Journey to Heaven: Exploring Jewish Views of the Afterlife by Leila Leah Bronner, ISBN 978-965-524-047-4 ©2011, $25.95, p. 184 plus notes and index
By Fred Reiss, Ed.D.
WINCHESTER, California — Does Judaism teach the belief in Heaven or Hell? How about resurrection? Transmigration? An afterlife? The answers depend on whom you ask the questions, and when during the three thousand or so years of Judaism’s existence you ask them.
Bonner, beginning with the Old Testament as source material, shows that prior to the Book of Daniel, which takes place in Babylonia sometime after the sixth century BCE, there is ambiguity trying to understand the meaning of the biblical texts with respect to what happens after death. She moves onto post-biblical books, such as 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra, often called pseudoepigrapha because they are not written by the person whose name is on the book and books contained in the Apocrypha, such as The Wisdom of Solomon, because they are not part of the canonized Bible, in which heaven, hell, and demons takes on a reality of their own.
In the chapter encompassing the Talmud, Bronner focusing on resurrection and the world to come, meaning life after the Messiah arrives, notes the paucity of information. Instead, she informs us that one has to look to the Midrash, biblical interpretation, to learn about Jewish beliefs in the world to come. The Midrash enumerates actions, such as Torah study, good deeds, and keeping the commandments, which ultimately lead to Heaven. Bonner shows us that comprising the medieval world were orthodox religious thinkers who adhered to the belief in the survival of the soul after death and its eventual resurrection, as well as rationalists who found it difficult to accept an afterlife.
The mystics, particularly those living in the city of Safed, Israel, during the sixteenth century, elaborating on the idea of the soul, its survival after death, resurrection and transmigration, the reincarnation of soul into another living being, profoundly influenced the Hasidic movement a century and a half later.
In modern times, Jewish sects, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist, for example, have appropriated beliefs consistent with the tenets of their convictions, to the right are those sects which accept heaven, hell, the coming of the Messiah, resurrection, and a life after death, while those to the left do not.
Journey to Heaven, the most recent work of Leila L. Bronner, an academic and former professor of bible and Jewish studies, offers a scholarly, but very readable look at afterlife beliefs in Judaism. Easy enough read for the lay person to follow, yet well annotated for the scholar to use as a valuable resource.
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Dr. Fred Reiss is a retired public and Hebrew school teacher and administrator. He is the author of The
Standard Guide to the Jewish and Civil Calendars; Ancient Secrets of Creation: Sepher Yetzira, the Book that Started Kabbalah, Revealed; and Reclaiming the Messiah. The author can be reached at fred.reiss@sdjewishworld.com
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