Quick viewing(Text Mode)

Judaism Eliezer Segal

Judaism Eliezer Segal

1

Judaism Eliezer Segal

The term , which implies a definable -system, has no real equivalent in the traditional vocabulary of the reli­ gion itself. Its widespread use in European languages owes largely to the encounter with , which attaches greater im­ portance to creeds and doctrines. In Jewish , and religious concepts rarely have been perceived as defining features. It is more accurate to employ the term Judaism in a broader cultural sense to denote the full range of religious expressions of the people of (as they almost invariably have referred to themselves). This usage correctly underscores the national char­ acter of the religion, inextricably bound to historical , without attaching disproportionate weight to its theological com­ ponent. As we shall observe, Judaism contains a complex variety of elements, including law, , , observances, wor­ ship, and beliefs. Technically, the wordJudaism-like its cognate termsJew and Jewish-refers to a more narrowly defined time frame within the longer national history, commencing at the conclusion of (he biblical era. Whereas earlier epochs had known of cwelve tribes of Israel, or of the cwo rival monarchies ofJudah and Israel, a sequence of conquests and exiles brought about a situation in

11 Judaism 13 12 ElrezerSegal can refer to the rich spectrum of Jewish religious tradi­ which only a vestige of the original people, dominated by the tions as they evolved through the ages. The delicate interplay of ancient tribe of Judah and inhabiting its ancestral territory Oral and Written be very much in evidence when we Uudea), was able to maintain its religious and cultural identity attempt to trace the evolution ofJewish conceptions of the after­ through subsequent generations. In some recent scholarship and life. theological writing it has become common to restrict the use of Judaism's cl1aracteristic subordination of creed to practice Judaism to those manifestations that emerged after the allowed for a surprising range of theological expression over Babylonian exile, as distinct from earlier Israelite or Hebrew re­ the ages, frequently in response to foreign stimuli. In keeping ligion. We must take care not to construe this terminological with the evolving, historical character of Jewish religion, we preference as an assertion that the Judaism of the shall divide our treatment of the topic into several chronologi­ erJ (sec below) WJS a new and original invention, unconnected cal stages. to the religion of the Hebrew scriptures. If indeed there is a term from Judaism's own conceptual vo­ cabulary that can serve as a meaningful alternative to Judaism, THE FIRST COMMONWEALTH (until ca. 539 B.C.E.)' it is undoubtedly Torah. From its basic connotations of "teach­ ing" or "guidance," Torah came to be equated with the scrip­ The authors of the Hebrew , apart from its latest strata, tures that were revealed by to Israel through the of .., did not teach that individuals survive death in any religiously , the greatest of God's messengers or prophets. The text of i significant way. Although there are several terms and passages this was written down in the volumes that refer ! in the Hebrew scriptures that could allude to some sort of after­ to as the Torah, usually designated in English as "the Five Books I life conception, and others that would be creatively interpreted of Moses" (reflecting the old Greek term Pentateuch). Although I in that vein by Jews of later generations, their place in the broader the Torah consists largely of laws and observances, it contains I context of biblical world views is negligible. other elements, particularly a historical narrative. The Torah of Take, for example, the words of those classical prophets who Moses is the most sacred and authoritative component of the devoted their lives to instilling in their contemporaries a zeal for Jewish scriptures, which also include two other sections: the I God and the Torah. If they had anticipated that the dead would "Prophets" [Hebrew: Nevi'im] and the "[Sacred] Writings" [He­ i be judged in a future world, or that their spiritual immortality brew: ; Greek: Hagiographa]. Taken together, the ­ ,\ was contingent upon their religious and moral conduct in their ish scriptures arc usually referred to as the ; Chris­ I present lives, then it is inconceivable why this argument is ab­ designate them the Old Testament (OT). I sent from their impassioned preaching. Neither is one's destiny According to the view that would eventually become norma­ j I in the cited as a for sacrificial atonement or to tive in Judaism, the five books of the Written Torah were paral­ explain the necessity for cleansing oneself ofsins and impurities. leled by an oral revelation that is an equally authentic and holy Several passages in the Torah present ghastly lists of curses that part of the divine revelation to Moses. Though the earliest men­ will befall the should they fail to hearken unto God's tions ofthe referred to venerable ancestral word. Among these stark descriptions of the consequences of that had been transmitted over the generations, the concept of disobedience, we read about plagues and fevers, defeat and con­ Oral Torah evolved to encompass additional aspects of religious I quest, famine, desolation, and exile. Yet nowhere do we encoun­ lore, including the enactments and teachings ascribed to the sages ter any mention of the fate that awaits the sinners upon conclu­ of various generations, interpretations of biblical precepts, and I sion of their days on earth. Even when the Torah is emphasizing so forth. Thus, in its broader and dynamic meaning, the word I J 14 ElieurSegal Judaism 1S

