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Transcript
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.”