“I like lobster. Do I go around pushing lobster on people? Do I say, ‘You must like lobster’?!”
– Larry David
FOR THE LAST 250 years or so, there have been two significant poles along the Jewish spectrum: the right-wing Orthodox fundamentalists and the liberal Reform denomination. Jewish atheists like myself invariably sit in the Reform seats – the air is fresher there.
One guidebook to the Orthodox meaning of death is the 1969 The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning by Maurice Lamm, who writes: “The afterlife is not a theory to be proven logically or demonstrated by rational analysis. It is axiomatic. It is to the soul what oxygen is to the lungs. There is little meaning to life, to God, to man’s constant strivings, to all of his achievements, unless there is a world beyond the grave.”
There’s the old joke that, if you put two Jews in a room, you’ll get three opinions. To help me understand the different meanings that Orthodox and Reform Jews – and Christians – give to death, I turn to my good, close, personal friend Rabbi Raphael Asher, a mensch, a man wise beyond his already advanced years.
“Most Orthodox rabbis would say that the soul has an eternal life,” explains Raphael. “They cherry-pick teachings from rabbis over the centuries and say, ‘It’s looking pretty rosy on the other side.’ However, most Reform rabbis would say, ‘We just don’t know. Perhaps, as in each stage of life, something is lost and something gained. It may be so in our death.’ ”
The bible – which includes the torah (the five books of Moses), the prophets and writings – has no explicit references to olam haba, the “world to come.” Judaism encourages us to focus on this world and this life.
According to Raphael, “The Rabbinic Period started around the same time as the beginning of the Christian era, which had a very explicit imagining of heaven and hell and resurrection. The rabbis of that period were intent on maintaining vagueness as opposed to the Christian sense of surety. And so Christianity was able to give the world this sense of eternal life, whereas Judaism said to the pagans, “If you become Jewish, not only will you have to become circumcised, which is a bit of a turn-off, but also you’re going to have to obey all these laws. Christianity said that all you have to do is believe in Christ as our redeemer. Christianity had a much clearer path to redemption than did Judaism.”
The torah is much more naturalistic, says Raphael. “It says that, when our patriarchs die, they ‘sleep with their ancestors.’ A biblical reference that the Orthodox have snapped onto is a chariot coming for Elijah, but that can be understood poetically rather than actual proof of life after death.”
I ask my friend what does he think? “Depends on the day of the week. There are certain times when I have stronger intimations of immortality than others. The 1950s, when we grew up, was a very rational period. Whatever we believed had to be proven by reason and science. I remember asking my father [a prominent and much beloved rabbi himself] about olam haba. He said our afterlife is in the memories of those who cherished us.
“When I am leading a funeral, the Reform rabbinic manual includes a statement that ‘No human eye has seen nor ear has heard that the afterlife is our sure inheritance.’ When I say that at graveside, I’m not sure that I believe it, but I’m not there to express my own beliefs, I’m there to give a sense of hope that death is not the last chapter.”
One aspect of the Orthodox credo that I find particularly absurd is the revivification of actual skin and bones. Orthodox Judaism “believes in the eventual resurrection of the body, which will be reunited with the soul at a later time,” writes Lamm. The decomposed bodies of righteous men “will be resurrected at God’s will.”
Those references to the resurrection of the dead are in the actual Orthodox prayerbook. But many Reform prayerbooks eliminated that concept. Says Raphael, “Instead of m’chayei meitim (“God has the power to raise the dead”), the Reform prayerbook says m’chayei hakoll (“God has the power to revive everything”), a much vaguer reference – not that the coffins somehow open and the body joins the soul, but that life somehow goes on.”
And what about heaven and hell, bedrock concepts in much of Western religion? “We fool ourselves if we think that divine justice will play itself out in heavenly rewards or hellish retribution,” says Raphael. “Most Reform rabbis would see these and the concept of bodily resurrection as some psychological solace to our fears. Our tradition, long before Freud and modernity, resisted any concept of hell as a means of preying on fears or settling a score.”
It’s impossible to reconcile the Jewish founts that provide meaning to death. Personally, I like the Reform version, which promotes positive ambiguity.
Next week: The meaning of death according to Woody Allen, Part II
The rabbi liked the column, too. He was particularly pleased to be sandwiched between Larry David and Woody Allen.