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Articles
by Rabbi Zalman Shacter-Shalomi
Life
in the Hereafter:
A Tour of What's to Come
By Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi
Death did not frighten the pious Jew of old. He had faith
in the talmudic contention that death is simply a transition
from one life into another, likened to the ease of taking
a hair out of milk. What the Jew wanted above all was to die
fully conscious, to be in full possession of his mental faculties
at the time that his soul left his body. For the hasid
(righteous) it was a matter of absolute faith and conviction
that the same One God who was worshipped in this world could
be served in the worlds to come, as well.
For
the not-so-pure, however, the process of extricating from
bodily life was a bit more problematic. The soul that had
become too fully identified with the body through sensual
indulgence would find it difficult to separate from it. To
accompany the body to its final resting place and to behold
the putrefaction and the decay was understandably painful
for such souls. This state of being is known as hibbut
ha-kever, the pain and anguish of the grave. In order
to destroy the illusory identification of soul with body and
avert the consequent pain in death, hasidim would often
engage in ascetic practices while still in this life. Particularly
exalted souls would be able to achieve this level of consciousness
through prayer and meditation, becoming oblivious to their
physical body and surroundings.
REMEMBERING
ONE'S NAME:
The
earthbound disembodied soul can encounter a number of dangers.
If it is unable to separate itself from the body even through
pain, it can experience a decay of consciousness and a turning
into nothingness. An angel, Dumah (Silence), is the guardian
of the dead, and wanting to prevent this decay, asks each
soul for its Hebrew name. The rabbis say that some people
suffer amnesia due to the shock of dying and are, consequently,
unable to remember their identity. In order to dispel this
amnesia, the learning of a mnemonic device while one is alive
is recommended: At theconclusion of every Amidah (the
central prayer of the service), the worshiper is instructed
to "sign off' by reciting a biblical verse that begins
with the first initial of his name and ends with the last
letter of his name. Among Sephardic Jews, the child is initiated
into his/her own sentence at the bar or bat mitzvah. In this
way, the worshiper reinforces the memory of his Jewish name
at the end of every prayer service. Thus, in death, even if
he is unable to remember his name, he will he able to remember
the Torah verse, because Torah is eternal and cannot decay.
The soul will therefore be able to follow the angels who summon
it before the heavenly court.
Besides
the problem of the soul maintaining its identity, there is
another difficulty. All the sounds that a person has heard
during his life continue to vibrate within his soul following
his death, like clanging coins in a gourd. He is. thus, unable
to achieve the subtle stillness necessary to receive the angelic
or heavenly voices. The nature of this “static”
can be compared to the inner disturbances experienced by someone
trying to meditate in silence. In order to rid the soul of
this "dust," it is shaken in the Kaf ha-Kela,
the Catapult. The sages say that "two angels stand at
each end of the world and toss the soul from one to the other."
It is almost as if the angels try to rid the soul of its accumulated
psychic dust by putting it through a cosmic centrifuge until
only pure soul remains. Were this treatment not administered
to the soul, however, it would be unable to silence all the
sense images and noises that were carried with it from this
world and would have to wander in the world of Tohu
(Confusion and Emptiness) for ages. In one Hasidic tale, a
lost soul who has already roamed for hundreds of years in
such a void cries out, "Would that I already had reached
Gehenna!"
GEHENNA:
The
Jewish idea of Gehenna (Gehinnom) is not hell, but rather
a purgatory where the soul is purged from all defilement that
has accumulated on it during its life on earth. Although there
are worse places to be, there are certainly better. This purgatory
is often described in lurid physical details of fire and cold,
yet the rabbis warn against seeing Gehenna as a material entity.
It is rather like the pain of anxiety intensified by silence
and a deep awareness of the evil committed. Curiously, according
to tradition, Gehenna is emptied on the Sabbath. Some claim
that this respite is only granted to those who had kept the
Sabbath in their lives. Others disagree, claiming that Gehenna
is emptied for all; were it not for the weekly bliss and light
which the Sabbath provides, the soul would be unable to endure
the anguish of Gehenna.
THE
GARDENS OF PLEASURE:
When
a soul is ready to enter Gan Eden (Paradise, literally
the Garden of Eden), it must first be immersed in the River
of Light , created from the perspiration that flows from the
heavenly hosts as they fervently sing glory to the Highest.
This immersion is to empty the soul of any lingering earth
images so that it may, without further illusion, see heaven
for what it really is.
First
the soul enters the lower Gan Eden, which is a paradise of
emotional bliss. While on earth most persons are unable to
experience more than one dominant emotion at a time. However,
the bliss of the souls in the lower Gan Eden is likened to
a majestic chord of benign emotions, which the soul feels
towards God and towards other souls. In the Hasidic view,
heaven is organized into societies. Those souls who share
mutual interests are drawn together so they can serve His
Blessed Name according to their own specialty and individuality.
Each heavenly society is taught by its own rabbi and led to
further celestial attainments. Thus, the lower Gan Eden is
the heaven of emotional fervor.
Before
a soul is raised from the lower to the higher Gan Eden, it
must again immerse itself in the River of Light so that it
will forget and forsake the furor of the emotions. for the
even greater delights of knowing God through understanding.
