Letters of the Chafetz Chaim /Letter 47 – 65

One of our basic beliefs is that of the eventual resurrection of the dead. Whether an individual will qualify to see this depends not only on his belief, but on having enough merits and abundant Heavenly compassion. The merit required for this, our Sages taught us, is by learning Torah, as it states, ‘for the dew of light is your dew’, and our Sages explained this to mean that whoever learns Torah (the dew of Hashem’s light) will rise from the dead (with the dew of resurrection), and whoever doesn’t learn will have no means to rise.

Torah scholars surely have the light of Torah to bring them back to life, but even those who for various reasons cannot acquire it themselves can still attain it by supporting others who are learning. We see a model of this in Yisachar and Zevulun, who made an agreement that Zevulun would support Yisachar and allow him to sit and learn, and they split the spiritual reward equally.