Antiquitopia

I was reading a bit of Leviticus Rabbah and found a gem of a passage: R. Judan b. R. Simeon said:  Behemoth and the Leviathan are to engage in a wild-beast contest before the righteous in the Time to Come, and whoever has not been a spectator at the wild-beast contests of the heathen nations in this world will be accorded the boon of seeing one of the World to come. (Leviticus Rabbah 13.3) How cool is that?  Behemoth vs. Leviathan--the great, untamable beasts described at the end of Job!  Come one, come all for this once in an afterlife-time event!  It is like King Kong versus Godzilla!  It is also an interesting view of the afterlife:  it is compensation for this life.  By giving up the animal fights of the arena in this life (reference to Roman practices), one gets to the see the ultimate beast-fight in the world to come.  (Leviticus Rabbah, by the way, predicts that they will kill each other in this contest.)

I'm reading some Genesis Rabbah , a Palestinian midrashic collection, this evening, and the following line stuck out for me: דא"ר יוסי בר חנינא כל המתכבד בקלון חבירו אין לו חלק לעולם הבא Rabbi Yose son of Hanina said, "Whoever elevates himself by his fellow's degradation has no part in the world to come." ( Genesis Rabbah 1.5)