Kares

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  • #610468
    recipes
    Member

    Why doesn’t Kares seem to apply nowadays?? There are plenty of people who do Aveiros that are chaiv Kares and they and their kids don’t seem to die young??

    #972225
    🍫Syag Lchochma
    Participant

    what do you consider young?

    #972226
    jbaldy22
    Member

    tzadik vra lo rasha vtov lo. This isn’t a new issue. Hakadosh baruch hu as a dayan takes in a lot of factors such as how a persons life or death affects the other people in his/her life and people can be kept alive even if just for the purpose of being mehane a tzadik for one second. there are a lot of more complex answers – i would suggest looking in sifsei chayim from rav friedlander zatzal for answers as he uses more contemporary language/themes to explain difficult hashkafic concepts.

    #972227
    bais yakov maidel
    Participant

    there are two ways to understand this: 1) kares means that if a person does a certain thing, the likely natural outcome is that they will cease to be part of klal yisrael. For ex., if a person marries a non-jewish woman, his children will not be Jewish. you can find such reasoning in many things that are “kares”. Some are more obvious than others

    2) if a person does that particular thing, they have gone so far that they have lost their olam habah

    Furthermore, those actions that warrant kares probably only do so when the aveirah is done knowinlgy and intentionally.

    #972228
    LevAryeh
    Member

    Most aveiros which are chayav kareis are not done often nowadays. See the first mishna in Kerisus, and Ramba”m hilchos Shegagos (in Karbanos) Perek 1 Halacha 4.

    #972229
    recipes
    Member

    How about people that don’t keep Taharas Hamishpacha? or eat Chametz on Pesach?

    #972230
    WIY
    Member

    Parshas Acharei-Mos

    (Ha’Godol)

    Kareis

    Rabeinu Bachye divides Kareis into three categories – a Kareis that affects the body only, a Kareis that affects the Soul, and a Kareis that affects both.

    The first category entails dying prematurely, either in years or in days. Let us say that a Tzadik, who has more merits than sins, but who stumbled over a sin that is subject to Kareis. He will die before his time is up. And a good example of this is the story of a certain Talmid who slept in the same bed as his wife, fully clothed during her days of Libun (after she had Toveled). And although he had committed no other sin, the Gemara tells us in Shabbos (Daf 13), he died prematurely. That constitutes Kareis of years.

    On the other hand, take an aged Tzadik who slips up on a Chiyuv Kareis, and who is no longer subject to Kareis of years, seeing as has already reached old age. Yet he too, will die prematurely. This is called a Kareis of days, as he will not reach the age that was designated for him. And it is in this regard that the Gemara at the end of Mo’ed Katan relates how, when Rav Yosef attained the age of sixty, he made a party for his colleagues, because, he declared, he had left the realm of Kareis. And when his star disciple Abaye asked him that, age-wise, he was still eligible for Kareis of days, he retorted that since he had left the realm of Kareis of years, that was reason enough to celebrate.

    And because the Kareis of days, unlike that of years, is not well-known, Hakadosh-Baruch-Hu publicizes it. Hence Chazal have said, that if an old man dies following an illness lasting three days, it is a sign that he transgressed a Chiyuv Kareis. The Yerushalmi states that if an old man eats Cheilev or transgresses Shabbos, then death in one day is a sign of ‘a death of fury’; after two days, it is a sign of ‘a death of confusion’, whereas after three days, it is a sign of a death of Kareis.

    In connection with the current Kareis, the Torah writes “and that man shall be cut off from the midst of his people”. His body dies, but his Soul leaves the body and merits to go to the world of Neshamos, to Techi’as ha’Meisim and to Olam ha’Bo that comes after it.

    *

    The second category of Kareis, ‘Kareis of the Soul’ affects someone who has performed more sins than Mitzvos, and those sins include a particularly stringent one, such as eating Chametz on Pesach, eating or working on Yom Kipur or indulging in adultery or incest. When he dies, his Neshamah leaves his body, it is cut off from the world of the Neshamos. About him the Torah will use the expression “And the Souls that sinned will be cut off” or “And that Soul will be cut off from its people” (and the like, always inserting the word “Soul” or “Souls”). It is possible that he is not subject to Kareis of the body, and that he will live out his life in tranquility in this world, as the Pasuk writes in Koheles “And there are some Resha’im who live long in their wickedness”.

    *

    What happens then to those Neshamos? R. Bachye citing the Ib’n Ezra and the Rambam, maintains that they simply die like animals, as is implied by the various expressions that the Torah uses in connection with this group of sinners – “Hikarfeis Tikareis” and “ve’nichr’sah ha’Nefesh ha’hi me’amehah” and “ve’nichr’sah ha’Nefesh ha’hi mi’Lefonai” (“and that Soul shall be cut off before Me”) – and G-d is everywhere.

    no links

    #972231

    Let me try and translate the OP’s question

    “Why hasn’t Hashem killed off all of the people that aren’t as frum as me yet!!?? Doesn’t he love me??”

    #972232
    recipes
    Member

    Haha

    #972233
    SanityIsOverrated
    Participant

    Is this a philosophical question, or do you know someone you think deserves Kareis?

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