that God's grace or wrath will continue beyond a person's life Samuel lingered on in a restful state until his repose was dis­ span, it docs so by extending it to one's progeny. For better or turbed by the terrified Israelite monarch. It is not entirely clear (or worse, it was believed that immortality would be achieved from the narrative whether Samuel was aware of the events that .~ . through the continuity of future generations rather than in a had been troubling Saul or if he was merely drawing conclusions 1 supernatural afterlife. based on the information supplied by Saul and his own memory Alongside these eloquent arguments from silence, we must of God's hostili~ toward the king. ack.nowlcd~e that t~ere arc texts in the Hebrew Bible that give Several details raise doubts about the narrator's perspective a different ImpreSSIOn, that seem to refer to at least a limited on the episode. The fact that Saul himself did not behold the I kind ~f a.fterli~e. In the following pages we shall survey some of prophet but relied on the witch's description suggests that she i the pnnClpal pieces ofevidence that have been adduced by schol­ might have staged a hoax for his benefit, although the wording ars. implies that it was Samuel who spoke the words that Saul heard. The Bible frequently speaks of deceased persons "gath­ Some have preferred to construe the whole apparition as a vi­ i; ered unto their fathers" or "sleeping with their fathers." The sion manufactured by God for the occasion. Nevertheless, it is .. 1 I:, . expressions evoke a picture of the dead ancestors existing in some probable that the story's author truly believed that deceased souls I f! state, awaiting reunification with their recently deceased descen­ linger on in a state of repose, subject to disturbances by necro­ I dants. However, they could mean no more than "they followed mancers and other mortal nuisances. I· their forefathers into death and the grave." Even if the raising up of Saul at Endor does testify to a wide­ Ii Another common biblical expression for death is to "go down I spread belief in the survival of human ghosts, it is clear that that f to slJe'ol." It has become almost universal to render the term as belief did not occupy a central place in the Bible's religious con­ "the underworld," or even as "," and to describe it as a shad­ iciousness. As Yehezkel Kaufmann characterizes the situation: owy place of disembodied spirits, similar to the Greek concep­ "That the spirit of the deceased lives on apart from the body is tion of Hades. the belief of the people, but biblical faith draws no religious or When we examine the actual passages in which the wordshe'ol moral from this notion.". The afterlife is at most a appears, we find few, if any, that cannot plausibly be understood fact ofnature that carries no visible implications as regards one's simply as "pit" or (by extension) "grave," which became a figu­ moral or religious behavior. Death will not bring the individual rative equivalent for death. In some passages slJe'ol refers to closer to God, nor will the afterlife be the setting for eternal underground realms that have no associations with death. Even rewards or punishments. Neither the ritual nor the moral pre­ those texts that present slJe'ol as a frightening fate in store for cepts of the Torah are commanded with a view to preparing the wicked do not necessarily imply more than that the sinners people for life in the hereafter. will bring upon themselves an early death.2 Early scholarly at­ Most modern historical scholarship has assumed that the Isra­ tempts to identify an etymological link with an Assyrian term elite popular religion postulated a more tangible and active sur­ for the abode of dead spirits have proven to be spurious, based vival of the soul in an underworld. This view is usually sup­ on preconceived ideas and extratextual considerations.J ported by citing cultural comparisons with neighboring peoples, The most compelling proof for biblical belief in survival after archeological remnants of local burial practices, and by noting death is the disturbing talc, related in 1 Samuel 28, of how the the vehemence with which necromancy was condemned by the desperate King Saul clandestinely visited the "witch of Endor " Torah. If these beliefs were so prevalent among the common who called up the departed spirit of the prophet Samuel. If ':e people, then it is remarkable that they receive so little mention in accept the story at face value, then the ghostly spirit of the prophet the Bible. Scholars have generally ascribed this fact to a con-

