"Two Jews, Three Afterlives": A Survey of Jewish Views on Death

"Two Jews, Three Afterlives"

"Both by etymology and by historical usage, the term “immortality” suggests deathlessness. It is associated with the notion that human beings harbor within them an indestructible core that survives the inevitable demise of the body. Where immortality is affirmed without qualification, a corollary assumption is found: death is ultimately unreal. The real self—the essential, disembodied self, known as the soul—endures. In modern culture, those who affirm immortality tend to find the idea psychologically comforting: our lives do not end at biological death, but continue in spiritual bliss or at least in freedom from suffering" (Levenson).

"Ask Jews what happens after death, and many will respond that the Jewish tradition doesn’t say or doesn’t care, that Jews believe life is for the living and that Judaism focuses on what people can and should do in this world. But not so fast. If anything is less Jewish than belief in heaven and hell, it’s Jews agreeing on an official theological party line. And after 4,000 years of discussion, you’d expect considerable variation...As they say: two Jews, three afterlives" (Schwartz).

Biblical Interpretations - She'ol

"The view of the afterlife held by ancient Jews, which can be surmised from passing references throughout the Bible, is that all people, Jews and gentiles, go to a netherworld called She’ol, a deep and dark place in which shadowy spirits called refa’im dwell. These could be summoned by the living to answer questions (1 Samuel 28:3–25), though this practice is forbidden (Leviticus 20:27). The ancients seemed to have viewed this fate as final: “Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die” (2 Samuel 14:14)" (Gilad).

Temple-Era Judaism - Beginning of Belief in Resurrection

"There were two major reasons this theory developed at that time. One is that after the Babylonian Exile (586-638 BCE), Judaism became deeply concerned with interpreting sacred texts and deciphering their secrets. Thus passages such as “The Lord killeth, and maketh alive: he bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up” (1 Samuel 2:6) and Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones (Ezekiel 37:1-14) came to be taken as attestation that the dead would rise at the End of Days.

The second reason was the rise of a new kind of Jewish hero during the Maccabean Revolt (167-160 BCE) - the martyr.

A benevolent God must repay the sacrifice of a person who died for the sanctity of his name. Thus Jewish writings of the period hold that while we all die, death is only temporary, and in the future all will receive their just rewards.

As much is clearly stated in the Book of Daniel, which purports to be written during the Babylonian Exile, but was really written during the Maccabean Revolt" (Gilad).

"As implied in the Book of Daniel, the Jewish notion of resurrection in the Maccabeean period was tied to a notion of judgment, and even to separate realms for the judged. In rabbinical thought, the model for heaven was Eden. The rabbinic word for hell, "Gehenna", is taken from the name of a valley of fire where children were said to be sacrificed as burnt offerings to Baal and Moloch (Semitic deities). Gehenna is a place of intense punishment and cleansing. This place is also known as "She'ol" and other names. This line of Jewish thought argues that after death the soul has to be purified before it can go on the rest of its journey. The amount of time needed for purification depends on how the soul dealt with life. One Jewish tradition states that a soul needs a maximum of 11 months for purification, which is why, when a parent dies, the kaddish (memorial prayer) is recited for 11 months. The concept of Gehenna as a place for temporary purification was the source for the orthodox Christian doctrine of 'purgatory'" (Williams).

Rabbinic Judaism - Eden, Gehenna, and Olam HaBa

"In Eruvin 19b, we are told that all but the most wicked are sent to Gehenom (a fiery place, according to Berakhot 57b), but their stay in the flames is temporary. After being purged of their sins, they are ushered to Heaven by Abraham.

Elsewhere (Rosh Hashanah 17a), the torments of Hell are said to be temporary for most sinners - but instead of ending in Heaven, they end in nonexistence.

Some references to the World to Come in the Talmud seem to refer to Gan Eden; others clearly refer to a time after the dead come back to life, such as this section in Berakhot 17a: "In the World to Come there is no eating, or drinking nor procreation or commerce, nor jealousy, or enmity, or rivalry – but the righteous sit with crowns on their head and enjoy the radiance of the Divine Presence" (Gilad).

"Thus from the time of early rabbinic Judaism, belief in the afterlife and the resurrection of the dead became core to the faith. 'All Israel have a portion in the world to come,' the Mishnah (200 CE) states, only to qualify this statement with a list of Jews who are excluded: 'One who maintains that resurrection is not a biblical doctrine, the Torah was not divinely revealed, and a heretic.' (Sanhedrin 10:1)" (Gilad).

"The World to Come (olam haba) is the most ubiquitous Jewish idea related to the end of days. It appears in early rabbinic sources as the ultimate reward of the individual Jew (and possibly the righteous gentile). The Talmud contains scattered descriptions of the World to Come, sometimes comparing it to spiritual things such as studying Torah, other times comparing it to physical pleasures, such as sex.

However, not surprisingly, it is not obvious what exactly the “World to Come” is and when it will exist. According to Nahmanides, among others, the World to Come is the era that will be ushered in by the resurrection of the dead, the world that will be enjoyed by the righteous who have merited additional life.

