In Mesichta Nedarim (64b) we read the following braisa: Four people are considered like dead: a poor man, a leper, a blind man, and one who has no children. Four people who are alive but there’s something there, a common denominator, that makes them as if they were dead.
Now, if we’re going to make sense of this maamar we must first of all try to understand what’s so bad about being a meis? What is it that a dead man does not possess that people who are living do possess?
So the superficial thinker will right away say that life means the ability to eat and to breathe and everything else that a dead person can’t do. But that can’t be it. These four still have that; that’s not what life is about — those are just functions of living. Breathing is merely a requirement for living, to oxygenate the blood. Eating? Appetite is only an inducement to get you to refuel. In order to lure you to the filling station, Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives you an appetite.
So what we consider ‘living’ are actually just examples of the functions that sustain life. But the question is what is it that makes life so special, so valuable? Because actually it’s not so bad to be dead; the neshamah continues to live anyhow. Who cares about eating and drinking and breathing if you go to Gan Eden and you enjoy all the delights of Olam Haba. What's so good about being alive?! What is it that the meis is missing?
My Life, My Choice
The answer is one thing. There’s one tremendous gift, a unique jewel that the meis loses when he leaves this world and that’s the gift of free will. Bechirah; the ability to choose! That’s the segulas hachaim; that’s the diamond which life offers us. The opportunity to choose between good and bad, between good and better, and between better and even better.
Once a man dies, that great gift dies along with him. All you can do now is get reward. The man in the grave can't accomplish anything anymore. No more opportunities.
Shlomo Hamelech says that. In Koheles (9:4) we read the following verse: Anyone who is connected to all the living, there is hope. Bitachon means confidence, hope; something to look forward to. If you’re still alive so there is still hope.
But if we look at this possuk – it's always worthwhile looking at the verse inside – we’ll see that there’s more to the possuk than that. Because there’s a kri and a kesiv there; it means that there’s a way that we say the possuk, but there’s another way that it’s written. Instead of yud ches beis reish, it's written yud beis ches reish.
Ooh, it looks like an error, like somebody in a hurry transposed the letters. But that wouldn't be a kesiv. If it was an error, it would never be perpetuated. And here it's preserved – Koheles intended that we should study both the kri and the kesiv. Like this: What’s the bitachon, the hope, of one who is connected to the living? It’s because he can still choose with all the living. If you have the ability to choose with your free will, that’s the value of life. Otherwise, as great as you were in this world, once you leave this world you lose that great opportunity, the privilege, the gem that made life valuable.
The Lion and the Dog
Now, in order to emphasize this principle – after all, it’s a most important principle; it’s the purpose of life – Shlomo Hamelech adds there a few more words to end the possuk.
For a living dog is better than a dead lion. Now these words seem to us entirely unnecessary. Everyone understands a dead lion is dead. It’s carrion, dead refuse, whereas a living dog is alive. Of course, the live dog is better. A wild dog in the jungle will eat a dead lion. It's superfluous.
But listen to the incident that Shlomo Hamelech was actually describing here. In Mesichta Shabbos the Gemara tells us what took place on the day that Dovid Hamelech passed away. He passed away on Shabbos and he fell dead in his garden. The details of that story are interesting and you can read it in Mesichta Shabbos, daf lamed amud beis, but we begin in the middle of that story.
Life and Death Shailos
Dovid Hamelech is lying dead in his garden and it’s Shabbos. It’s summertime too and a dead body in the summer sun is going to be affected by the heat. And so the Gemara says that on that day Shlomo Hamelech sent two inquiries to the Chachmei Sanhedrin; two questions he inquired of the Torah Sages.
First, my father is dead and he is lying in the sun. “So what's the din? Am I permitted to move him into the shade?”
The second question he sent was, “The dogs of my father’s house are hungry. I’m responsible now for them and I want to know if it’s permitted for me to cut up a dead carcass of an animal in order to feed them?”
So the Sanhedrin replied: “You can cut up the animal carcass to feed your dogs and your father you cannot move.” That was the psak: ‘Your father's body you cannot move on Shabbos. It's muktzeh. But for the sake of the dogs, you can cut up an animal carcass.’
Staging a Scene
Now this whole story was just a mashal. Shlomo didn't actually have to ask any questions of Sanhedrin; he knew the answers very well. He just wanted a parable; he wanted to make a public demonstration.
