“My beloved has gone down to his garden, to the spice beds,
to feed in the gardens and to gather roses.”
This verse is from the legendary Song of Songs by King
Solomon. The Rabbis taught: “all the ages are not worth the day on which the
Song of Songs was given to Israel; for all the writings are holy, but the Song
of Songs is the Holy of Holies.”
King Solomon, “the wisest of all men”, captures the special
bond and love between G-d and His people through the metaphor and imagery that
we can better relate to, and that is, the love between a loving husband and his
wife.
The above verse is often quoted when offering comfort to
loved ones who experienced the death of a child. (May G-d save us) The all
merciful G-d, picks the nicest and best from the garden.
“It is better a whiff of the world to come, than all the
life of this world.” If anyone was to accumulate all the pleasure and enjoyment
in all of human existence, it would not reach the delight in just a scent of
the world to come.
Nowadays, especially with past life regression hypnosis, it
has become easier for many to accept what the great Mystics have been teaching
for thousands of years. A person is a soul enclothed in his body. We, are not
our bodies. We are souls, which animate and live while we are here in this
temporary existence, in a physical body.
With so much being written lately on near-death experiences
and the afterlife, by people of all backgrounds and disciplines, for anyone
with open eyes and ready to accept reality, it becomes pretty apparent that the
soul goes places after it leaves the body. The soul is still very much aware of
itself and all that is around itself.
The book of prophets relates how King Saul out of
desperation did the wrong thing and consulted a medium to bring up the soul of
Samuel. When that happened, Samuel the prophet said, “Why have you disturbed me
by bringing me up?”
The message and picture we are forming from the above is that
when someone passes on, they are not dead as in, that’s the end of them. That
is why we use the expression “he passed away” rather than died. The body
returns back to its source in the ground as the Bible tell us, “you are dust
and to dust you shall return.” The soul returns back to its source, “to G-d who
granted it…” which is all bliss. In that
pure and clear world everything is understood, and to the soul there are no
questions or sadness.
In truth, the real pain when someone dear passes away is to those
who from our limited perspective don’t see the whole picture. Picking the rose may have saved the rest of
the garden. To us, who can only experience past, present, and future, we never
can see the whole picture and at this moment the separation hurts. To us mere
mortals it appears like something bad and negative, something unfair just took
place.
That is why the laws of mourning instruct us to cry over the
loss of a loved one and we must recognize the limited truth from our
perspective. But even so the law tells us, we must limit our mourning and
sadness. At a certain point we must also recognize the real and eternal truth.
As far as the soul is concerned, it is in a better place. At a certain point,
instead of looking at the temporary separation we must begin looking forward to
the time when all souls will be re-united.
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