According to Maimonides, the World to Come refers to a time even beyond the world of the resurrected. He believed that the resurrected will eventually die a second death, at which point the souls of the righteous will enjoy a spiritual, bodiless existence in the presence of God.

Still, in other sources, the World to Come refers to the world inhabited by the righteous immediately following death–i.e. heaven, Gan Eden. In this view, the World to Come exists now, in some parallel universe" (MJL Staff).

Maimonides - You Can't Discuss Anything Jewish without Mentioning Him

"Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) was the first Jewish philosopher to write an Aristotelian version of Jewish philosophy, in which the soul is a form of the intelligence of God. In the World to Come, he wrote in his commentary on the Mishnah, 'Our souls will be informed by the knowledge of the Creator, may He be blessed, in the manner in which the heavenly bodies are informed of Him, or even more.' Thus according to Maimonides, after death the righteous partake in the divine intelligence, while the wicked cease to exist.

This view of the soul does not leave much room for the resurrection of the dead, which Maimonides did list as one his Thirteen Principles of the Jewish faith, but he didn’t elaborate. In fact, this created quite a scandal at the time, with rabbis complaining to him that their students were professing disbelief in the resurrection of the dead, because of him. This prompted Maimonides to write the 'Essay on the Resurrection of the Dead,' in which he espoused the theory that the dead will rise and then die again after a normal life, at which point they would enter the spiritual World to Come and partake in the intelligence of God" (Gilad).

Gilgul - Kabbalistic Reincarnation

"As long as a person is unsuccessful in his purpose in this world, the Holy One, blessed be He, uproots him and replants him over and over again." (Zohar I 186b)

"All souls are subject to reincarnation; and people do not know the ways of the Holy One, blessed be He! They do not know that they are brought before the tribunal both before they enter into this world and after they leave it; they are ignorant of the many reincarnations and secret works which they have to undergo, and of the number of naked souls, and how many naked spirits roam about in the other world without being able to enter within the veil of the King's Palace. Men do not know how the souls revolve like a stone that is thrown from a sling. But the time is at hand when these mysteries will be disclosed." (Zohar II 99b)

"All souls are subject to revolutions. Men do not know the way they have been judged in all time." (Zohar II 199b)

"Why is there a righteous person to whom good things happen, while [another] righteous person has bad things happen to him? This is because the [latter] righteous person did bad in a previous [life], and is now experiencing the consequences? What is this like? A person planted a vineyard and hoped to grow grapes, but instead, sour grapes grew. He saw that his planting and harvest were not successful so he tore it out. He cleaned out the sour grape vines and planted again. When he saw that his planting was not successful, he tore it up and planted it again." (Bahir 195)

Modern Reflections

"The widespread preference for immortality in more recent centuries derives more from the characteristically modern difficulty of accepting the idea of a personal God who has acted and will act miraculously in history—a God who does things. Thus, the general tendency among contemporary Jews (there are important exceptions) is to think that the ideal world can be brought about, if at all, by people alone, without divine intervention. Correlatively, one often hears it said that Judaism is strictly a “this-worldly” religion. For the classical rabbinic tradition, however, it would be more accurate to say that “This World” (to use the Talmudic terminology), though of the utmost importance, will be followed by other dispensations: the Days of the Messiah, the Resurrection of the Dead, and the World-to-Come (Schwartz).

An Imaginary Sphere - Joshua Cohen, author

I think everybody thinks about it. The afterlife is the principal preoccupation of anyone who’s going to die, regardless of religion. Judaism has never decided on a formal approach to the afterlife. It’s never had a formal approach to eschatology, either—what’s going to happen at the end of the world. We’re left with a typically practical, or provisional, interest in the world as it is—a regulation of the mundane, the here and now, rather than a pondering of the celestial.

I’ve always felt the afterlife exists in relation to life in the same way literature exists in relation to life. It’s an imaginary sphere, in which one can play out one’s fears, neuroses, desires and pains, but it’s still a terrain strictly for the living. Only the living can play, or imagine—or read. Once a man dies, his afterlife ceases to exist.

Jews, if not Judaism, regard death as a great injustice. Everything I’ve read tells me that Judaism is loath to encourage a positive view of the afterlife, because it might encourage a more positive attitude toward death. Anything that would see death as a salvation risks encouraging the believer to shirk his job on earth, or opt for thoughtless martyrdom. The classic refusal of salvation is the Mourner’s Kaddish, which says nothing about death, or about life after death. I have always read the Mourner’s Kaddish as a unique provocation to God. “Magnified and sanctified is God, Who brought us all here to the graveside to suffer and yet Who still hasn’t offered any reward.” It verges on gallows humor. I’ve never subscribed to the myth that the Kaddish can be used to spring one’s parents from purgatory. It’s merely a call to duty. I remember as a kid thinking, “Yes, yes—that’s a very effective way of getting me to shul.”

