Reply To: Question of the day: higher gan Eden for reshaim

Hi, nice to see this thread up, it wasn’t approved the first day, and now I get to see the basi LGani discussion on yud Shvat.

Avira and whoever, the way The Rebbe explained the sugya was by explaining that the Torah is Toras Chessed and even the punishments are there to help the person. My question was based on the part where The Rebbe spoke about yerida ltzorech aliya, and said how just like with acher, the more deeper/ painful experience gehennom is, the lower he goes, the higher he’ll end up afterwards.

My understanding is that this is like a nisayon, which, although involuntary, has the ability to lift the person higher and closer to Hashem than his contemporaries afterwards, even though the nisayon wasn’t his choice. Similarly, if I were to go through the sobering darkness of gehennom (which I’m definitely not hoping for), I could technically grow closer to Hashem, Who is closer in the darkness, than the stage by stage light of gan Eden.

Not that I’m looking to do that because A) it’s not the plan A ratzon Hashem, and B) an incredibly painful experience