What is Karet?

(14) ונכרתה הנפש THAT SOUL SHALL BE CUT OFF — i. e. he shall depart hence childless and shall suffer an untimely death.

(1) All Jews have a share in the World to Come: I have seen [fit] to speak here about many great and especially weighty fundamentals of faith. You should know that masters of Torah have had differences of opinion regarding the good that comes to a person when he does the commandments that God commanded us through Moshe, peace be upon him, and regarding the bad that will find him if he transgresses them - very many disagreements according to the difference in their intellects. And the reasonings about them have become greatly confused to the point that you will almost not find anywhere a man for whom this matter is clear. And you will not find a definitive thing about it with any person, excepting with much confusion: The [first] group reasons that the good is the Garden of Eden and that it is place where one eats and drinks without physical exertion and without effort; and that there [one finds] houses of precious stones and beds fitted with silk and rivers that flow with wine and fragrant oils and many things of this type. And [they reason] that the bad is Gehinnom and it is a place burning with fire, in which bodies are burned and people are afflicted with all types of afflictions, that are recounted at length. And this group has brought a proof for their reasoning from the words of our rabbis, may their memory be blessed, and from verses of Scripture, the simple meaning of which - completely or partially - fits with what they are saying. And the second group reasons and thinks that the anticipated good is the days of the Messiah - may it speedily be revealed - and that in that time, people will all be angels, all living and existing forever and they will become of larger stature and multiply and be powerful until they inhabit the whole world forever. And that Messiah - according to their thinking - will live [forever] with the help of God, may He be blessed. And [they reason] that in those days the earth will produce woven clothes and baked bread and many such things which are impossible. And [they also reason] that the bad is that a person not be in existence during those days and not merit to see it. And they bring a proof from many statements that are found with the sages and from many verses in Scripture, the simple meaning of which is in agreement with what they are saying or with some of it. And the third group will think that the good that is hoped for is the revival of the dead, and that is that a person will come to life after his death and will come back, together with his relatives and the members of his household and eat and drink; and that he will not die again. And [they think] that the bad is that he will not come to life after his death, together with the ones that come back to life. And they bring a proof for this from many statements that are found in the words of the sages and from many verses in Scripture, the simple meaning of which indicates what they are saying or some of it. And the fourth group will think that the intention of that which is to come to us for doing the commandments is physical rest and the attainment of worldly desires in this world, like the fat of the lands and many properties and many children and physical health and peace and security, and that the king will be from Israel and that we will rule over the ones that troubled us. And [they think] that the bad that gets to us if we deny the Torah is the opposite of these things, like that which we [experience] today during the time of the exile. And they bring a proof - according to their reasoning- from all of the verses in the Torah, and the curses and the rest from all of the stories that are written in Scripture. And the fifth group - and they are many - join all of these matters together and say that that which is anticipated is that the Messiah will come and bring the dead back to life, and they will enter the Garden of Eden, and they will eat there and drink and be healthy all the days of the world. But [about] this amazing issue - I mean, the world to come - you will find few that in any fashion brings it to his mind to think [about it] or [ponder over] this fundamental or determine upon which matter this word applies - if it is the objective or one of the previous opinions is the objective; or to differentiate between the objective and and the cause that leads to the objective. Rather what the entire people - the masses and the intelligentsia - ask about is how the dead will arise - naked or dressed; and whether they will arise with the same shrouds with which they were buried, with their embroidery and designs and beautiful stitchery, or with a cloak that only covers their bodies? [And they ask] when the Messiah will come whether there will be rich and poor and if there will be the strong and the weak in his days, and many question like these, all the time. And you who looks into this book, understand this parable that I am drawing for you and then prepare your heart and listen to my words about all of this. Place it in your mind that when a they bring a young boy to a teacher to teach him Torah - and that is the greatest good for him as to what he can attain of wholeness - but due to his few years and the weakness of his intellect, he does not understand the level of this good and that which will come to him of wholeness from it. And therefore it is necessary perforce for the teacher who is more whole than he to encourage the study with things that are beloved to him due to the smallness of his years. And [so] he says to him, "Read and I will give you nuts or figs, and I will give you a little honey." And through this he will read and exert himself; not for the actual reading, as he does not know its value, but rather so that they will give him that food. And the eating of these delights is more precious in his eyes than the reading and great good, without a doubt, and so he thinks of the study as labor and