A friend of mine is very ill with cancer and she does not have a lot of faith. I want to explain to her the Jewish view on heaven. Thank you very much!
Exactly how you should present this information, I’ll leave to your better judgment. But here are some things I’ve written in a somewhat different context which might be of some help.
First of all, you may have noticed the curious fact that the Written Torah (the Bible) contains very little discussion of our post-death destination. The 12th Century Jewish work of philosophy, “The Kuzari,â€? explained that it’s left out because “heavenâ€? is a place none of us has ever been and of which we can therefore provide no hard and verifiable evidence. And it is not the way of the Torah, wrote the Kuzari, to present claims that are unverifiable.
So all that we do know about the next world is based on tradition (much of it contained in various volumes of the Oral Torah – i.e., the Talmud, kabbala etc.).
We are told (Talmud, Shabbos 31a) that a souls accomplishments in this world are tested (were asked, in essence: how close were you to the expectations God had for you?) and after death, were faced with an honest and unflinching view of God’s relationship with the world, His methods and the potential there was for fulfilling His goals. As perfection is, at best, rare, I would suspect that the tone is often one of regret.
Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzato (18th Century Italian scholar) demonstrated the impossibility of satisfying the soul in this finite, mundane world (when teaching this idea, I use the example of fine art and classical music: in great works of art, you can sometimes almost taste an unsatisfied and terrible yearning for something more, something just beyond the artist’s grasp. I suspect that might be one reason why so many artists are so depressed because they can almost see it but dont realize its not really in this world at all…). Either way, given that the soul can never be truly happy here (and assuming that God created it for some benevolent purpose), there MUST be some time and place where it WILL be satisfied. That place, writes Rabbi Luzzato, is the next world, where, in proportion to our worldly merits, we will bask in the infinite warmth of the Divine Presence…something we strive for even now without necessarily knowing it.
One final point: we are taught that the soul isn’t prepared to enjoy the Divine Presence until its this-worldly sins have been cleansed and atoned. Of course, it’s by far best to do that here through the process of repentance, but the cleansing of what’s left is performed in a non-physical place you could call Hell. I’ve been told to think of it as a kind of dry cleaners; just like your suit probably doesn’t enjoy its trip to the cleaners, so too the soul. But the ability to come close to the Divine far outweighs the pain.
All this, according to Judaism, is in the realm of the spirit and is entirely independent of anything physical (sources that seem to attribute physical properties to the place our souls go after death or to the place from which theyve come before birth are to be understood in metaphoric terms).
Revival of the (righteous) dead, on the other hand, is a physical reuniting of soul and body that we believe will follow sometime after our earthly, messianic redemption.
And here’s a thought about facing the possibility of imminent death:
God brought suffering upon Chizkiya and said to (the prophet) Isaiah to go visit the sick king, as it says (II Kings 20) and in those days, Chizkiya became deathly ill (Isaiah 38) and Isaiah ben Amotz the prophet came to him and said: thus says God: command your household for you will die and you will not live. Why (asks the Gemara) does it say (both) for you will die and you wont live? (that is to say) that he will die in this world and will not live even in the next. Chizkiya asked: why all this? (Isaiah) answered: because you didnt (marry and) procreate Chizkiya replied that was because it was shown me through divine inspiration that (evil) children would come from me. (Isaiah) answered: what business do you have with the secret plans of God? What you were commanded (by the Torah) simply do (i.e., you should have married and had children anyway) and whatever is proper before God He will bring to be. (Chizkiya) answered: Alright. You give your daughter to me in marriage and perhaps your merits and mine will combine to produce good children. (Isaiah) replied: the decree has already been declared against you (i.e., you will certainly die). (Chizkiya) answered: Ben Amotz! Finish up your prophecy and go, for I have a tradition from my ancestor (King David), even if a sharp sword is upon a mans neck, dont give up hope of receiving divine mercy.
I believe that this passage teaches that we are in Gods hands throughout our lives even in the most difficult times and even when hope is extinguished, and that, indeed, hope is never extinguished (allowing for the fact that not every story has a visibly happy ending).
While there are many ways to approach the fear of death (and of life itself), I think the most profound and (when mastered) also the most successful, is trust in God. This trust isnt the simplistic belief that God will somehow jump to every snap of our fingers or that we can force Him to fill our every desire, but it is the belief that He is in control; that He can do anything; that whatever He does do is ultimately for the best even if we cant see how right now.
By the way, the king Chizkiya lived many years after this final illnessdemonstrating not that it had to be that way, but that it could turn out that way (for any of us).
There are many, many passages of the Torah that address these thoughts. Let me offer the following few for now Psalms chapters 23, 27 and perhaps 130.
I do hope that these can be comforting and helpful for your friend (and for you, too). With my very best wishes,
Rabbi Boruch Clinton
Ottawa, Canada