~J¥.... , .. i AM...·• 16 Eliezer Segal Judaism 17 scious policy ofthe biblical redactors, the formulators ofthe "of_ traditional rationales, the writers of this era did not propose that ficial" religion of Israel, who emphasized the value of life in the present world and insisted that people (themselves or life's inequities would be rectified in the hereafter.7 We possess almost no records ofJewish religious thought dur­ their descendants) would receive earthly retribution for their ing the Persian period, from the early days of the Second Com­ deeds. 5 The most reasonable explanation for this antagonism to thr~ugh afterlife ideas appears to be Kaufmann's, that afterlife concep­ monwealth to the encounter with Hellenism in the late ~.C.E. tions in the ancient Near East were invariably connected with fourth century However, as soon as we emerge from this deification of the deceased or of the rulers of the underworld, historical "dark age" it becomes evident that one particular con­ and hence were perceived as inherently antithetical to the pro­ ception of the afterlife had become widespread inJewish circles: phetic ideal of . the belief in the bodily resurrection of the dead. The origins of this idea are shrouded in obscurity. Most historians believe that the notions of resurrection and judgment in the afterlife were s BABYLONIAN EXILE AND SECOND COMMONWEALTH imported into Judaism from Persian . Although (539 B.C.E. to 70 C.E.)6 later generations would trace the idea back to Ezekiel's symbolic vision of the Valley of the Dry Bones (37:1-14), where the re­ The stability of the First Commonwealth gave way to turmoil vival of lifeless skeletons symbolized the miraculous redemption and national disaster. First the ten tribes of the northern King­ of the scattered and dispirited Jewish nation, the passage fur­ dom of Israel were conquered by the Assyrians and sent to an nishes evidence that belief in individual resurrection was not exile from which they would never be regathered. Afterward, widely held, for when God asks Ezekiel "Can these bones live?" Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian armies invaded Judea, destroying the prophet is unable to give a lucid answer-hardly the appro­ 's Temple and deporting the population. However, when priate response if resurrection were the normative belief. Babylonia fell to Persia, a remnant of the Judeans responded to Jewish texts from the early second century onward, including the call of the Persian emperor Cyrus to return to , works that are not normally perceived as emanating from nar­ rebuild their Temple, and resume their cultural and religious life. row sectarian circles, speak of resurrection as the ultimate fate The harsh of everyday life would gradually have I of the deceased. The Book of Daniel, composed in the shadow of eroded people's confidence in seeing in this world. The the persecutions of Antiochos IV Epiphanes (ca. 165), promises terrible national catastrophes made it even harder to accept the that "many of them that sleep in the dust shall awake, some to claim that history provides satisfactory retribution for the righ­ I everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt" teous and the wicked. In contrast to the earlier belief in (12:2-3). The author of 2 Maccabees, which recounts the suc­ transgenerational corporate responsibility, a new sense of indi­ cessful Jewish revolt against the Hellenistic oppressors, tells of vidual accountability was voiced by post-Exilic prophets. Jewish soldiers who contributed toward the purchase of -of­ Jeremiah and Ezekiel asserted that individuals are judged only ferings on behalf ofcomrades who had died while still tainted by for their own iniquities, not for those of their ancestors. Prob­ sin, commending them for "acting very finely and properly in ably around this time the author of the struggled taking account of the resurrection" (12:43-45). The long-winded with the issue of the undeserved suffering of the righteous, re­ justification of their action suggests that resurrection was still a jecting facile apologetics but ultimately unable to penetrate God's controversial idea. We can appreciate how a belief in an afterlife would satisfy a inscrutable ways. Although the literary remains of the Exilic and natural human craving for immortality and provide an effective early Second Commonwealth eras attest to a questioning of the incentive for martyrdom in times of persecution (Maccabees) or 18 E/iezerSegal Judaism 19

