By Heshy Fried (Originally Posted Here)

The RaHaF ZT”L in his sefer nefesh hahesh brings down a story of a man who left his body and went to the beis din sehl mala where he spoke to God about gaining entry into Olam Habah:

I saw a long table that was catered by someone I would have never eaten by in my physical body, it was laid out for all to see and everyone was standing around scratching their heads wondering how a triangle-K caterer got this gig when he came up to the heavens.

God sat at the end of the table eating herring and kichel, talking in Torah to some of the clean shaven folks with knitted yarmulkes, can you imagine that? Imagine the pain I felt when I had to step onto end endless line, let me tell you, this was worse than any DMV you’ve ever been to, there was no information desk. There was only an infinitely long line of black hats stretching for eons, angels poured us drinks, but we noticed that they didn’t have four hechsherim on them so no one took any – the angels looked pleased with this result.

Then I noticed this really quick moving line of people, they all looked different, sure there were some black hat wearers on it, but I saw kippah srugas, women and even a few folks not wearing yarmulkes, I even saw a woman wearing pants and not covering her hair. Our line had no women on it, I assumed because we were the most frum of everyone, I assumed that ours was separate because we were most frum, I assumed it was moving by so slowly because we all had so many mitzvos that it took forever to weigh the scales, watch the video of our lives and receive the obvious entry into gan eden, but this is not what happened.

It seemed like forever, but I finally got my turn, I noticed that the guy before me looked a little shocked, he adjusted his hat, brim down this time and walked solemnly along to his destiny – I wondered if all those stories about us sitting in the bleachers while we watched the gedolim learning in the heavenly beis medrish were true, I really hoped I got a good seat.

God didn’t speak to me, he had a mediator and it wasn’t really a he, someone may say it could have been a she. I asked the mediator if she thought was tznius that I was talking to God via a woman, how they could allow women into such a holy place. God laughed and everything shook, he made the mediator disappear, I heard nods of approval coming from the line behind me, my black hat brethren knew it was untznius – was it true that God gave us yetzer harah’s even in the heavens.

“Why are you shaking like that?” God roared…”do you think shuckeling is something that is appropriate to do when standing in front of a king?”

I had no idea what to say, I honestly thought the faster and more violent you shook during prayer, the better it was, I had seen the other holy people doing it. “I see here in the ledger that you were kind to your in laws” Very important to be kind to those you hate, but what about all of the goyim and non-black hat Jews you disparaged at the shabbos table? “You could have told divrei torah instead”

I tried to speak, but he wouldn’t let me, I felt like Pharaoh having his heart hardened. I wanted to ask him about speaking against those who were evil, the goyim who didn’t keep the shiva mitzvos, the Jews who didn’t keep shabbos, but my mouth was froze as God roared at me again. “You stole, cheated and lied – you cared more about what your fellow man thought than I and for that I sentence you to the mandatory 11 months at the all you can eat Kiddush with long arms tied to the wall”

Unfortunately the sefer hanefesh of the RaHaF was lost, so most people continued to wear black hats regardless of the fact that God didn’t care and besides the RaHaF also known as Rav Heshy Fried Shlita wrote his sefer hanefesh at a time when black hats were worn by the goyim as well, so they may have been a fashion statement rather than the halacha l’maissa they have become today.

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