THE WORLD TO COME – WHAT ABOUT BNEI NOACH?

בס”ד

● Two ideas (World to Come)
- 1. After death (Gan Eden)
  - Sometimes called “World to come” because it comes after life. But it is found also now.
- 2. Final state of creation (Mashiach / Resurrection of the Dead)
● Why doesn’t the Torah mention it?
- The Torah talks to the majority of people (Abarbarel Parshat Bechukotai explanation #7)
- It’s impossible to understand it (Rambam, Laws of Teshuva 8:6)
- The main objective is life is to attach to G-d in this world
● Mishna (Pirkei Avot)
- “This world is only as an entranceway before the World to Come.”(4:16)
- “One moment of spiritual bliss in the World to Come is greater than the entire life of this world” (4:17)

Rambam (Maimonides)
- “Just as the blind can’t perceive colors, the deaf voices etc. in the same way the body can’t perceive the pleasures of the souls in the World to Come, for they are constant and eternal… The souls will understand G-d. After resurrection of the dead, all will die (commentary to the Mishna, Sanhedrin).
Ramban (Nachmanides)
- Even though the Gan Eden is an amazing pleasure, it is only temporary, and the final objective is the pleasure on G-d on the resurrection itself, and that is the World to Come (Sefer Shaar HaGemul at the end).
Chassidut
- The mystics go according to Ramban on this (Likutei Torah, Tzav, 15c)

Gan Eden (Paradise)
- The reward of Learning Torah is the Gan Eden. –
- Rama de Fano: Learning Torah is a Mitzvah for Bnei Noach (Asara Maamarot, maamar chikur din, 3:21). –
- Rabbi Meir would say: From where is it derived that even a gentile who engages in Torah study is considered like a High Priest? It is derived from that which is stated: “You shall therefore keep My statutes and My ordinances, which if a man does he shall live by them” (Leviticus 18:5). The phrase: Which if priests, Levites, and Israelites do they shall live by them, is not stated, but rather: “A man,” which indicates mankind in general. You have therefore learned that even a gentile who engages in Torah study is considered like a High Priest (Talmud Sanhedrin 59a)

Midrash
- In the future G-d will inherit the World to Come to the “pious among the gentiles” and they will be priests to G-d (Yalkut Shimoni, Ishaya 429)
Rambam
- Anyone who accepts upon himself the fulfillment of these seven Mitzvot and is precise in their observance is considered one of “the pious among the gentiles” and will merit a share in the world to come. This applies only when he accepts them and fulfills them because the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded them in the Torah and informed us through Moses, our teacher, that Noah’s descendants had been commanded to fulfill them previously. However, if he fulfills them out of intellectual conviction, he is not a resident alien, nor of “the pious among the gentiles,” nor of their wise men (Laws of Kings, 8:11)
Zohar
- All gentiles that do Teshuva and separate from idolatry and from transgressions, G-d will put in him a holy ruach and a holy nefesh. And therefore he has a portion in the World to Come. But not with the Jews, rather a portion by itself, and a world by itself (Zohar Chadash, Rut, 96a (168)).

Not only Israel, but the “pious among the gentiles” also have a portion in the World to Come and the Resurrection of death”

Tanach

“May Your dead live; may my dead bodies rise. Awake and sing, those who dwell in the earth, for Your dew is the dew of lights…” (Ishaya 26:19)

“Many of those who sleep in the ground will rise, some to eternal life, and some to shame, to everlasting abhorrence.” (Daniel 12:2)

Principle of Judaisme (#13)

Bnei Noach

Midrash
- “Resurrection of death is for Israel, not for idolaters” (Bereshit Rabba 13:6)

Commentary of Iefe Toar

Not only Israel, but the “pious among the gentiles” also have a portion in the World to Come and the
Resurrection of death”

By Rabbi Tuvia Serber

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