a scenario for just and final retribution (Daniel). However, it is ment, the priestly , rejected all conceptions of survival not immediately apparent why these authors should have opted after death or of retribution beyond the grave. for a conception of bodily survival rather than some form of This dispute is consistent with the general characters of the spiritual immortality. We are probably justified in regarding its two groups. The Sadducees, "fundamentalists" who acknowl­ wide acceptance amongJews as a rejection ofthe prevalent Greek edged no religious authority outside the Bible, were continuing attitudes, which denigrated physical as being antitheti­ the biblical esch~wal of afterlife conceptions. The , on cal to humanity's proper rational vocation.9 By insisting that even the other hand, were famous for their reverence for ancestral in death we will continue to inhabit physical bodies the propo­ traditions that were passed down orally among the folk. The nents of resurrection were underscoring the inherent sanctity of successors to the Pharisees during the Talmudic era would for­ material creation, in keeping with the attitudes of biblical reli­ mulate a theology according to which such traditions had been gion. Furthermore, although the continuing existence of a soul revealed to Moses at Mount Sinai (though the idea of resurrec­ or intellect can be perceived as a "natural" process independent tion had evidently achieved currency only since the Persian era). of faith in a God (as in some modern parapsychological theo­ Josephus's description of the third Jewish movement, the ries), it is impossible to imagine a reversal of nature, such as the , equates their opinion with that of Greek philosophy, reconstitution of decomposed flesh, except through miraculous that the body is a prison-house that drags the soul down during divine intervention. Some scholars have argued that from its be­ a person's lifetime, until death provides a liberating release for ginnings the teaching of bodily resurrection was intimately con­ the virtuous souls, who will dwell eternally in a paradise "be­ nected with its role in eschatological visions (see below).lo yond the ocean." As in the view ascribed to the Pharisees, the Sources emanating from the first century c.E.-inciuding the souls that prove unworthy of such a blessed destiny will be con­ historian Josephus Flavius, the Christian gospels, Jewish Rab­ signed to ceaseless torment. Since we possess no other explicit binic traditions-are in rare agreement when they depict the is­ evidence of the Essene position on this question, we are unable sue ofafterlife conceptions as a pivotal topic ofsectarian dispute to evaluate the accuracy of Josephus's description, though we among the three main Jewish "" of the late Second might assume that he has again Hellenized his account. Signifi­ Commonwealth. In Josephus's famous accounts of the three Jew­ cantly, there do not appear to be any texts among the Qumran ish parties we read that the Pharisees proclaimed the eternity of documents (the "" commonly attributed to the the soul, asserting that the dead are judged "under the earth." Essenes) that reflect such a view of the afterlife.lI The righteous pass on to other bodies, while the wicked are con­ Other texts from the Second Commonwealth present a com­ demned to eternal punishment or "imprisonment." In stating plex assortment of attitudes towards human immortality and that the wicked are denied resurrection altogether, it is evident the afterlife. The pre-Maccabean Ben-Sira (Ecclesiasticus) main­ thatJosephus's Pharisees are at variance with the author ofDaniel, tained the conservative, Sadducee-like belief in death's finality. for whom judgment takes place after the resurrection. As for The Hellenized of extolled the immortality of Josephus's apparent suggestion that we are dealing with trans­ the soul and mind, but not of the despised physical body. Apoca­ migration or reincamation (perhaps into an unbom body) rather lyptic authors offered graphic descriptions of the terrible retri­ than resurrection (to a reconstituted version of one's original bution in store for God's enemies. Jesus of Nazareth defended body), most scholars believe that we should not attach too much the Pharisaic position (on his own terms, to be sure) against weight to this detail, since Josephus frequently introduces for­ Sadducee antagonists, and his followers believed that Jesus him­ mulations of this sort in order to conform to categories that were self underwent resurrection, though the early church was not familiar to his Greek readership. The second majorJewish move- always certain what implications to draw from this belief. Even

