּנֵי מַעֲשֵׂיהֶן, שֶׁאֵינָן דּוֹמִין זֶה לָזֶה (These are two worlds that ha-Kadosh, baruch Hu, created – one with a hei and one with a yud … and why was Olam ha-Ba created with a yud? Because the tzaddikim there are few [mu'atim]. And why is its head bent? Because the tzaddikim there bend their heads because of their deeds, which are not similar one to the other). This passage is often misunderstood as a comment about numbers: few tzaddikim versus the rest of us. But that reading doesn't fit the context at all. What does 'few' have to do with bent heads? Nothing.
Therefore, meaning of mu'atim here is not exclusively numerical, but descriptive of an inward, non-grandiose perception of oneself – not mu'atim as few in number, but mu'atim as diminished or reduced in stature. The Gemara is describing Olam ha-Ba not as a world where people live as part of a crowd, but a state of existence where each person stands on his own inner merit. Each person's life is unique, which is why the Gemara says their deeds are not like the deeds of another. Olam ha-Ba is a world of inward standing, not outward movement. This fits perfectly with the Gemara at the end of Shas. There, Chazal taught us not to read life as halichah (movement), but as halachah (standing). Here, they teach us that Olam ha-Ba is a world where people are not moving as a group. Everyone is standing inwardly, independently, in their own truth – in the reality of the life that he lived.
Now let's read the Ben Yehoyada on the very last line of Shas: נראה לי בס"ד דידוע מה שאמר רבינו האר"י ז"ל מה שאמר יֵשׁ לוֹ חֵלֶק לְעוֹלָם הַבָּא הכונה שהוא נצרך לצדיקים אחרים להצטרף עמהם ואינו יכול לעשות ולעלות לבדו אבל מה שאמר 'בֶּן הָעוֹלָם הַבָּא' אינו צריך לאחרים (It seems to me, with G-d's help, that it is known from what our master the Ari, of blessed memory, said – that which it said that one has as a 'share [chelek] in Olam ha-Ba' [Sanhedrin 90a],the meaning is that he needs other righteous people to join with him, and he is not able to act and ascend by himself. But when it is said, 'ben Olam ha-Ba' he doesn't need others). This is an extraordinary statement, yet it lines up exactly with the Gemara in Menachot, although in different language and from a different perspective.
The Mishnah in Sanhedrin 90a uses the phrase chelek in Olam ha-Ba whereas the Gemara at the end of Shas uses the phrase ben Olam ha-Ba. What's the difference between having a chelek and being a ben? A chelek indicates that one has a share in something, that he belongs to something bigger than himself. He's included in a collective. He attains Olam ha-Ba because he's attached to others, to Klal Yisrael, to collective merit – because of covenant. A ben, on the other hand, is not a chelek of a larger structure – he is a whole in and of himself. His life is complete enough to stand on its own in Olam ha-Ba. He's not carried there nor does he stand there in the merit of the group.
Continuing on, the Ben Yehoyada explains the Baraita at the end of Shas: על ידי שהוא שונה הלכות שיש בהם תועלת לאחרים אז יזכה דהליכות עולם הוא סוד העליה לעולם הבא תהיה לו לבדו ולא יהיה נצרך לאחרים לסייעו ולעזרו ובין הלכות להליכות יש יו"ד שהוא סוד עולם הבא שנבראת ביו"ד ונקראת אֶרֶץ הַחַיִּים (Because he studies halachot, which have benefit for others, he merits that the halichot of the world, which is the secret of ascending to Olam ha-Ba, will be his alone, and he will not need others to assist or help him. And between halachot and halichot there is a yud, which is the secret of Olam ha-Ba that was created with a yud and is called the Land of Life). The last statement superficially sounds like he is talking about spelling. But if so, that would lead to nonsense, because the actual letter yud is in the 'wrong' word – it's in halichot, not in halachot. Therefore, how do we understand what he is saying? He is explaining two different modes of existence – life read as halichah versus life read as halachah. His point is that there is a boundary there, and that boundary is what Chazal calls the yud. The presence of an actual letter yud in the spelling of halichot is not the point at all. Rather, the yud represents the difference between the two ways of existing. And that difference is exactly the difference between having a chelek and being a ben. Having a chelek indicates belonging; being a ben reflects having a life that can stand on its own.
