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Jewish Belief in the Afterlife
If you were to ask a group of Jewish people at random whether Judaism
believes in the afterlife, many – perhaps most -- would say, “No, that’s a Christian
belief.” Those people would be wrong. Over the years Jews have believed in
bodily resurrection, purgatory, heaven and hell, and reincarnation – and many still
accept these Jewish teachings today.
I’m going to read an excerpt from Dr. Brian Weiss that might surprise the
Jewish women here more than the Catholics:
“In Judaism, a fundamental belief in reincarnation, or gilgul, has existed for
thousands of years. This belief had been a basic cornerstone of the Jewish faith
until approximately 1800 to 1850, when the urge to ‘modernize’ and to be
accepted by the more scientific Western establishment transformed the Eastern
European Jewish communities. However, the belief in reincarnation had been
fundamental and mainstream until this time, less than two centuries ago.
“And in the Orthodox and Chasidic communities, belief in reincarnation
continues unabated today. In a view reminiscent of Buddhism, Rabbi Moshe
Luzzatto, one of the most brilliant Jewish scholars of the past several centuries,
taught, ‘A single soul can be reincarnated a number of times in different bodies,
and in this manner, it can rectify the damage done in previous incarnations.
Similarly, it can also attain perfection that was not attained in previous lifetimes.”
Does it surprise anyone here that reincarnation was a normative Jewish
belief until the 19th century, and many Orthodox still believe in it today?
(Incidentally, my mother was a strong believer. She died eight years ago, and I
pray she got her wish for a continuing life.) Judaism has a teaching that every
Jewish soul in history, including all Jews alive today, were present at Mt. Sinai and
agreed to the covenant with God. Reincarnation explains how that could be
possible.
And what about the belief in bodily resurrection? Yes, traditional Judaism
teaches that when the Messiah comes to usher in a world of peace and
prosperity, the righteous dead will be brought back to life to experience the
perfected world that their righteousness helped to create. The wicked dead will
NOT be resurrected.
The belief in bodily resurrection is behind in large part the Jewish
prohibition against cremation. The body cannot be totally destroyed or it will be
unable to be resurrected during Messianic times.
People usually think of purgatory as part of Catholic belief about the
afterlife, but the concept originated in Judaism. Only the very righteous go
directly to heaven, or Gan Eden, when they die. Average people go to Gehennim,
a place of punishment or purification. For 12 months the soul is purged before it
can take its place in heaven. That is the 12-month mourning period we Jews have
for our loved ones who have passed away. During that time, we gather with
others and recite the Kaddish prayer to benefit the soul of the departed and to
help him or her get to heaven.
However, the utterly wicked never leave Gehennim. To them, it is Hell, a
place of eternal damnation.
Incidentally, you don’t have to be Jewish to go to heaven. Judaism teaches
that the righteous of all peoples and religions have a place with God in the world
to come.
Of course, we all know that what a religion teaches and what its adherents
believe are two very different things. Despite this rich Jewish heritage of belief in
the afterlife, there is skepticism among the faithful! Opinion polls have shown
that a far smaller percentage of Jews than of Christians believe in an actual
afterlife.
This may be because Judaism has always stressed living righteously in this
world instead of worrying too much about the next one. The Torah is a little
reticent about the afterlife. One theory about this is that the Torah was written
(or given by God) right after the Israelites were freed from Egypt. Egypt was
obsessed with death, from pyramids to mummies to tombs filled with great
material wealth to bribe the gods for a comfortable afterlife. In contrast to the
Egyptian obsession with death and rewards in the afterlife, the Israelite religion
focused on reward or punishment in this lifetime.
Of course, we know that there is no such thing as a universal Jewish belief
in anything! Professor Amy-Jill Levine (our esteemed speaker at our upcoming
conference) expresses this truth eloquently, and I’ll close with her take on it:
“Jewish beliefs in the afterlife are as diverse as Judaism itself, from the
traditional view expecting the unity of flesh and spirit in a resurrected body, to
the idea that we live on in our children and grandchildren, to a sense of heaven –
but perhaps with lox and bagels rather than harps and halos.”