.·f'[i. ~t I

• ",.....&... ;;.tu.OM .j, •.Ct AU t . i 20 ElieurSegal I ·]udaism 21 I

Josephus is not always consistent in distinguishing between bodily I behavior; and still others were products ofthe unrestrained folk resurrection and survival of the soul, and whether such souls I) imagination. abide in "" or under the earth. IJ ('ii, Whatever ambivalence might have attached to Josephus's de­ Ii!. scriptions of the resurrection process, Rabbinic works are quite clear that th~d,ad will be restored to their own bodies, not to TALMUDIC PERSPECTIVES (70 to ca. 700 C.E.)I2 unbornlJ or existing ones. Since observation tells us that this does not occur immediately after death, it was natural that the The Great Rebellion against Rome culminated in 70C.E. with process should be projected to an unspecified future age. This the destruction ofJudaism's cherished sanctuary and the eradi­ led to the integration of resurrection into the complex array of cation ofJewish political autonomy. Of the sects that had frag­ Jewish belicEs about ultimate redemption and restoration under mented Jewish religious life during the latter days of the Second the leadership of the anointed Son of , the Messiah. Bring­ Commonwealth, only the Pharisees appear to have survived the ing the dead back to life was perceived as a stage in the Jewish catastrophe, and many of their ideas now became features of a eschatological vision, one of the many wonders that would be I Jewish consensus. The religious teachings of the Jewish sages ,; performed in the redeemed world. 14 (now known as ) would eventually be compiled into sev­ I I Rabbinic sources often refer to the destination of the departed I cralunwritten compendia ofwhich the most prominent were the I) as the "World to Come," a term that usually referred to their , the Palestinian and Babylonian , and numer­ state after the Messianic resurrection. I.! The question naturally ous collections of biblical interpretation (), which could ) arose of what befalls the souls between the moments of death be either legal (IJalaklJic) or homiletical (aggadic). and resurrection. A widespread notion held that the disembod­ In spite of the Rabbis' usual reluctance to impose mandatory ied spirits continue to live on as indi·viduals in a supernatural creeds, a passage in the Mishnah ( 10:1) enumerates abode (see below), and several texts seem to apply the term "one who denies the resurrection of the dead" among the her­ "World to Come" to the place souls inhabit immediately after etics who forfeit their place in the world to come. The "world to separation from their bodies.I' come" was one of several new terms that were introduced in the Without completely abandoning the biblical notions of divine Rabbinic discussions of the subject. A blessing praising God as retribution in this life, the Rabbis came to realize that neither the "the reviver of the dead" was incorporated into the daily Jewish righteous nor the wicked receive full compensation in their life­ liturgy. times. The sense of dissatisfaction was heightened during the It is rare for Rabbinic theological ideas to be formulated Hadrianic persecutions of 132-35, whenJews often suffered hor­ systematically, and therefore their details must often be inferred rible martyrdom at the hands of the Romans precisely because from the homiletical or exegetical contexts in which they ap­ they had maintained their devotion to their religion. Faith in pear. Since was a collective enterprise, span­ divine justice demanded that a more equitable settling ofaccounts ning some six centuries in both Babylonia and the Land of Is­ should await both the martyrs and their tormentors. 17 rael, we cannot always assume that the diverse comments The literature of the Second Commonwealth had dealt with preserved in the literature arc susceptible to harmonization. Of similar questions, and no unified picture emerged of when and the topics that we shall survey in this section, some seem to how the judgment would take place. We have already noted the result from serious reflection on the implications of the basic discrepancy between Daniel and Josephus's Pharisees about concepts; some were inspired by scriptural texts; others prob­ whether the unrighteous wiII experience resurrection at all. Sev­ ably arose from homiletical motives, as incentives to virtuous cral tcxts from that period cnvisage some separation and pun- 22 E/iaerSegal Judaism 23 ishment of the wicked, at least in a preliminary form, while in the grave. 1I The Mishnah, in denying heretics and sinners "a sues discussed in the pages of the and M''d h' I d A h d 1 ras mc u e' portion in the World to Come," seems to reflect Josephus's view, re t e ead cognizant of what goes on among mortals? Wili but oursources preserve a variety ofapproaches to the question. peopJe be resurrected naked or clothed~ What 'JI h h h' . WI appen to In Rabbinic speculations about the fates of the righteous and t ose w ose bodIes were maimed and crippled? sinners, the souls of the former inhabit the "Garden of Eden" whereas the latter suffer torments in "Gehenna." In the Bible, the • Garden of Eden had been an idyllic paradise from which the first MEDIEVAL JUDAISM (ca. 700 to ca. 1750 C.E.) woman and man had been expelled aher disobeying God. Although some Rabbinic sources can be interpreted as referring to a terres­ I In many respects the Jewish"" were a . trial site, most seem to speak of a supernatural, "heavenly" para­ . d '. Contmua- I tlOn an co~solJdatlOn of patterns that were estabJished during I dise. The name Gehinom is usually traced to the "Vale [Hebrew: I I the Talmu~1C ~ra. However, two new interpretations ofJudaism ofBen Hinom" south ofJerusalem, which had been a notori­ Cell afrosel.~t thiS tIme, each with its own novel perspectives on the ous site ofa child-sacrifice cult during the First Commonwealth.19 i· a ter lIe. Not surprisingly, the popular imagination supplied tangible 2 i graphic descriptions of both afterlife destinations. Much of the RATIONALI5M ! material now embodied in Rabbinic literature originated in ser­ mons that were preached in the ancient , in which Jews o! Arab-~peakinglands shared in the rediscovery of the context vivid depictions of Paradise and Gehenna provide effec­ Greek phtloso~hlcal heritage that began when the Muslim con­ tive incentives for pursuing good and eschewing . qu~rors of were exposed to Syriac translations of PJato Although the elaborate Rabbinic beliefs about the afterlife A~lstotle, and others. We shall confine ourselves here to a sam~ strike us as departures from the biblical outlook summarized ph~g of. the more influential formulations of medieval Jewish . above, the Rabbis themselves acknowledged no discrepancies between scriptural religion and their own, and hence applied ~ lin;ited ra~ionalistic influence can be discerned among "theo­ their exegetical skills (as embodied in the sophisticated methods I~glans who Invoked reason not as the ultimate arbiter of reli­ of midrash) to uncovering afterlife references beneath the sur­ g~ous but on!y as an aid to maintaining order amid the d,s~rray faces ofthe biblical verses. Interpretations of this sort were often of the received tradition. In the Islamic world this theo­ stimulated by polemics with dissenting or heretical ideologies logICal endeavor was known as , a term modern scholars within]udaism or outside it. commonly extend to its Jewish equivalents. The belief in physical resurrection carried practical implica­ A notable representative was the tenth-century Rabb' S d' G' U I h' ~~ok I aa la tions with respect to the care of corpses. Because the physical a 011. n IS of Doctrines and Opinions Saadia inte- the.Ra~bmlc remains will one day be restored to life, they may not be de­ grated afterlife ideas into a broader constellation stroyed.20 Therefore burial is the only sanctioned way of dispos­ of the?loglcal Issues, including the for the creation of ing of a corpse, and to arrange a proper burial wa~ eiteemed as t~e uOlverse and ofhumanity, and moral accountability a pious manifestation of the honor due to the dead. t e ~~ture of ~he soul, , . Saadia provided Aside from the major themes outlined in the preceding para­ ~1dltlO~aJ ratl?naJ support for the receiv~d beliefs in the after­ graphs, Rabbinic literature is replete with whimsical specula­ I.e (whIch he mferred from the absence of divine justice in the tions concerning every conceivable aspect of the hereafter. Is- present world) and resurrection. Like many rationaJists he in­ terpreted the sensuous midrashic images ofParadise and G~henna