We can now understand R' Nachman's words in Likutei Moharan 18:6: וּשְׁלֵמוּת הָאוֹתִיּוֹת זֶה בְּחִינַת הַתַּכְלִית שֶׁל כָּל הַנִּבְרָאִים, כִּי כָּל הָעוֹלָמוֹת נִבְרְאוּ עַל־יְדֵי אוֹתִיּוֹת, וּשְׁלֵמוּת הָאוֹתִיּוֹת הוּא הַיּוּד, שֶׁהוּא בְּחִינַת עוֹלָם הַבָּא הַנִּבְרָא בְּיוּד (The completeness of the letters – this is the aspect of the ultimate purpose of all created entities, for all the worlds were created through letters, and the completeness of the letters is the yud, which is the aspect of Olam ha-Ba, which was created with the yud). This is the clearest explanation of the yud that we have seen so far. The yud is not an extra detail, but the final stroke that turns something from process into completion, from becoming into being. Without the yud, the person is in development, but with it the person exists as he truly is. This is what we've been explaining all along – the deeper meaning of Olam ha-Ba is a state of existence where something is no longer becoming, no longer striving, no longer in flux – no longer moving – where halichah ceases to have meaning. When Chazal say that Olam ha-Ba was created with a yud, they are saying that it is a reality built on completion, not on process, and the yud is the final point that makes something complete. And what exactly is the final point that makes someone complete?
It is the meaning of the yud bent downward. When explaining the deeper meaning of the yud at the back of the tefillin shel rosh, R' Natan of Breslov puts everything that we have seen into focus (Likutei Halachot, Hilchot Tefillin 6:2): וְזֶה בְּחִינַת קֶשֶׁר שֶׁל יוּד שֶׁהִזְהִירוּ רַבּוֹתֵינוּ זִכְרוֹנָם לִבְרָכָה מְאֹד שֶׁלֹּא יִתְרַחֵק ח"ו, מִן הַתְּפִלִּין, כִּי יוּד הוּא בְּחִינַת עוֹלָם הַבָּא, כְּמוֹ שֶׁאָמְרוּ רַבּוֹתֵינוּ זִכְרוֹנָם לִבְרָכָה (מְנָחוֹת כ"ט), הַיְנוּ בְּחִינַת חַיִּים נִצְחִיִּים שֶׁל עוֹלָם הַבָּא, שֶׁהוּא עֲנָוָה וְשִׁפְלוּת אֲמִתִּ (This is the aspect of the knot of the yud about which our Rabbis of blessed memory warned very strongly that it must not, chas v'shalom, become distant from the tefillin, for the yud is the aspect of Olam ha-Ba, as our Rabbis of blessed memory said [Menachot 29b], meaning the aspect of eternal life of Olam ha-Ba, which is humility and genuine shiflut). That's the bent yud, the difference between halichah and halachah.
We should now see everything clearly. Olam ha-Ba is not fireworks or even a mystical experience. It is the state of existence when a person's ego has quieted, when his need to be somebody has subsided, and when his identity is no longer built on becoming.
That inner stillness is what Chazal call eternal life. It is what R' Nachman calls the final stroke, what Ben Yehoyada calls a ben, what R' Yehudah bar R' Ilai calls inward standing, and what the end of Shas calls halachah. One idea – five expressions – all designed to help us understand a simple, yet very radical truth. Olam ha-Ba is not somewhere we go. It is a way of existing – even now – where life stops being mainly a story of becoming and becomes something we are. That is the yud. That is the ben. That is the final line of Shas.