Beyond Bodily Death - Simcha Paull Raphael, author

Maybe most Jews haven’t, but Judaism has absolutely always had a view of the afterlife. From the 14th century on, a belief in gilgul, reincarnation, was as kosher as Manischewitz. In the Artscroll prayer book, there’s a line in the bedtime Shema, “Forgive anyone who has harmed me in this incarnation or any other incarnation.” Even in the Bible, Saul goes to the Witch of Endor to raise up the spirit of Samuel from the dead. It’s forbidden, but it’s practiced.

Most Jews today see the Jewish tradition through the lens of 20th-century rationality, so they don’t see those aspects. The collective shock of losing so many people in the Holocaust was just too great. We had to move ahead, found the State of Israel, deal with the devastation and the trauma—no one could afford to think about six million souls. And then the culture was increasingly secular. Rabbis didn’t talk about God and spirituality from the pulpit, they preached about Israel and anti-Semitism.

But now we’re really on a quest for spirituality. Young people are saturated with material things. They want some kind of connection with nature and the universe, not just with the next iPod. And an interest in the afterlife emerges from that. You see it in popular culture as well: movies about the supernatural, a cop show where a medium is the protagonist. No one would have touched that 20 years ago.

How do we evolve a different pastoral approach based on the idea that consciousness survives bodily death? How does it change the way we think of Kaddish, of caring for the dead, of sitting shiva? There are long-term implications that we haven’t even begun to investigate. I’ve done a lot of work in hospice, and my sense is that with all our science, we really can’t comprehend the subtlety of what happens when we die.

A Sense of Soul - Rodger Kamenetz, author of The Jew in the Lotus

There’s a story told about Rebbe Nachman of Bratslav: He’s walking in the village and some dogs approach, barking, and he says to them, “I know, I know, I know.” What he knows is that they are humans in dog bodies, and he has the capacity to redeem them from this. Some Hasidim believed in gilgul, the process of rebirth. The soul keeps returning, and certain souls come back to complete their mission. Most contemporary Jews don’t feel comfortable with the concept of “soul,” let alone the concept of rebirth. That speaks to a lack of imagination in Jewish spiritual life. We are radically rationalist, to the point where we’ve cut our heads off and left the body behind. People confuse belief and imagination. They think, it’s either true or it’s not true, and if it’s not true we can’t believe it, end of story. They don’t understand that imagination is what’s needed to understand the soul.

All Cats Go to Heaven - Marge Piercy, novelist and poet

I don’t believe in an afterlife. To me that unnecessarily clutters up expectations of life and death, because if you expect to be rewarded or punished, you are not behaving according to what you truly believe you ought to be doing in the situation. You’re expecting someone else is going to give you goodies at the end. What you’ve got is what you’ve got. It increases the poignancy. You’re given a life, you do the best you can, you do what you must do, what’s right for you, and then you wear out and you’re done.

I simply can’t imagine wanting to live forever. I’m 75, I still enjoy my life, but I can imagine a time when I wouldn’t. Why would I want to live on after losing so many people who are dear to me? Because even if they lived on, too, you can’t assume they’d be with you, can you? And I’m very attached to animals as well as people. So where would I be in the afterlife—with a bunch of dead boyfriends, plus my husband, and about 30 cats demanding attention? Would my cats be in the afterlife? Why wouldn’t they have an afterlife if I do? They’re better behaved than I am.

A Zombie Life - Max Brooks, author of World War Z

I have no idea if there’s an afterlife. I’d like there to be. I’d like to think that when I said goodbye to my mom, it wasn’t forever. But how would I know? Because some guy in the desert wrote a book and told me so? I don’t go in for that stuff. I wonder about it a lot, but there’s no proof. I’ll have to wait and see.

I’ve always considered myself not Jewish enough for Israel, but Jewish enough for Auschwitz. I write about zombies. I try not to get into the spiritual aspect. I focus on the concrete: How do you not die when you’re supposed to? I grew up in California, so it’s all about disaster preparedness for me. We had earthquake drills; nuclear war drills, because it was the Reagan era; and then we had real disasters, we had fires, we had the Rodney King riots. L. A. was never safe. And now it’s even worse—9/11, global warming. So I took that mindset of disaster preparedness and applied it to a science fiction concept. Zombie culture has really taken off in the last decade and it’s because of the times we’re living in. The world hasn’t been this inside-out since the 1970s, and that was the last time zombies were popular.

There’s always a rise in spirituality when there’s a decline in the physical comfort of the world. Imagine if you lived in some village in Gaul, in the late Roman Empire, and the sewer system had collapsed and the barbarians were everywhere, and you were hungry and poor and terrified, and then along comes some pilgrim from Italy with that Christian glow, and he says, “Don’t worry, after you die it’s all going to be OK.”

I think Jews are probably too neurotic to believe that. I know I am. We think too much, that’s our problem. We sit around and debate, and wonder about the nature of reality, what is justifiable, what is not, what is sin, what does it all mean? Any good Jew by nature has to be a little bit conflicted. Being a good Jew means you don’t sleep well, and you don’t take your rabbi’s view as gospel. We’re questioners. So I don’t think the answer for Jews is heaven. I think the answer is Ambien.