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Rabbi Haim once ascended to the firmaments to see the difference between the worlds. He first visited Gehenna (Hell). He saw a vast hall with long tables cover
by jack_pp 9mo ago
Rabbi Haim once ascended to the firmaments to see the difference between the worlds. He first visited Gehenna (Hell).
He saw a vast hall with long tables covered in the most magnificent foods. But the people sitting there were skeletal and wailing in agony. As the Rabbi looked closer, he saw that every person had wooden slats splinted to their arms, stretching from their shoulders to their wrists. Their arms were perfectly straight and stiff; they could pick up a spoon, but they could not bend their elbows to bring the food to their own mouths. They sat in front of a feast, starving in bitterness.
The Rabbi then visited Gan Eden (Heaven). To his surprise, he saw the exact same hall, the same tables, and the same magnificent food. Even more shocking, the people there also had wooden slats splinted to their arms, keeping them from bending their elbows.
But here, the hall was filled with laughter and song. The people were well-fed and glowing. As the Rabbi watched, he saw a man fill his spoon and reach across the table, placing the food into the mouth of the man sitting opposite him. That man, in turn, filled his spoon and fed his friend.
The Rabbi returned to Hell and whispered to one of the starving men, "You do not have to starve! Reach across and feed your neighbor, and he will feed you."
The man in Hell looked at him with spite and replied, "What? You expect me to feed that fool across from me? I would rather starve than give him the pleasure of a full belly!"
- treetalker 9mo agoThe Judeo–Christian God really has a thing for attaching people to wood.
- znnajdla 9mo ago[dead]
- embedding-shape 9mo agoLong time ago I did my confirmation (ex-protestant), but I seem to recall that wood is used a lot because it's a symbolism to man's mortality and frailty. Then after/with the crucifixion it also became a symbol of sacrifice and redemption in connection to mortality and frailty. But someone who remembers their studies better might offer a better explanation to why it's so popular.
- huhkerrf 9mo agoTrees are big in the Torah and Bible generally. The Bible Project did a whole series on trees in the Bible. You've got the Tree of Life, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, the cross, the tree in the book of Jonah, the fig tree, the parable of the vine and the branches, etc.. It all makes sense for a religion steeped in a desert culture. Trees are (relatively) rare, and what they offer is incredibly important and life giving.
- colechristensen 9mo agoTrees are big in all sorts of mythologies. Primates like trees.
- gherkinnn 9mo agoIn Norse mythology the first man Ask was carved out of a piece of ash tree and the first woman Embla out of a piece of elm. Ash is a good choice for tool handles and elm for constructing homes.
- m463 9mo agoBecause modern building materials like concrete weren't as popular?
- b3ing 8mo agoThe Romans had concrete and the Greeks had something similar but less advanced
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- lo_zamoyski 9mo agoHumor aside, to appreciate these recurring themes, if you will, requires knowledge of, e.g., typology. Here, the cross with Christ nailed to it is transfigured into the new Tree of Life. Other important typologies are Christ as the new Adam, Mary as the new Eve, and Mary through her womb as the new Ark of the New Covenant. Noah's ark and the Ark of the Covenant are not called arks coincidentally, either. And the Church is often called the Barque of Peter.
- CrimsonRain 9mo agothank you for sharing
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- testing22321 9mo agoI can’t help thinking this applies to universal healthcare in the US. It would be cheaper and get better outcomes, but is still opposed because “working together is socialism” Meta: downvotes to prove my point.
- mionhe 9mo agoMeta: down votes here prove no such thing. If you are downvoted it's because you read the article that had nothing to do with politics, the comment on a vision of heaven and hell that had nothing to do with politics, and then you made it about something that is very politicized in the US. Both the article and comment you commented on eschewed a trite political message and tried to say something real and human.
- E39M5S62 9mo agoUniversal healthcare is real and human. If we can't use an article to inform how we think about current problems, what's the point of it?
- bigstrat2003 9mo agoBut the parent wasn't doing that. He was just taking the opportunity to dunk on his outgroup, by insinuating that people who are opposed to universal healthcare are selfish people who would rather hurt themselves than help others (which you will see is patently untrue if you actually get to know those people, but I digress). If the parent had instead chosen to give a thoughtful response focusing more on a positive message (say, exploring how we should do more to help others and how universal healthcare can be a facet of that), that would've been fine. But yet another post of "my outgroup is evil" doesn't teach us anything or lead to good discussion.
- testing22321 9mo ago> insinuating that people who are opposed to universal healthcare are selfish people who would rather hurt themselves than help others Please educate me. What possible reason is there to oppose universal healthcare? Please keep in mind that factually it’s cheaper and results in better outcomes in every developed country in the world.
- PlatoIsADisease 9mo agoThis is somewhat a variant of the cooperate situation in the prisoners dilemma. I find it interesting to dress it up in religion, because the optimal situation is to defect, and if everyone knows the game, you get a worse outcome. Religion can cause people to be selfless and you get a better outcome for most people. I've always thought to teach people religion, but defect yourself. In a modern secular world, teach everyone ascetic stoicism. Myself, follow some sort of Machiavellian/Nietzsche/hedonism.
- lo_zamoyski 9mo agoSo you're a liar and degenerate psychopath.
- vacuity 9mo agoThe optimal decision in the Prisoner's Dilemma is to defect, but in the iterated version, where multiple Dilemmas occur and people remember previous results, Tit-For-Tat is optimal. The real world is even less reminiscent of the Dilemma, so it's not at all clear that the Dilemma's conclusion applies. (Tit-For-Tat: Prefer cooperating, but if the other person defected on the previous turn, defect on the current turn.)
- dragonwriter 9mo ago> The optimal decision in the Prisoner's Dilemma is to defect, but in the iterated version, where multiple Dilemmas occur and people remember previous results, Tit-For-Tat is optimal. That’s not true. There is no optimal strategy in iterated Prisoner's Dilemma in the sense that defection is optimal in the single-round version; Tit-for-Tat performs well in certain conditions in iterated Prisoner's Dilemma, and less well in others (dependent particularly on the strategies played on the other side); in single-round, defection always produces a better outcome than defection independently of the choice made against it.
- vacuity 8mo agoPerhaps I am wrong about Tit-for-Tat. It's been a while since I checked my source. In any case, my point (not to say that you deny it) is not to take any result in an idealized game too literally, and that consistent defection is bad.
- barbazoo 9mo agoHell is only hell because of the people in it. I like the idea of being among likespirited people in the afterlife.