... =--- ', . r------,. -.- _.----..------¥__ ._.. 24 E/ieurSegal Judaism·· 2S ,. as metaphors {or spiritual states. Aware of the ambiguities in the and training. Some of the Jewish tried to mitigate Rabbinic uses ofthe term "World to Come," he opted for a meta­ these objections by observing that the Torah provides the most physical rather than an eschatological understanding, and ar­ efficient pedagogic means for elevating large nwnbers of people gued that the initial resurrection in the Messianic era will in­ to the appropriate intellectual levels. 's "Thirteen clude only Israel, whereas the righteous of all nations will be Articles ol.Creed~ defined minimal levels of intellectual attain­ revived in the World to Come. ment that are accessible to the less sophisticated. In the Greek tradition the prevailing model for immortality With their disdain for everything physical and corruptible the derived from the eternity of abstract ideas. The of rationalists found themselves at odds with the traditional faith and , because they are immune from the corruptibil­ in the restoration of the physical body. Although Maimonides ity of physical matter, will persist for all time. Human enumerated belief in resurrection among the mandatoryJewish can partake of eternity to the degree that they are capable of dogmas, his was questioned by some contemporaries, contemplating abstract verities. Medieval Jewish rationalists read and he composed a special treatise to confirm his commitment that concept of impersonal immortality into the traditional Rab­ to the doctrine. However, it is evident that resurrection occu­ binic imagery. pies, at most, an incidental place in Maimonides's : In the of the Jewish Aristotelians (as exemplified it will occur in the Messianic era, but the revived persons will die in the oeuvre of their most illustrious representative, the twclfth­ natural deaths and afterward enjoy tcue spiritual bliss in a non­ century Egyptian scholar Moses Maimonides), a sequence of physical World to Come.24 emanated "Separate Intelligences," pure disembodied intellects, occupies the continuum between God and our world, equated KADBALAH 25 with the biblical and with the astronomical bodies that orbit the earth. The lowest of these, the"Active Intellect," is the i The medieval esoteric theosophy known as the was power that imprints upon the human mind (initially only a "po­ I built upon a distinctive theory of ten divine creative powers I tential intellect") the capacity to conceptualize universal and known as , which serve as intermediaries between the abstract ideas that are not merely collections of sense-data. The unknowable God and the created world. Kabbalah combines influence of the Active Intellect on the human mind produces the speculative theology, a program of religious observance, and "Acquired Intellect," which is the only part of the human being novel methods of biblical interpretation into a complex mysti­ that remains immortal. Since this "immortality" is equated with cal restatement of traditional Judaism. The foremost literary participation in universal truth, the Jewish philosophers were creation of the Kabbalah was the , the Book ofSplendor, not in agreement about whether people retain their individuality a pseudepigraphic collection of homiletical discourses on the or are subsumed into a cosmic intellect.2J Bible believed to have been composed in the late thirteenth cen­ This conception is a far cry from the traditional biblical and tury by Moses de Leon of Guadalajara, Spain. Some Rabbinic ideas. It makes immortality contingent upon rational important Kabbalistic movements include the circle of Rabbi rather than moral perfection. At best, morality andtobservance i Luria in sixteenth-century , and the Eastern Euro­ of the Torah serve as a means for achieving the intellectual ob­ , pean populist Hasidic movement which arose in the late eigh­ jectives by providing the material conditions for philosophizing teenth century. or by disciplining the mind to resist the distractions of the "bodily The Kabbalists discerned at least three different components appetites." Ultimately, however, it remains an elitist ideal, ac­ in the human soul.26 This psychological theory allowed them to cessible only to those who possess the requisite intellectual gifts resolve some of the discrepancies between earlier afterlife con-

