Celebrating Death

Next Thursday we will celebrate the passing of a great man, Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai. Why is it that a People who celebrate life and value it so greatly would celebrate the passing of this individual.

What is even more profound is that RASHBI (Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai) was the author of the Zohar, the Bible of the mystical teachings of the Torah. Furthermore, the instruction to celebrate his passing was his very own instruction delivered on his death bed.

The answer reveals to us the real purpose of life and in celebrating the passing of RASHBI we actually are celebrating life in its most profound manner.

It has been said that one of the problems with today’s Islamic terrorism is that they value heaven over earth, or they see heaven as being a better place than earth. Judaism teaches that the greatest manifestation of G-d’s power is on and in this physical earth with all of its beauty and its ugliness.

While Heaven is a lofty place with great Divine revelation one can’t do anything there. Free choice doesn’t exist there. Only on this earth where we have free choice and are challenged by the worlds ugliness can we truly connect with G-d and become G-dlike or in the image of G-d, sharing the power to choose with Gd.

Now, one can live their life and not know whether they have lived up to their true potential. We can fool ourselves to believe that we really did our best, that we made good choices, when the truth may be that we never lived up to the potential of our G-dly soul.

How many of us can look back at our lives and know that we have fulfilled the purpose of our soul descending into the physical body? On the day of the passing of RASHBI he knew, (being the G-dly person he was) that his soul had fulfilled its purpose on this earth.

We celebrate his passing because we strive to be like him to live our lives to its fullest.