Heaven and Hell
in Jewish Tradition
Though there is no
official Jewish conception of the afterlife, Jewish sources do provide images
of a torturous hell and heavenly paradise.
Or N. Rose
Like other spiritual traditions, Judaism offers a range of
views on the afterlife, including some parallels to the concepts of heaven and
hell familiar to us from popular Western (i.e., Christian) teachings.
Sheol: An Underground Abyss
The subject of death is treated
inconsistently in the Bible, though most often it suggests that physical death is the end of life. This is the
case with such central figures as Abraham, Moses, and Miriam.
There are, however, several
biblical references to a place called Sheol
(cf. Numbers 30, 33). It is described as a region "dark and deep,"
"the Pit," and "the Land of Forgetfulness," where human
beings descend after death. The suggestion is that in the netherworld of Sheol, the deceased, although cut off
from God and humankind, live on in some shadowy state of existence.
While this vision of Sheol is rather bleak (setting
precedents for later Jewish and Christian ideas of an underground hell) there
is generally no concept of judgment or reward and punishment attached to it. In
fact, the more pessimistic books of the Bible, such as Ecclesiastes and Job,
insist that all of the dead go down to Sheol,
whether good or evil, rich or poor, slave or free man (Job 3:11-19).
Afterlife and the World to Come
The development of the concept
of life after death is related to the development of eschatology (speculation
about the "end of days") in Judaism. Beginning in the period
following the destruction of the First Temple in Jerusalem (586 BCE), several
of the classical Israelite prophets (Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah) began forecasting
a better future for their people.
However, with repeated military
defeats and episodes of exile and dislocation culminating in the destruction of
the Second Temple in 70 CE, Jewish thinkers began to lose hope in any immediate
change, instead investing greater expectations in a messianic future and in
life after death. This was coupled with the introduction into Judaism of
Hellenistic notions of the division of the material, perishable body and the
spiritual, eternal soul.
The catastrophe of 70 CE caused
a theological crisis. How could it be that the God of Israel would simply allow
His sanctuary to be destroyed and His people to be vanquished at the hands of
the Roman Empire? While the rabbis often claimed that it was the Israelites'
sinfulness that led God to allow it to be defeated (mi-p'nei hataeinu, "because of our
sins"), it was more difficult to explain why good and decent individual
Jews were made to suffer.
This led to the development of
another theological claim: "Rabbi Ya'akov taught: This world is compared
to an ante-chamber that leads to Olam
Ha-Ba, (the World-to-Come)" (Pirkei
Avot 4:21). That is, while a
righteous person might suffer in this lifetime, he or she will certainly be
rewarded in the next world, and that reward will be much greater. In fact, in
some cases, the rabbis claim that the righteous are made to suffer in this
world so that their reward will be that much greater in the next (Leviticus Rabbah 27:1).
What the next world is, however,
is far from clear. The rabbis use the term Olam ha-Ba to refer to a heaven-like
afterlife as well as to the messianic era or the age of resurrection, and it is
often difficult to know which one is being referred to. When the Talmud does
speak of Olam Ha-Ba in
connection to the afterlife, it often uses it interchangeably with the term Gan Eden
("the Garden of Eden"), referring to a heavenly realm where souls
reside after physical death.
The use of the term Gan Eden to describe
"heaven" suggests that the rabbis conceived of the afterlife as a
return to the blissful existence of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden before
the "fall." It is generally believed that in Gan Eden the human soul exists in a disembodied state until the
time of bodily resurrection in the days of the Messiah.
One interesting talmudic story,
in which the World to Come almost certainly refers to a heavenly afterlife,
tells of Rabbi Joseph the son of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, who dies and returns
back to life, "his father asked him, 'What did you see?' He replied, 'I
beheld a world the reverse of this one; those who are on top here were below
there, and vice versa.' He [Joshua ben Levi] said to him, 'My son, you have
seen a corrected world.'"
In the kabbalistic (Jewish
mystical) tradition, there is much discussion about the voyages of the human
soul to the Garden of Eden and other heavenly realms during one's life on
earth. In the Zohar, the greatest of
the medieval mystical works, there are many stories about the soul-ascents of
various members of Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai's mystical brotherhood. Most often,
these journeys take place at night, while the body is at rest (see, for
example, Zohar I: Parashat Vayehi, 217b-218b).
Gehinnom: A Jewish Hell
Only truly righteous souls
ascend directly to Gan Eden,
say the sages. The average person descends to a place of punishment and/or
purification, generally referred to as Gehinnom.
The name is taken from a valley
(Gei Hinnom) just south of Jerusalem, once used for child sacrifice by
the pagan nations of Canaan (II Kings 23:10). Some view Gehinnom as a place of torture and punishment, fire and
brimstone. Others imagine it less harshly, as a place where one reviews the
actions of his/her life and repents for past misdeeds.
The soul's sentence in Gehinnom is usually limited to a
twelve-month period of purgation before it takes its place in Olam Ha-Ba (Mishnah Eduyot 2:9, Shabbat 33a). This twelve-month limit is
reflected in the yearlong mourning cycle and the recitation of the Kaddish (the memorial prayer for the
dead).
Only the utterly wicked do not
ascend to Gan Eden at the end
of this year. Sources differ on what happens to these souls at the end of their
initial time of purgation. Some say that the wicked are utterly destroyed and
cease to exist, while others believe in eternal damnation (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Law of Repentance, 3:5-6).
Conclusion
As is clear from this brief
discussion, the Jewish tradition contains a variety of opinions on the subjects
of heaven and hell.
Interestingly, while in
traditional Jewish thought the subjects of heaven and hell were treated
extensively, most modern Jewish thinkers have shied away from this topic,
preferring to follow the biblical model, which focuses on life on earth.
However, the rise of interest in
mysticism in the last several decades has prompted a renewed discussion about
the afterlife. Given the rich mythical descriptions of the afterlife in the
classical Jewish tradition, we must ask how such imagery impacts our views of
heaven and hell and the destiny of the human soul.
Are these ideas to be dismissed
as the wishes of earlier, less sophisticated religious seekers? Have advances
in the natural sciences made it impossible for us to believe in life after
death? Or has our disillusionment with certain aspects of
modernity--particularly its great reliance on rationality--reopened the
possibility of belief in the afterlife in our day?
Or Rose is a doctoral student in Jewish thought at
Brandeis University. He is the author of two forthcoming books, Abraham
Joshua Heschel: Man of Spirit, Man of Action (A biography for children,
Jewish Publication Society, July 2003); and In Speech & In Silence: The
Hasidic Masters on Contemplative Living (Jewish Lights, October 2003).
