Q&A: Trial
Trial
Question
Hello Rabbi,
1) Is it really true that the Holy One, blessed be He, does not put a person through a trial they cannot withstand? How should we look at cases where, for example, a person becomes ill or even dies from grief, or decides to commit suicide because of something that happened to them? Does that still fall into the category of trials they could have withstood? What is the general approach to this issue?
2) Near-death experiences / clinical death — I saw a series (real, not staged) called Surviving Death, and it talks about clinical death, but among non-Jews. They speak with a medium, communicate with the dead, and show various recordings that supposedly show the spirit of that relative trying to communicate (yes, you could say it’s not for the faint of heart…). What’s interesting is that those spirits say (through the medium) that things are good for them and that they are in a good place. If that’s true, then non-Jews also have a Gan Eden, or some kind of soul, right? Even if the experience of clinical death points to something supernatural, or to the World to Come, or to a soul, non-Jews experience it too. In what way are we Jews different from them?
Answer
1. Questions of this kind do not have a clear answer. Anyone can tell you what they think, but nobody actually has information. When a person commits suicide, that does not necessarily mean they could not have withstood it. It is possible that they could have, and failed (they were too weak, but could have strengthened themselves and overcome it). In every intentional transgression, whether in Jewish law or in general law, that is the situation. A person fails, but the assumption is that they could have avoided failing. The Talmud in Ketubot 33b says that if Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah had been flogged instead of merely being threatened with death, they would not have withstood the trial (because those are ongoing sufferings until one gives in). So there are situations that cannot be endured. However, there they really were not put to that test, and one could argue that this is because a person is not put through a trial they cannot withstand. In short, I do not think you will find an answer to this question.
2. Who said non-Jews do not have survival of the soul? Do you really think that is the difference between a Jew and a non-Jew? The difference is that a Jew is obligated in commandments and a non-Jew is not (aside from their seven). As I understand it, the difference is not in physiology, nor in the soul, nor in anything else. All claims about such differences are like the claims in the previous section. We have a different mission from theirs, but that does not mean that we ourselves are different from them in some intrinsic way.
As for those reports themselves, I am usually very skeptical about them. But I have not seen or examined them.