Torah Study Blog

We have spent the last couple of weeks looking at the afterlife. To summarize, we know that the Bible says that, after death, everyone goes to a place called Sheol. Sheol is cold and dark. The people who are there are not there in their bodies but are, instead, a shadowy echo of who they were, and they are referred to as the “shades.” So our loved ones who cross over to the afterlife are not really gone – their shades have gone to another place.

The Bible does not talk about judgment in the afterlife. The Bible says that justice is meted out during THIS life. If you do as God commands, the rains will come and your children will thrive. If you disobey God’s commands bad things will befall you in this life.

Only the Book of Daniel, one of the latest books in the Bible, postulates an idea of life after death. This idea likely came from the Greeks because, when Daniel was written, the Greek philosopher Plato had formulated the idea of a Soul and an afterlife.

Rabbis have based their understanding about the afterlife on human experience. The experience may not be rational, but it feels real to people. Some orthodox people who work in preparing bodies for burial have stated that they believe the soul of the departed is with them, hovering to observe the ritual. Similarly, people who have lost a loved one report the feeling of their loved one still being with them or talking with them. These experiences are non-rational; nevertheless, they are real experiences that people have.

Rabbi Jaech recounted her story of when she was preparing to officiate at the funeral of the director of Plaza Memorial Chapel. Plaza Memorial is a facility she has been to often when officiating at funerals. Rabbi Jaech had spoken with the director serval times and had a good relationship with him. When preparing for the director’s funeral, Rabbi Jaech could “hear” the director in her head, suggesting what might be important to him to be said at the funeral. Rationally, we can say it was her memory of him that was guiding her. Irrationally, perhaps he was guiding her because the soul lingers after death.

Josephus, who recorded observations about Jewish life in the 1st century CE, observed that there was a division among the Jewish leaders of what happened in the afterlife. It is clear that this was something with which the earliest rabbis struggled.

Although there is nothing definitive about the afterlife in the Bible, the Talmud has some stories about the afterlife. The earliest writings in the Talmud come from the earliest rabbis. And the Talmud provides the basis for the Judaism that we practice today. In one story, a soul returns to its body for three days until is realizes it cannot get back into the body. In another story the soul will be judged by the Holy One.

What happens to the soul if it is judged as not having been upright? According to the Talmud, “The Holy Blessed One judges the wicked in Gehenna for twelve months. At first he afflicts them with itching; after that with fire, at which they cry out, “Oh! Oh!” and then with snow, at which they cry out, “Woe! Woe!”

Gehenna is where the wicked people go, so it is a version of Hell. The word Gehenna came to mean Hell but, unlike Sheol, Gehenna was an actual place; a place where horrible things happened. According to the prophet Jeremiah, “they built the shrines of Baal which are in the Valley of Ben- hinnom, where they offered up their sons and daughters to Molech – when I had never commanded, or even thought of commanding, that they should do such an abominable thing, and so bring guilt on Judah.” (Jeremiah 34:35)

The Valley of Ben-hinnom is the English word for Gehenna, and this is where our ancestors get the idea that Hell is a place of fire and horrible things. It may sound apocryphal, but scholars believe it is quite possible there were some Jews who practiced child sacrifice, as some nearby communities also did.

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misquotes or misunderstandings in what Rabbi Jaech taught us are the responsibility of Tara Keiter