Q&A: A Son Is His Father's Leg
A Son Is His Father's Leg
Question
Hello Rabbi,
I wanted to ask about the common practice of learning Torah for the elevation of the soul / for the recovery of specific people.
Is there any benefit in this, or is it only the commandments a person performs in his lifetime and by himself that help him?
Similarly, what is the force and significance of the Kaddish that a mourner says, what is its source, and if its purpose is to benefit the deceased, then if it is not really possible to credit someone with commandments, is there no point in saying it?
Answer
I also wonder whether there is any point in learning for the elevation of someone's soul. Maybe the fact that people learn in his memory gives him merit because he caused a good deed to happen in the world. But in my opinion, after he dies his state is already fixed, and he is supposed to be judged according to his condition at the time of death.
The wording of the Kaddish does not look like something said for the benefit of the deceased. It is an acceptance of the judgment, praise, and a request to the Holy One, blessed be He, for redemption.
Discussion on Answer
There's one point in your outlook that I really don't understand, Rabbi Michi.
Why shouldn't we say that it's possible to benefit a person in the World to Come through study, just as it's possible to benefit him in this world by feeding him?
Rather, what? According to my understanding, your view is that it is "unfair" for him to receive reward for something he didn't do. So even if a person can receive benefits in this world, in the World to Come everything will be offset so that everyone gets the same starting point, and from there it all depends solely on the person's own good or bad choices. Otherwise there is no justice. That's how I understand you.
There is logic to that, but if so I really don't understand: how is it that you sometimes cast doubt on the existence of the World to Come? Meaning, if you assume that God acts justly, as justice is understood by us, then surely there must be a World to Come in order to offset the excess pleasures or suffering that people received not as the fruit of their actions. And if there is not necessarily a World to Come — far be it from me to say so; I'm speaking according to your view — then God acts unjustly, as we understand it, since people began from different starting points and these were not offset. So why is it hard for you to agree that if there is a World to Come, it would be possible to benefit someone there even though it is not according to his deeds?
It's not hard for me at all. On the contrary, I've written several times already that reason suggests there is. But that's reasoning, not necessarily information from Sinai. And of course, the details of what and how things happen there are also highly questionable.
The details.
It is stated in tractate Zevahim (9b): "Rav said in the name of Mevug: If one slaughtered a sin-offering with the intention that Nahshon ben Amminadav should gain atonement through it, the slaughter is valid, because there is no atonement for the dead"; and even though the sin-offering has thereby been diverted from its owner, this is not considered a change of ownership. Maimonides ruled likewise in the Laws of Disqualified Consecrated Offerings (15:10), and this is his wording: "If he slaughtered it for the sake of a dead person, it is valid but it did not count for the owner, because there is no atonement for the dead."
Maimonides, in his commentary to Pirkei Avot (4:22):
"We have already explained in the tenth chapter of Sanhedrin that after death there is no perfection and no addition. A person acquires perfection and adds virtue only in this world, and to this Solomon alluded when he said: 'Whatever your hand finds to do with your strength, do it; for there is no deed, nor calculation, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, where you are going' [Ecclesiastes 9:10]. Rather, in the very state in which a person goes, in that state he remains forever."
One thing seems pretty clear to me: even if learning in someone's memory helps, that would only be if you add special learning beyond your regular study. To dedicate a class that was going to be learned anyway to the elevation of someone's soul seems to me just plain nonsense.