The serving of God with insight through the study of Torah
is itself a reward. The societies of the upper Gan Eden are
organized into yeshivot (schools! in which a blissful understanding
of the divine mind is attained. Each midnight, the Holy One,
blessed be He. Himself appears and enters Gan Eden to delight
in the sharing of His blessed wisdom with the righteous who
have gained the upper Gan Eden.
MOURNING
FOR THE DEAD:
Many
of the customs of mourning have developed in order to assist
the soul through its many trials in the afterlife. In order
to help the soul avoid the amnesia described above, it is
customary for the mourners to remind the soul "your name
is so-and-so. and do not forget it." The reciting of
the mourner's Kaddish (see "8 Common Misconceptions
Jews Have About Judaism ) helps to "cool the fires of
Gehenna." The maximum sentence for this purgatory is
twelve months: however. the mourner's Kaddish is only recited
for eleven months. so as not to insult the dead by implying
that he/she would have to serve the full term.
Each
year on the yahrzeit (anniversary of death) a higher
rung of Gan Eden is achieved by the soul. While the soul celebrates
its birthday into heaven with its celestial friends. the living
traditionally celebrate the aliyat ha- neshamah (ascendancy
of the soul) by praying for a more exalted position in heaven
for that soul.
Since
souls are incapable of acquiring new merit after death, the
living can transfer credit to the account of a loved one,
thus enabling it to achieve higher levels. One of the most
potent means is by offering tzedakah (charity) in the
name of the deceased. Another is soul. Particularly potent
in this regard is the study of Mishnah because it has the
same Hebrew letters as the word neshamah (soul). In
these ways incarnate souls can help discarnate souls that
have gone beyond.
IBBUR
AND DYBBUK – ON BEING POSSESSED: Not only can the souls
of the deceased be helped by those here below, but the dead
can return the favor. At moments of great danger they can
come to forewarn their loved ones through dreams and visions,
helping them through teals and temptations. A soul is said
to have come into ibbur (literally, pregnancy) when
it enters, in a benign fashion, the body and soul of a person
living here on earth. Often such an ibbur can raise a person
to great temporary heights. Ibbur, however, can also
help the discarnate soul who is in need of only one mitzvah
(deed carried out to fulfill God's commandments) in order
to round out a particular incarnation. Instead of risking
the danger of another incarnate existence it can receive the
needed merit from the living by helping someone as an ibbur.
The custom of naming children after the deceased is a means
of affording the departed another return to life or of creating
affinities so that it, as an ibbur, may help their
offspring and receive help in return.
While
the case of ibbur is an instance of benign possession,
tradition has recorded many accounts of evil possession, known
as dybbuk (literally, sticking). If a person was wronged
by another and this wrong was responsible for its suffering,
whether in life or in death, it can seek revenge by possessing
someone (not necessarily the wrongdoer) as a dybbuk.
A dybbuk can be educated in how to find spiritual guidance
without harming the living or it can be negotiated with by
offering the performance of mitzvot on its behalf in return
for its leaving the possessed body. When it is recalcitrant,
however, coercive devices must be resorted to (see "Rituals
for Jewish Exorcism").
REINCARNATION:
Nothing
new can be gained in heaven. The quantity of mitzvot (deeds
or blessings) and Torah acquired by the time of death is what
remains with a person after death. In heaven one can gain
only a deeper and richer understanding of his life on earth.
It is for this reason that souls, once they have absorbed
all that heaven has to offer, apply for reincarnation, i.e.
in order to attain further perfection. Reincarnation is also
granted to allow the soul to bring about a restitution of
the wrongs it has committed.
Some
souls are so filled with the light of knowledge and the warmth
of compassion however, that the heavenly court, the "supernal
familia,"will engage in all kinds of ruses in order to
reinvolve it in the work of saving and helping other souls
still on the earthly plane. Reincarnation is an option at
any point—after Gehenna, after the lower paradise, or
even after the upper paradise. The process repeats until a
soul has built its spiritual body.
RESURRECTION
AND BEYOND:
After
the coming of the Messiah, the resurrection of the dead is
to take place. While the majority of commentators understand
this to involve a reassemblage of the physical body previously
inhabited, a minority opinion maintains that this will be
a materialization of the level of spiritual body that the
soul has built through its many incarnations. Those souls
that have not completed their spiritual body will, at the
resurrection, materialize here on earth in order to perform
the remaining mitzvot required of them in an environment free
of death and evil.
The
Talmud relates that Rabbi Judah the Prince, the compiler of
the Mishnah, used to return in a spiritual body every Sabbath
eve to sanctify the Sabbath by celebrating the Kiddush
(sanctification over the wine) for his family. He did this
for an entire year. Only after one of the servants of the
family revealed these visits to neighbors did Judah the Prince
take final leave of his family, never to return again, on
the grounds that his coming would put other saints to shame.
Thus, Judah the Prince had attained the fullness of the spiritual
body during his last incarnation on earth.
Yet
even the completion of the spiritual body is not the ultimate
state of being. Having attained such fullness, a soul can
be "absorbed into the very Body of the King," the
ultimate aim of its yearning and longing. Thus the soul merges
finally in God, as a drop in the ocean.
Articles
by Rabbi Zalman Shacter-Shalomi
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