.... c 26 ElieurSegal Judaism 27 ceptions. Accordingly, it is only the lowliest, animal soul (nefesh) r- .. .( that endures punishment in the grave. The spirit (ruaM is even­ Acknowledgment of the principle ofphysical resurrection con- tually admitted to the "earthly Garden of Eden," whereas the tinues to be a defining feature of traditional ("Orthodox")Juda­ immaculate soul (neshamah), originating in the supernal sefirot ism, reinforced by avowals in the daily liturgy. The Talmudic and in the universal soul of the primordial Adam, ultimately re­ doctrine is usually interpreted through its classic medieval for­ turns to its divine source in the "celestial Garden of Eden." In mulations~wheth.E:r philosophical (especially the Maimonidean the more radical versions of the theory, the neshamah was per­ vcrsion) or Kabbalistic ('s teachings continue to exer­ ceived as a part of God that is being restored to its source. This cise strong influences on the Hasidic movement and in Oriental raised questions of whether souls retain individual personalities Jcwish communities). in the hereafter. The Jewish Reform movement, which developed in central Kabbalah was the onlyJewish movement for which the trans­ and western Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centu­ migration ofsouls ()27 was the normative afterlife doctrine, ries, professed both a rejection of Rabbinic authority and a de­ a notion they often combined with belief in the preexistence of termination to conform to the social needs and cultural climate souls. One popular theory spoke of each soul fashioning a spiri­ of modern Europe. From both these perspectives, literal belief in tual garmentcomposed ofvirtuous deeds, which it will don when resurrection was generally considered unacceptable. Liberal Prot­ it is finally admitted to God's presence. Early Kabbalists envis­ estants, who often spoke in the name of universalistic enlighten­ aged metempsychosis as a punishment, or second chance, for ment, preferrcd a model ofspiritual immortality, and many "en­ certain transgressions (especially sexual ones). However, later lightened" and liberal Jews shared the conviction that immortality sources treat it as a normal process, which is not necessarily re­ of the soul is rationally demonstrable.29 stricted to human bodies. Various authors disagreed over specif­ Discussions of thc afterlife are almost entirely absent from ics; for example, how many times can a person be reincarnated? non-Orthodox twentieth-century religious discourse, which has Why is there need for punishment both through focused on the absolute commitment to this world as the setting and through the fires of Gehenna? for the encounter with the divine, the covenant between God Variations on the transmigration motif include the belief that and Israel, and the obligation to serve humanity.JO Even Franz a departed soul can enter ("impregnate") a living person to ful­ Rosenzweig (1886-1929), whose theology was responding to the fill certain missions. Kabbalistic folklore often spoke of posses­ challenges of human mortality, conceived of etcrnity as a reli­ sion (dibbuk) by sinful spirits who had forfeited their right to gious dimcnsion of life, not as an afterlife state. Similarly, the redemptive transmigration. important theological responses to the Nazi Holocaust, as for­ mulated by authors like Elie Wiesel, Emil Fackenhcim, Richard Rubinstein, and others, have been rendered more poignant and MODERN JUDAISM (from ca. 17S0FI painful by their reluctance to appeal to a supernatural retribu­ tion in a World to Come. Since the admission ofJews to full participation in E~opean society exposed them to contemporary intellectual currents, Jew­ Notes ish theology has been distinguished less by its promulgation of original ideas than by its varying degrees of resistance or recep­ I Works cited in this section include Yehezke1 Kaufmann, The Reli­ gion ofIsrael: From Its Bcgilmillgs to the Babyloniall Exile (Chicago: tivity to outside (usually Christian) concepts. University of Chicago Press, 1960); Hans Walter Wolff, Anthropology of the Old TcstamclIt, trans. Margaret Kohl (Philadelphia: Fortress

~:;f • ;

