Torah and Jewish Idea > Torah and Jewish Idea
Afterlife
Igor Schwarzman:
Many thanks for your links muman. They are very interesting, and I currently engage myself into them. But I see all of them are from the Talmud. Do you know where I can find a collection of mentions about afterlife from the Tanakh only?
muman613:
--- Quote from: Igor Schwarzmann on December 11, 2011, 09:25:08 PM ---Many thanks for your links muman. They are very interesting, and I currently engage myself into them. But I see all of them are from the Talmud. Do you know where I can find a collection of mentions about afterlife from the Tanakh only?
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See this article which discusses why there is little in the Tanakh about the afterlife:
http://vbm-torah.org/archive/intparsha67/32-67behar-bechuk.htm
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WHY NO MENTION OF AN AFTERLIFE?
Considering our Parasha in this light raises a profound problem. Why is it that the Torah, in its discussions of reward and punishment, invariably speaks in terms that are material and utilizes descriptions that are tangible and physical? If life's greatest rewards await us after death, in the realm of the spirit where base corporeality holds no sway, then why doesn't the Torah ever spell out the "afterlife," the "world to come," or the "future world" in explicit terms? If the greatest pain that the human being can experience is truly spiritual estrangement from G-d, then why are such descriptions so obviously absent from the "curses" of our section? In other words, why speak of rainfall, harvest, health or peace when one ought to speak of radiance, repose, and being bound up in the bliss of G-d's eternity? The question is in actuality not at all confined to our passage, for everywhere the Torah speaks in similar terms:
If you serve G-d your Lord then He will bless your food and your water, and I will remove sickness from your midst (Shemot 23:25). Perform My statutes and observe and keep My laws, then you will dwell securely upon the land. The land will give its produce, and you will eat in satiation, and you will dwell securely upon it (Vayikra 25:18-19). It shall be that in consequence of listening to these laws, observing and keeping them, that G-d your Lord will fulfill the covenant and the compassion that He swore to your ancestors. He will love you, bless you and multiply you, He will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your earth, your grain, wine and oil, the offspring of your cattle and your sturdy sheep, upon the land that He swore to your ancestors to give to them (Devarim 7:12-13).
Now, lest there be any confusion about how our tradition views the relative value of the spiritual afterlife versus the dizzying promises of our passage concerning the physical and material pleasures of this world, the Rambam, in a well-known passage from his Laws of Teshuva (8:1-5), sets us straight:
The ultimate good reserved for the righteous is the afterlife in the future world, for it is life that includes no death whatsoever and the complete goodness that involves no bad…in the afterlife there are no physical bodies but rather the incorporeal souls of the righteous, just like the ministering angels. Since there are no bodies, then there is neither eating nor drinking, nor any of the other needs of physical bodies in this world…
Now this goodness may seem inconsequential to you, so that you might imagine that the future reward for the mitzvot and for a man's perfection in the ways of truth ought be for him to eat and drink the best foods, have relations with the most beautiful women, don garments of fine embroidered linen while lying recumbent in ivory palaces, and to make use of vessels of silver and gold and the like. This is in fact the opinion of those foolish and philandering Arabs (who perceive the afterlife in corporeal terms)! But the wise ones who possess knowledge know that all such things are truly transitory vanities that have no lasting value. We regard such things as very good in this world only because here we have bodies and corporeality, and these things are needs of the body. The soul only desires them here because the body craves them in order to achieve its desires and to be vigorous. But where there is no materiality, then of necessity all of these things are irrelevant!
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muman613:
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/166898/jewish/Life-After-Death-in-the-Bible.htm
Why Is There Little Mention of Life After Death in the Bible?
By Aron Moss
Question:
Does Judaism believe in an afterlife? From what I've read of the Torah it seems that there is no mention of life after death. Is this world all there is?
Answer:
You have hit on one of the most powerful messages of Judaism: there may be many worlds, but this is the one that matters the most.
As you wrote, the Torah doesn't mention life after death. Although it is spoken about in the later prophets, the afterlife is conspicuously absent from the Five Books of Moses.
