And if judgment immediately follows death, then what need is there for the judgment that will follow the resurrection? Though some Jewish scholars have tried to clarify these ideas, it would be impossible to reconcile all the Jewish texts and sources that discuss the afterlife.
Comprised of the Mishnah and the Gemara, it contains the opinions of thousands of rabbis from different periods in Jewish history. By the second century at the latest, belief in resurrection had entered Jewish liturgy and legal writing. The rabbis of the Talmud had a lot to say on the World to Come, but little about what it actually is. We use cookies to improve your experience on our site and bring you ads that might interest you.
Join Our Newsletter Empower your Jewish discovery, daily. Sign Up. Discover More. Afterlife Jewish Resurrection Gets New Life By the second century at the latest, belief in resurrection had entered Jewish liturgy and legal writing.
Afterlife Jewish Resurrection of the Dead When and how will the dead will be brought back to life? Though the Talmudic rabbis claimed there were many allusions to the subject in the Bible cf. Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to reproaches and everlasting abhorrence Dan. I suspect that there is a correlation between its non-discussion of afterlife and the fact that the Torah was revealed just after the long Jewish sojourn in Egypt.
The Egyptian society from which the Hebrew slaves emerged was obsessed with death and afterlife. The holiest Egyptian literary work was called The Book of the Dead, while the major achievement of many Pharaohs was the erection of the giant tombs called pyramids. In contrast, the Torah is obsessed with this world, so much so that it even forbids its priests from coming into contact with dead bodies Leviticus Consequently, Telushkin posits that Judaism was meant to differ from other religions in part because of the way the idea of the afterlife can be used in malign ways.
He gives the example of the Spanish Inquisitors who believed they could save people from hell if they coerced them using torture to accepted Christ. In the eschatology of the apocryphal literature of the Second Temple period, the idea of heavenly immortality, either vouchsafed for all Israel or for the righteous alone, vies with the resurrection of the dead as the dominant theme.
Thus, IV Maccabees, for instance, though on the whole tending toward Pharisaism in its theology, promises everlasting life with God to those Jewish martyrs who preferred death to the violation of His Torah, but is silent about resurrection. II Maccabees, on the other hand, figures the latter prominently cf. II Macc. The doctrine was, however, stressed by sectarian groups and is vividly expressed in the New Testament. For Philo, the doctrine of the resurrection is subservient to that of the immortality of the soul and is seen by him as a figurative way of referring to the latter.
The individual soul, which is imprisoned in the body here on earth, returns, if it is the soul of a righteous man, to its home in God; the wicked suffer eternal death see H. Wolfson , Philo , 2 vols. Soul, Resurrection. When a man dies his soul leaves his body, but for the first 12 months it retains a temporary relationship to it, coming and going until the body has disintegrated.
Thus, the prophet Samuel was able to be raised from the dead within the first year of his demise. This year remains a purgatorial period for the soul, or according to another view only for the wicked soul, after which the righteous go to paradise, Gan Eden , and the wicked to hell, Geihinnom Gehinnom; Shab.
Va-Yikra 8. The actual condition of the soul after death is unclear. Ki Tissa 33; Ket. There is also a whole series of disputes about how much the dead know of the world they leave behind Ber. In the days of the messianic redemption the soul returns to the dust, which is subsequently reconstituted as this body when the individual is resurrected. The doctrine of the resurrection is a cornerstone of rabbinic eschatology , and separated the Pharisee from his Sadducean opponent.
The Talmud goes to considerable lengths to show how the resurrection is hinted at in various biblical passages, and excludes those who deny this doctrine from any portion in the world to come Sanh. The messianic reign is conceived of as a political and physical Utopia, though there is considerable dispute about this matter Ber.
At its end will be the world to come olam ha-ba when the righteous will sit in glory and enjoy the splendor of the Divine Presence in a world of purely spiritual bliss Ber. In the world to come the Divine Presence itself will illuminate the world. Marmorstein in Studies in Jewish Theology , The medieval Jewish philosophers brought conceptual and systematic thought to bear on the more imagist rabbinic eschatology, and one major problem they faced was to integrate the notions of immortality and resurrection.
Saadia Gaon was perhaps the most successful among them, since he conceived of the state of the reunited soul and body after the resurrection as one of spiritual bliss Book of Beliefs and Opinions , It is clear in the case of Maimonides , for instance, that the immortality of the soul is paramount Guide , ; Though he makes the belief in the resurrection, rather than in the immortality of the disembodied soul, one of his fundamental principles of Jewish faith cf.
Mishnah, Sanhedrin, introd. Indeed, the resurrection does not figure in the Guide of the Perplexed at all. Their negative attitude toward the flesh, in favor of the spirit, left no room for a resurrection theology of any substance.
The Jewish Aristotelians, who thought of the acquired intellect as the immortal part of man, saw immortality in terms of the intellectual contemplation of God.
Some of the Jewish Aristotelians held that in their immortal state the souls of all men are one; while others maintained that immortality is individual. This emphasis on salvation through intellectual attainment was the subject of considerable criticism. Crescas, for example, claimed that it was the love of God, rather than knowledge of Him, which was of primary soteriological import Or Adonai , Kabbalistic eschatology, more systematic than its rabbinic predecessor, is, if anything, more complex in structure and varied as between the several Kabbalistic subsystems.
The soul is conceived of as divided into several parts, whose origin is in Divine Emanation , and is incarnated here on earth with a specific task to fulfill.
Our actions, not our specific beliefs, determine our fate. No concept of Hell exists in Judaism. They reside there until they reunite with their physical bodies at the time when the Messiah comes.
This approach differs from reincarnation since the return to life happens only in the messianic era, not as a regular occurrence, as in Hinduism. We live on through others: The Reform Jewish prayerbook expresses this idea through the metaphor of a leaf and a tree. A leaf drops to the ground, but it nourishes the soil so more plants and trees spring up. The same is true in our lives. We nourish the future through the influence we have on those who follow us.
It can happen in unimaginable ways. From novelist Dara Horn: My mother came from a very assimilated family, not very involved in the Jewish community. Death and Mourning Spirituality.
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