effort; and he labors in it so that he will receive through this labor the objective that is beloved to him, and that is a nut or a piece of honey. And when he grows and his intellect becomes stronger and that thing that was (that will be) weighty for him before becomes light in his eyes and he goes to loving something else, they encourage him and arouse his desire for that thing that is beloved to him.And his teacher says to him, "Read and I will buy you fine shoes or lovely clothes." And through this, he makes efforts to read, not for the actual study, but rather for that garment, and that clothing is more weighty in his eyes than the Torah. And that is for him the objective of its reading. And when he becomes more whole in his intellect and this thing becomes negligible in his eyes, [his teacher] will also place his mind on that which is greater than this. And than his master will tell him, "Learn this section or this chapter and I will give you a dinar or two dinars" And through this, he reads and exerts himself to get that money - and for him, that money is more weighty than the study, since the objective of the study for him is that he get the gold that they promised him for it. And when his intellect is greater and this amount becomes light in his eyes and and he knows that this is something insignificant, he will desire that which is weightier this this. And his master will tell him, "Study so that you will be a leader and judge and people will honor you and rise in front of you like with so and so and so and so." And he will read and exert himself in order to achieve this stature and the objective will be the honor that people will honor him and raise him up and praise him. And all of this is despicable. And, nonetheless, it is necessary because of the smallness of the human intellect that he make the objective of wisdom something else besides wisdom, and say for what thing he is learning, and that is that honor will come to him. And this is [making] a laughingstock of the truth. And about such study the sages say it is not for its sake, meaning that he does the commandments and studies and exerts himself in Torah, not for that thing itself, but rather for the sake of something else. And the sages warned us about this and said, (Avot 4:5), "Do not make it [the Torah] into a crown with which to aggrandize yourself, and not into a spade with which to dig into them." And they are hinting to that which I have explained to you; that there is no [ulterior] objective to wisdom - not to receive honor from people and not to earn money - and [so] one should not be involved in the Torah of God, may he be blessed, to earn money, and there should not be an [ulterior] objective for him in the study of wisdom, except only to know it. And so [too] there is no objective to the truth except that he knows it is the truth and that the Torah is the truth and the objective of its knowledge is to do [what is in] it. And it is forbidden for a whole person to say, "When I do these commandments, which are good character traits, and I distance myself form sins, which are bad character traits, that God, may He be blessed, commanded not to do, what is the reward that I will receive for it?" As this is like that which the child will say, "When I read this, what will they give to me?" And they will say, "Such and such a thing." As when we see the smallness of his intellect that he doesn't understand the size [of what he is involved in], and we see that he asks for another objective, we answer him according to his foolishness; as it is stated (Proverbs 26:5), "Answer a fool according to his foolishness." And the sages have already warned about this as well; that is to say that a person should not render any thing of the [various] things to be the objective of his service to God, may He be blessed, and the performance of the commandments. And this is what the complete man who grasped the truth of [these] things, Antigonos, the man of Sokho, said (Avot 1:3), "Do not be as servants who are serving the master in order to receive a reward, rather be as servants who are serving the master not in order to receive a reward." And indeed he wanted to say with this that one should believe in the truth for the sake of the truth; and this is the matter they call, 'one who serves from love.' And they said, may their memory be blessed (Avodah Zarah 19a), "'His commandments desire greatly' (Psalms 112:1) - Rabbi Eliezer said, 'His commandments and not the reward of His commandments.'" And how lucid is this and it is a clear proof for that which we have [written] above in the essay. And even greater than this is what they said in the Sifrei on Deuteronomy 11:13, "Lest you say, 'Behold, I am learning Torah so that I will be rich; so that I will be called, rabbi; so that I will receive reward in the world to come'; [for this reason] does the statement teach, 'to love the Lord, your God' - everything that you do, only do it out of love." Behold, this matter has been clarified to you, and it has become clear that it the intention of the Torah and the foundation of the intention of the sages, peace be upon them. And only a crazed fool will ignore this, because silly thoughts and bad ideas have corrupted him and mixed him up. And this is the level of Avraham, our father - peace be upon him (Sotah 31a) - as he served from love. And towards this path, it is fitting that there be arousal. And since the sages, may their memory be blessed, knew that this is a very difficult matter - and not every person can grasp it, and if he grasps it, he doesn't agree with it at the beginning of the matter, and reasons that it is not a clear belief; since a person will only do an act in order to achieve a goal or to prevent a loss, and if it is not so, that matter will be futile and empty for him; [so] how can you say to one who follows the Torah, "Do these acts and don't do [other] ones," not for the fear of punishment from God, may He be blessed, and not to inherit a goodly reward. This is a very difficult