NOTES for Sir 38:20

A seemingly paradoxical aphorism: it turns out that sorrow and despondency can be fought by remembering the death that awaits everyone. For most of our contemporaries, the thought of their final hour would probably cause such despondency that, by comparison, every other sorrow would seem a trifle, nonsense unworthy of attention. The author of the book probably viewed death in just this way, but with the opposite sign. For him, as for anyone else, death was the boundary beyond which everything that troubled and saddened us in this world ceases to matter, so that in this sense there will be nothing for us to grieve about after death. What follows, however, clearly depends on how one sees death. If it is the end of everything, nothing could be worse. But what if it is not? Then, of course, different possibilities remain, for what comes after death may differ. Yet the Bible says nothing at all about any retribution after death. It speaks only of the universal resurrection on the day of Judgment, when each person's fate will be decided, and decided finally. And there, at that Judgment, it may well turn out that what seemed so important to us and caused us such grief here was sheer nonsense, unworthy of our attention. What may prove important is that for which we had neither strength nor time here. Only the Torah, the commandments given by God, enables us to put everything in its proper place so that we will not have to regret it later. This makes the sacred writer's appeal understandable: when our priorities are set correctly, there will be no room for despondency in our lives. The remembrance of Judgment will simply leave it no room. Provided, of course, that Judgment is a reality for us and not an abstraction.