u • ._•• _. __ • I I Judaism 29 Press, 1974J, pp. 100-6; Johannes Pedersen, Israel: Its Life and Cul­ I ~ ,. I ture (London and Copenhagen: Oxford University Press and Branner I 7 Hellenistic Jewish thinkers like Philo of Alexandria and the au­ og Korch, 1973J, pp. 460-70. Thanks to Dr. Michael DeRoche for i thor of thc Wisdom of Solomon speak disparagingly of the body as I directing me to useful references. weighing down thc soul (sce Brandon, pp. 141-43; Sanders, pp. 298­ 1 S. G. F. Brandon, Man and His Destiny in tbe Great Religions I 99). (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1972), pp. 116-17, attaches S~Urer, I 10 See pr' 391-92, 537-40. importance to 1 Samuel 25:29, where Abigail blesses David saying, 11 The survival 0 disembodied souls is mentioned in Enoch and Jubi­ "Yet the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of the living with I lees, works that occupy prominent places in the Qumran library (sec the Lord thy God; and the souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling I Schlirer, p. 539, n. 90 and p. 5, n. 93). out." However, "soul" might serve here as an equivalent to "life," so 11 I am aware of no full-scale monograph on afterlife conceptions that the text would mean that God will preserve David's life but quickly during the Talmudic cra. Much information can be gleaned from the cast down his enemies. pertinent index entries in Louis Ginzberg, The Lcgends of the Jews l "The etymology of [she'o/] is still obscure.... Friedrich Delitzsch (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1967J. identified it with a supposed Babylonian term slm'alu. But this view 1.1 Talmudic sources know of a Platonic-like idea of the prc-existent has long since been abandoned" (Alexander Heidel, The Gilgamesh souls (sec Ephraim Urbach, The Sages [Cambridge Mass.: Harvard Epic and Old Testament Parallels [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, University Press, 1987], pp. 235-48). 1965], p. 173). 14 This view is also found in apocalyptical works like 4 Ezra (7:31­ 4 Kaufmann, p. 31l. 34) (sec Schlirer, p. 539). S E.g., Wayne Pitard, "Afterlife and Immortality," in The Oxford IS H. Albeck, Shishah Sidrei Mishnah Uerusalem and Tel-Aviv: Bialik Companion to the Bible, cd. Bruce Metzger and Michael Coogan (Ox­ Institutc and Dvir, 1959),4:454. ford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 15-16. Brandon (pp. 118­ ., Louis Finkelstein, Mabo le-Massektot Abot ve-Abot d'Rabbi Natan 29) regards the "Yahwist" antipathy to afterlife ideas as a byproduct (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1950), pp. 212-20; Max of their attempt to replace local tribal cults with a centralized national Kadushin, The Rabbinic Mind (New York: Bloch, 1972), pp. 361-64. religion. 17 Urbach, pp. 436-44. , Works that deal with afterlife conceptions during this period in­ II Schurcr, pp. 540-41. clude Brandon, pp. 129-50; Salo Baron, A Social and Religious His­ 17 Sec especially Jeremiah 7:32-33. S. Klein has suggested that some tory oftbeJews (New York: Columbia University Press, 1962-), 1:135­ of the Rabbinic references might have originally been to the "Vale of 38,357; 2:38-41, 345; Shaye D. Cohen, From the Maccabees to the Hamon" in Transjordan, site of a hot spring whose underground source Mishnah (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987); George Foot Moore, was popularly linked to the flames of Hell (" Ha'lIa~otei' verabbah bar Judaism in the First Cellturies ofthe Christian Era (Cambridge: Harvard bar ~alla," Mc'assef Zion 5 [1933], pp. 1-13). University Press, 1958),2:279-322, 88-92; G. Nickelsburg, Resurrec­ 20 The issue is obviously symbolic. The God who can reconstitute tion, Immortality and Eternal Life in IntertestamentalJudaism (1972); decomposed flesh is surely able to reassemble dispersed ashes. E. P. Sanders, Judaism Practice and Belief (London and Philadelphia: 11 Standard surveys of medieval Jewish philosophy include Julius SCM Press and Press International, 1992), pp. 298-303; Emil Guttmann, Philosophies ofJudaism (New York: Schocken, 1973); Isaac Schlirer, The History ofthe Jewish People in the Age ofJesus Christ, Husik, A History ofMedieval Jewish Philosophy (New York: Harper rev. G. Vermes et al. (Edinburgh: Clark, 1979J, 2:391-92, 5~-47. & Row, 1966); Colette Sirat, A History ofJewish Philosophy ill the 7 The author of ironically described how death renders Middle Ages (Cambridge and Paris: Cambridge University Press and futile all human achievement. Maison des Sciences de I'Homme, 1985). I Shaul Shaked, "Iranian Influence on Judaism," in Tbe Cambridge 12 Guttmann, pp. 82-83; Husik, pp. 41-47; Sirat, pp. 33-35. History ofJudaism, ed. W. D. Davies and Louis Finkelstein (Cambridge: 2J Guttmann, pp. 152-59, 176-78, 199-207; Husik, pp. xxxiv-xlvii; Cambridge University Press, 1984-), 1:308-25. Sirat, pp. 170-71,187-88,203. 24 Guttmann, pp. 208-9; Sirat, pp. 170-72. 30 FJ~zerSegal

15 Material related to this section is collected in Gerschom Scholem, Kabbalah (New York: New American Library, 1978). U Scholem, pp. 155-65. 17 Scholem, pp. 347-50. 11 Useful summaries include Gunmann; , Choices in Modern (New York: Behrman House, 1983); Simon Noveck, ed., GreatJewish Thinkers ofthe Twentieth Centllry (Clinton: B'nai Brith, 1963). l' This was maintained by otherwise diverse thinkers like the tradi­ tionalist (1729-86), the pioneer ofJewish Enlight­ enment, and the liberal Solomon Steinheim (1789-1866). JO This is true of such well-known Jewish existentialists as , Heschel, and others. An articulate exception is Louis Jacobs, A Jewish Theology (New York: Behrman House, 1973), pp. 319-22.

Top View