He used to say: the ones who were born are to die, and the ones who have died are to be brought to life, and the ones brought to life are to be judged; So that one may know, make known and have the knowledge that He is God, He is the designer, He is the creator, He is the discerner, He is the judge, He the witness, He the complainant, and that He will summon to judgment. Blessed be He, before Whom there is no iniquity, nor forgetting, nor respect of persons, nor taking of bribes, for all is His. And know that all is according to the reckoning. And let not your impulse assure thee that the grave is a place of refuge for you; for against your will were you formed, against your will were you born, against your will you live, against your will you will die, and against your will you will give an account and reckoning before the King of the kings of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He. In this long mishnah, full of rhetorical speech, Rabbi Elazar Ha-kappar teaches about the certainty of the judgment day to come. In the beginning of the mishnah, Rabbi Elazar goes through the stages in human existence, from birth to death to resurrection on judgment day. A person should know, tell others and let the whole world know that there is one God responsible for all this. The same God that created us will eventually act as our judge, witness and complainant. [Today we would say that He is the judge, jury and executioner.] Next, Rabbi Elazar reminds us that God is not like human judges, who can be bribed, nor is it possible that He will forget or somehow pervert justice. Everyone will receive his fair due. There is indeed no way to bribe God, for in the end, all of the world belongs to God. All of our deeds count at the time of judgment [see above, 3:15]. One should not fool himself into thinking that the grave will be a place where one can escape the consequences of one’s life, for just as humans were created and will die without their consent, so too will they eventually be judged without their consent. The Rambam notes that the mishnah lists “natural” phenomenon as being out of a person’s control. A person cannot control where, when and into what family he is born, nor does he have a lot of control over when and where he will die. However, the mishnah does not state that a person’s moral actions are out of his control, for a person has full choice over whether he sins or does good deeds. In this way, while we have no control over whether we will be judged in the future, we do have ultimate control with regard to our sentence, because only we can control our actions.