ok, so what is the after life, and if there is a good place to be rather than bad, does a righteous gentile wind up in the good place? And do the seven laws of Noah determine the righteousness of a gentile?
Yes Shana, I'm the all knowing Rabbi which you seek
. What a joke.
Anyway I do know a thing or two about the after-life because it is treated in depth in hasidic manuscripts.
1. "what is the after life?"
There are two stage or aspects of the after-life. One is souls without bodies and the other is souls within bodies also known as the period of the resurrection of the dead.
2. "is [there] a good place to be rather than bad?
Yes there is a good and bad "place" except that it's really all the same "place". It's a spiritual "place", not a physical "place".
The after-life is simply a direct perception of G-dliness and the ultimate truth.
For those who lived truth and revolved their lives around doing what G-d wants...it's heaven. For those who didn't...it's hell.
(But it's only temporary. Everybody eventually breaks out of those preconceived false notions they had, but it's a painful process. Many people go through hell in this life and that spares them from the hell of the next world. That's why in JTF we like to give people hell.
It's good for them in the long run.
)
3. "does a righteous gentile wind up in the good place?"
Yes.
4. "And do the seven laws of Noah determine the righteousness of a gentile?
That is a large part of the determination, but it's not the only thing.
G-d willing some time I'll post a hasidic manuscript on this topic I'm sure you'll find very interesting.