Sep 25, 2015

Yes Scare Tactics

follow-up to previous post

According to R' Avigdor Miller z'l:

"We have to know that there's a dread of Hashem.  This includes the fear of facing Him in the World to Come, coming face-to-face with Him, the greatest dread of all.  One of the functions of this dread is to think of Gehinom. Every Jew must train himself to put into his thoughts as a permanent addition that there is a fearsome Gehinom going on all the time.  There is nothing as bad as Gehinom.  Whatever people have suffered in this world, even the crematoriums, the concentration camps, the gas chambers, is nothing compared to Gehinom.  There are some denizens of Gehinom who have always been there, reshaim of the nations who caused the Jewish people to suffer, and are there right now screaming in eternal, terrible pain.  Being aware of that is part of our emuna; just like we believe in Hashem, we have to believe in Gehinom.

"Of course we have to be convinced there is a Gan Eden too, but when we talk about pachad (as we do in the Rosh Hashana davening), part of our fear is directed at Gehinom."

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