thing, since not all people grasp the truth to the point that they [reach the understanding of] Avraham, our father - peace be upon him. And therefore they permitted the masses - so that their faith will sit well - to do the commandments with the hope of reward and to separate from the sins from the fear of punishment. And we encourage them about this and strengthen their intentions [to do the commandments out of ulterior motives], until he grasps and knows what is the truth and the complete way, as we do with a child at the time that he studies, as we have brought in the parable. And they blamed Antigonos, the man of Sokho, about his explaining what he explained to the masses, and they said about this, "Be careful with your words," as is explained in Avot 1:11. And the masses do not lose everything by their doing the commandments out of fear of punishment and hope for reward, except that [their performance] will not be complete. And nonetheless it is good for them, so that they have the ability and habit and effort of fulfilling the Torah. And from this they will be aroused to know the truth and they will turn into those that serve from love. And this is what they said, may their memory be blessed (Sanhedrin 105b), "Truly, a person should be involved in Torah and even not for its sake, as from 'not for its sake,' comes 'for its sake." And it is from that which you must know that [with regards] to the words of the sages, may their memory be blessed, people are divided into three groups: The first - and it is most of what I have seen and of the essays that I have seen and of what I have have heard about - believes them according to their simple meaning and does not reason that they have any sort of esoteric meaning. And for them, the impossible things must correspond to reality. However they do this as a result of their not understanding wisdom, and they are far from the sciences and they do not have wholeness so that they be aroused on their own and they did not find someone to arouse them. [These people] hold that the sages, may their memory be blessed, only intended in all of their straight and sweet words what they understood according to their intellect from them, and that they are according to their simple meaning; and even though that which appears in some of their words is repulsive and that which pushes the intellect away; to the point that if it would be recounted to the unlettered - and all the more so to the wise - they would wonder in their pondering over them and say, "How is it possible that there is someone in the world that thinks like this or believes that it is a correct belief - all the more so, that it is good in their eyes?" And one should be pained about the foolishness of this group of simple-minded ones, as according to their opinion, they are honoring and raising the sages, but they are [in fact] lowering them to the lowest depths; and they do not understand this. And as God, may He be blessed, lives, this group destroys the beauty of the Torah and darkens its splendor and makes the Torah of God the opposite of its intention. As God, my He be blessed, said in the perfect Torah (Deuteronomy 4:6), "that they should observe all of these statutes and they shall say, 'This is certainly a wise and understanding people, this great nation.'" And this group recounts the simple words of the sages, may their memory be blessed, that which when the other nations hear it, they say, "This is certainly a foolish and silly people, this small nation." And the ones that do this the most are the preachers that explain inform the masses of the people about that which they [themselves] do not know. And were it only that since they did not know and understand, they would be quiet, as it is said (Job 13:5), "Were it only that you would be silent, and it will be considered wisdom for you"; or that they would say, "We do not understand the intention of the sages in this statement and not how it is to be explained." But [instead], they think that they understand it and attempt to inform [about] it, to explain to the people what they understood according to their weak intellects - not that which the sages said - and they preach at the heads of the people the homilies from Tractate Berakhot and from the chapter [entitled] Chelek and from others, according to their simple meanings, word for word. And the second group is also numerous, and they are the ones that saw the words of the sages or heard them and understood them according to their simple meaning and thought that the sages did not intend in them anything more than that which is indicated the simple [understanding]; and they come to make them foolish and to disgrace them and to bring ill-repute to that which has no ill repute, and they mock the words of the sages. And [they believe that] they are more refined in their intellect than [the sages], and that they, peace be upon them, were stupid, simple-minded fools regarding all of existence; to the point that they did not grasp matters of wisdom in any way. And most of those that stumble in this error are those with pretense to the medical sciences and those that carry on about the laws of the constellations, since they are - according to the their thinking - understanding and wise in their [own] eyes and sharp and philosophers. And how far are they from humanity according to those that are truly wise and philosophers. Rather, they are more foolish than the the first group, and many of them are idiots. And it is an accursed group, since they question great and lofty people, whose wisdom was already made clear to the wise. And were these idiots to exert themselves in the sciences to the point that they would know how it is proper to organize and write things in the science of theology and things which are similar to it for the masses and for the wise, and they would understand applied philosophy; then they would understand if the sages, may their memory be blessed, were wise or not; and the matter of their words would be elucidated for them.