מיין גיהנם

(From the Sefer Divrei Torah - Munkacs)


A short synopsis:

The Gemoroh says that a Tzaddik gets burned from the Chupah that his chaver has in Olam HaBoh. We brought the Rebbe's pshat way back when. The Rebbe says that the Tzaddik is נכוה because he now sees how good his "friend" has it and he wants it too, but it's too late now. In Olam HaBoh there is no Tshuvah,, and since the Tzaddik didn't learn those Inyonim intentionally, not because he was an אונס, so he's not allowed in to that Chupah. But the Neshomoh wants it anyway, sheknows how good it is, so she gets too close to the Chupah and gets burned. It's KeDai to click the link and give a listen. Another p'shat is brought down in "Divrei Torah" of the Munkacser Rov as follows: There was a chossid - an oved Hashem b'emes - who passed away and came to the Tzaddik Reb Mendelle Rimanover zt"l - his Rebbe - and told him about his Gehennom. It seems like this chossid did have some Aveireleach - since nobody's perfect - and needn't to be atoned for them, but the aveiros were not big enough for the full-blown Gehennom, since he was such an oved Hashem, so they improvised.

At that time one of the Geonim of Galicia - name withheld - was also niftar, and he too needed to atone for some small sins, and neither were his sins big enough for the real thing - so they improvised for him too. What they did was very simple. They took the two - the Chossid and the Gaon - and they put them into one room in hell. For 12 months the chossid was screaming and davening like he would when he was alive - a flam feier. The Gaon sat down to learn בהתמדה גדולה but could not take the yelling and screaming of the pious one, and would yell at the chossid to stop davening out loud and disturb his learning. The chossid - as any good chossid would - ignored him and continued with his avodah. The Gaon's learning, on the other hand, was terribly disturbing to the chossid - not because chassidim hate learning, but - because he could not understand how a man who was sooo into learning could be sooo disturbed by davening. He was also very bothered by the Gaon's quick, quiet Tefillos, for after all, how could a man so immersed in Torah not know about the concept of Kol Atzmosai Tomarnoh, using all of your body when davening? So for him, sitting with this Gaon was nothing short of hell. And since they're both in the same Heichel/Chupah, therefore they get "burned" one from the other.

While listening to the Hespedim today I realized that I had a chelek of Gehennom on this world and self-imposed too! I'm not sure if that counts as Kaporas Aveynos, though. My own personal Gehennom. By "Gehennom" I mean a very painful situation, where like the chossid every word that came out of the mouths of the maspidim was painful to listen to. We can discuss why this is the case till the cows come home, but we can't argue facts. Maybe it's the terminology they used when referring to RNW, words like Godol HaDor in Kiruv, and Arzei HaLevanoin. It shouldn't surprise me anymore how people in that world make statements that have no connection to reality but it still never fails to. Don't get me wrong, I fargin every man his praise and his hespedim, but when you do it at the expense of young, impressionable men "off the streets," as they said over and over again, (which I'm sure the assembled must've loved, being called "off the streets") then it gets annoying, especially when at the same time they were so proud of the fact that he listened to Daas Torah, but encouraged everybody to think for himself...

I've had enough of this topic for a long time to come.