Having said that, there is certainly an indication that ultimate justice will be done someplace other than this world. A striking example is the story of Cain and Abel.
Cain and Abel bring offerings to G-d; G-d likes Abel's offering but not Cain's; Cain is jealous and kills Abel. End of story. But wait! In one line the Torah says that G-d is happy with Abel, the next minute he is dead! And Cain, who G-d wasn't happy with, walks away! Is this the reward for doing good?
The message is clear: this world is not always fair. But G-d will not remain indebted. Ultimate justice will come later.
So why doesn't the Torah mention the next world? Why is it left to later prophets to describe it?
Because the Torah is about this world, not the next. While other religions dangle exciting promises of what lies in store for the righteous in paradise, even giving vivid descriptions of who awaits you there and interesting facts about their biology, Judaism doesn't see this as a valid motive for doing good. G-d wants us to do good because it is good.
There is another lifetime in which the righteous will be rewarded, and the wicked punished - we believe that, the prophets spoke about it. But that is G-d's business. We have to concern ourselves with this lifetime. Our mission is to do good, fight evil, and make this a safe and comfortable world - a place where both G-d and man can feel at home.
Without belief in an afterlife, there is no justice. The Cains of this world can get away with murder. But by over-emphasizing the importance of the afterlife over this life, we run the risk of belittling the sanctity and preciousness of life itself.
Judaism has a different approach: Better leave the next world to G-d; meanwhile let's work on this world. Starting with ourselves.
edu:
Igor Schwarzmann
wrote:
--- Quote ---Many thanks for your links muman. They are very interesting, and I currently engage myself into them. But I see all of them are from the Talmud. Do you know where I can find a collection of mentions about afterlife from the Tanakh only?
--- End quote ---
I will restate what I have written above as an introduction
There are 2 types of reward after death for the righteous Jew or righteous Gentile.
1 The Spiritual resting place of the soul - called Gan {Garden} Eden, where the soul experiences spiritual delights in accordance to the merit it earned directly or indirectly.
2 According to Rabbis, such as Rabbi Ovadia of Bartenura, [and I believe this is the majority viewpoint], some time in the future, the soul will be reunited with an improved body and the soul and body will continue to exist eternally in a world that is much more satisfying than it is today.
Given my contention that resurrection of the dead is describing the World to Come, there are many references in the Tanakh. The source that the Sages cite in tractate Sanhedrin is Dvarim/Deuteronomy 32:39 "I will make them die and bring to life". The Talmud asks perhaps, the verse is talking about making one individual die and a different one alive. The Talmud answers, since the verse continues on by talking about the healing of an injured individual, just like in that instance it is talking about the same individual, so too at the beginning of the verse, when talking about bringing to life, it is talking about the same individual that was put to death.
Indication #2, Yaakov/Jacob makes a big fuss about not burying him in Egypt, but rather to bury him in Israel. Why all the fuss? One of the reasons is that as far as the afterlife is concerned it makes a big difference. There is an element of atonement plus one comes to back life earlier if one is buried in Israel.
The prophets Eliyahu and Elijah bring the dead back to life (although only temporarily)
Many (but not all) understand Yechezkel's/Ezekiel's vision of the bones of killed people coming back to life as referring to resurrection of the dead (see chapter 37)
see Daniel 12:2 "And many that sleep in the dust of the earth will awaken, these for a life of eternity", etc.
There are other examples, but I think I have provided more than enough.
I will also bring up one more point. If man had eaten from the tree of life, it says in the Tanakh, he would have lived forever. So again we see, the concept of eternal life is not alien to the Tanakh and from the other verses that I brought, we see that after man has gained atonement through death, he regains his access to eternal life, if he was righteous.
Igor Schwarzman:
Shalom and thank you for your replies.
But I'm a little bit confused about what I read here: http://www.webshas.org/emunah/sechar/punish.htm
Boiling feces (Eruvin 21b; Gittin 57a) and boiling semen (Gittin 56b-57a) as specific punishments. That's kind of nauseating... what does this mean?
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