Q&A: The Sages
The Sages
Question
Hello Rabbi, I’ve seen many times that you relate to the Sages as wise people, but like us, people who can make mistakes. But what is hard for me is that there are many passages in the Talmud and sayings of the Sages that deal with the World to Come. You say about that: how could they know? Therefore we should not accept their words. So I want to ask you: if they had no way of knowing and still wrote about it, then maybe they were not all that wise. At any rate, either they were less wise than you, since you would not write so many things without knowing, or necessarily their wisdom was vastly greater than yours. In short, either they were far inferior to you or far superior.
Answer
They wrote things based on their reasoning, and in matters of reasoning even wise people can make mistakes. Beyond that, sometimes they speak in parables. I do not know whether they are greater than me or less than me.
Discussion on Answer
There definitely are indications, and it is possible to discuss it. For example, if one assumes that a person has a non-material component (a soul) that does not perish with death, one can infer that it moves on to some other phase (the World to Come). And from considerations of reward and punishment and divine justice, one can infer that there is reward there (Gan Eden) and punishment (Gehinnom). The more specific descriptions may also be interpretive teachings and metaphors.
And still, none of these considerations carries decisive weight in favor of one model or another. We have not gotten beyond mere reasoning.
But speculative discussion about matters of the World to Come and the like is the kind of reasoning for which there is no indication at all to discuss it, and that shows that either these are people you cannot disagree with, or fools.