The people were there; they were walking by, looking to see what’s doing with their beloved king. “Look,” Shlomo said to them. “My father! The great lion, the hero of the Jewish nation who overcame all of our enemies on all sides and conquered all of Eretz Yisroel! The lion who authored Tehillim! The lion who prepared the entire plan for the Beis Hamikdash! And many other things he accomplished for the Jewish people and now he’s lying dead. The tzaddik Dovid Hamelech, the great lion, is lying dead in the hot sun. But you can’t move him on Shabbos. He doesn’t get that consideration.”
But what is this we see that these servants are hastening now with knives and with bowls? That’s what the people were saying. Where are they going? To service the dogs; they're going to cut up meat for living dogs.
Thunderbolt of Daas
It was a tremendous demonstration, a thunderbolt – it hit the people between the eyes. Even Shlomo felt it in his bones! “My father, as great as a lion he was, we cannot move him. And the reason is that once a man dies he has lost everything that made him great: his free will.”
Of course, Dovid himself is in the Next World enjoying happiness beyond our ability to describe. The ecstasy of Olam Haba is too great for a human being even to see and certainly to experience. But in the midst of all that happiness he has lost something precious that he could never regain and that's the gift of free will. ‘The lion is dead’ means the lion can’t choose anymore. And therefore he doesn’t get the consideration that even the living dog does.
The Human Dog
Now we understand that if the dead ‘lion’ was Dovid Hamelech then the ‘dog’ meant also a human – but one who is of low quality. If somebody qualifies for the name kelev, we understand that he's a person quite low on the scale of humanity.
And yet Shlomo was stating the lowest man when he's alive is better off than the most important human who has already died. The lowest human being, if he’s still alive, he has more hope because he can become something; he can become greater than my father, Dovid. The lowest human being, who is like a kelev – he’s the most sordid character; he lives only with his senses, only for materialism – but as long as he is alive, he is able to change himself so completely that he can develop into a lion! He can become exceptionally great.
One Minute to Choose
The Rambam says that. In his Hilchos Teshuva (5:2) he writes, Anybody could be a tzaddik like Moshe Rabbeinu. You hear that startling statement? Anybody! Now most probably you won’t – it’s more probable that you won’t even come close to what Moshe Rabbeinu was; most probably you won’t come near to what Dovid accomplished. But no matter; as long as you’re still alive you can do something at least! You’re alive! You can transform whatever ‘kelev’ you have inside you, into a ‘lion’. And whatever little bit you do, is worth everything in the Next World.
That’s what it says: Every minute in this world is more precious than the happiness of the Next World (Avos 4:17). Because it’s a minute of opportunity. That’s why the Vilna Gaon cried when he was dying. He was lying sick on his deathbed on Chol Hamoed Sukkos and when they brought the esrog and the lulav to him he burst out weeping: “It’s the last time; the last time I’ll be able to bentch lulav and esrog.” He burst out weeping because he knew what life is for; the whole wealth of his life now was coming to an end!
I remember when Reb Aharon Kotler, zichrono livrachah, was on his deathbed, he was crying. He said, “Ribono Shel Olam, let me live! I can do so much in this world!” He wept because those who understand the opportunity of life, they know that death is a great tragedy. The bitter day of death, a very bitter day (Amos 8:10). It’s not bitter because you won’t eat supper anymore, or because you won’t make money anymore. It’s bitter because there’s no more bechirah.
The Yearning of the Soul
And therefore even though the neshamah continues in the Next World – it’s very much alive! – but the neshamah yearns to come back again. Even a man of the greatest accomplishments, even Moshe Rabbeinu, if he could come back to this world for one moment of choosing, just to drop a penny into the charity box, just for that alone it would surrender a great part of its happiness in the afterlife.
All of the meisim in the Next World, right now would like to come back for one moment to be able to choose again. The meis envies you. That’s why when you walk in the cemetery, you have to cover up your tzitzis (Brachos 18a). There’s a din that when you walk near the grave, you have to put your tzitzis inside your pants. They shouldn’t be visible because the dead body is jealous. “Look, you’re flouting your opportunities,” he’s thinking. “You’re doing mitzvos but I can’t do anything. I’m dead.”
Of course the meis doesn’t think, but we have to consider it as if he’s thinking. You have to have a certain commiseration with the dead man otherwise it’s mocking the dead (Mishlei 17:5); they can’t do any more mitzvos. That’s what life is: the opportunity to choose!
As long as you’re still with the living it’s yivchar; you still have the gem that has no equal in the universe, free will. There's nothing like that gift. You’re a chooser! To make something out of yourself! To become better!
