Even if you have never done it, we all know the concept of cramming for exams. You learn material differently when you are being tested. I know a physician who had an epiphany as he walked out of his first exam in medical school. Up to that point in his life, the routine for classes had been to learn the material, cram for the test, dump all that material out of his brain to make room for the material the next semester, repeat. As he was about to dump out the knowledge he had just gained, he realized, "Oh no! I need this knowledge to be a good physician! People's lives will depend on me retaining this knowledge!" In other words, he then realized that entering the field of medicine meant pop quizzes on life and death matters at any moment.
We are all actually in that position. As Rashi brings on our introduction to Noah (B'reishis 6:9), אֵלֶּה תּֽוֹלְדֹת נֹחַ נֹחַ אִישׁ צַדִּיק/These are the generations of Noah, Noah was a righteous man. Says Rashi, quoting Chazal: To teach that the main progeny of the righteous are their good deeds. Each and every situation in which you find yourself, therefore, is a pop quiz. You, your eternal self, are your own report card.
People who read these TftDs of mine sometimes tell me, somewhat sheepishly, that they don't read all of them. In point of fact, I am thrilled to learn that anyone reads any of them! My usual response is, "Don't worry; I barely read them myself." In a previous TftD, I wrote about the importance of having honest dialog and being willing, even eager, to discover that you were wrong and you can now you are better informed. I also wrote about how we two people can sometimes be using the same word and yet mean something quite different. One needs to clarify that before getting his knickers in a twist. (I adore the expression; so evocative!) Fortunately I did read that one, as HaShem decided to give me a pop quiz.
I met a young oncology nurse. I think nursing is a noble profession and I have certainly been in a position to benefit from their gentle medical care. I said that I had had cancer, almost 30 years ago, which they told me was stage IV. I also described the treatment and post care. She told me that State IV means metastatic (which, Baruch HaShem, mine wasn't). We discussed other variances between my experience 30 years ago and her daily routine. I decided afterward to do some research. It turns out that there was a major change in the staging schemes for cancer after a paper was published in 1997 -- which is two years after my diagnosis. Essentially they now give a separate score/stage for T(umor size), N(ode involvment), M(etastatic disease). Also, my cancer had presented strangely (shocking, I know), as it started and grew in a node rather than the primary organ, so N and M didn't make sense. Hence, they rated mine strictly on size, hence the IV. (I am glossing over a lot of details. You are welcome to look it up yourself if you are interested.)
I bring this up also because of a gemara I learned this morning (Nedarim 8b): Reish Lakish says, there is not gehinom in the future; rather HaShem will take the sun out of its sheath; the righteous will be healed bit it, the evildoers will be judged (ie, punished) by it. The Ran explains that this does not mean no gehinom after death, it means that after the resurrection the righteous will go through some sort of solar therapy, and that same sun will shame and destroy the evildoers. (See there further.)
I don't know what all that means, but I did wonder what kind of therapy the righteous will need. All I can imagine is that those not-so-righteous bits of the eternal soul of the righteous, like a cancer, will need therapy to treat them. I have had chemotherapy. I was healed by chemotherapy. I have had many years of good health, בלי עין הרע, and look for to many more, בעזרת השם. Nonetheless, chemotherapy was very, very difficult. Knowing there is a therapy for all the damage done by our transgressions to heal us in the future is great. Even better is using that knowledge to prepare now by uprooting the source of those transgressions from their source now and not need the therapy later.
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