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Jewish Views of the Afterlife
Originally published in 1994, Jewish Views of the Afterlife is a classic study of ideas of afterlife and postmortem survival in Jewish tradition and mysticism.
As both a scholar and pastoral counselor, Raphael guides the reader through 4,000 years of Jewish thought on the afterlife by investigating pertinent sacred texts produced in each era. Through a compilation of ideas found in the Bible, Apocrypha, rabbinic literature, medieval philosophy, medieval Midrash, Kabbalah, Hasidism and Yiddish literature, the reader learns how Judaism conceived of the fate of the individual after death throughout Jewish history. In addition, this book explores the implications of Jewish afterlife beliefs for a renewed understanding of traditional rituals of funeral, burial, shiva, kaddish and more.
This newly released twenty-fifth anniversary edition presents new material on little-known Jewish mystical teachings on reincarnation, a chapter on “Spirits, Ghosts and Dybbuks in Yiddish Literature”, and a foreword by the renowned scholar of Jewish mysticism, Rabbi Arthur Green.
Both historical and contemporary, this book provides a rich resource for scholars and laypeople and for teachers and students and makes an important Jewish contribution to the growing contemporary psychology of death and dying.
As both a scholar and pastoral counselor, Raphael guides the reader through 4,000 years of Jewish thought on the afterlife by investigating pertinent sacred texts produced in each era. Through a compilation of ideas found in the Bible, Apocrypha, rabbinic literature, medieval philosophy, medieval Midrash, Kabbalah, Hasidism and Yiddish literature, the reader learns how Judaism conceived of the fate of the individual after death throughout Jewish history. In addition, this book explores the implications of Jewish afterlife beliefs for a renewed understanding of traditional rituals of funeral, burial, shiva, kaddish and more.
This newly released twenty-fifth anniversary edition presents new material on little-known Jewish mystical teachings on reincarnation, a chapter on “Spirits, Ghosts and Dybbuks in Yiddish Literature”, and a foreword by the renowned scholar of Jewish mysticism, Rabbi Arthur Green.
Both historical and contemporary, this book provides a rich resource for scholars and laypeople and for teachers and students and makes an important Jewish contribution to the growing contemporary psychology of death and dying.
528 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 2, 2023
Long, not an easy read. But a solid comprehensive overview of Jewish historical views of the after life
December 27, 2025
AN EXCELLENT AND THOROUGH SUMMARY OF DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVES
Simcha Paull Raphael (b. 1951) was a professor in Jewish Studies at Temple University (2007-2014), spiritual director at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (1999-2009), and an adjunct professor of religion and theology and Jewish chaplain at La Salle University. He is also a licensed psychotherapist, who has worked as a bereavement counselor and death educator.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1995 book, “In 1978… I first began systematic research on the topic of life after death in Judaism… I was continually amazed… at the magnitude of Jewish teachings on the afterlife… teachings on life after death have always been part and parcel of the Jewish spiritual legacy… in no way is this book exhaustive… Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi encouraged me to take on the task of researching and writing this book. Reb Zalman is a Jewish visionary and one of the great teachers of our age.” (Pg. xxxiii-xxxiv)
He notes, “the scholar of modern Judaism may be disappointed to discover that I do not have an extensive survey of what early modern Jewish theologians had to say about the afterlife. Part of the problem is that they did not have much to say… in the modern era Judaism does not have an extensive tradition on the afterlife. Ideas about life after death take a back seat to rationalism and scientific materialism.” (Pg. 6)
He reports, “Recently, a rabbi lecturing a group of nurses … When asked… ‘Does Judaism believe in an afterlife?’… the rabbi replied, ‘Judaism celebrates life and the living. It dwells on life here rather than the hereafter as other religious faiths do…’ This response, which is absolutely characteristic of modern Judaism’s attitude toward the afterlife, is the singularly more problematic Jewish belief about life after death today. Why? Because it is simply not true!” (Pg. 13)
He suggests, “Before reading on, conjure in your mind a picture of the realms of heaven and hell… Do you see Adam? Abraham? Moses?… Seven regions of heaven? Seven realms of hell, presided over by the angel of death? These are the images found in Jewish sources. Yet the likelihood is that the afterlife images that come to mind---for both Jews and non-Jews---are closer to medieval Christian art than to … Jewish mysticism or legend… Christian notions of life after death have permeated Jewish awareness, at a very deep, unconscious level.” (Pg. 27)
He summarizes, “Absolutely nowhere in the Bible do we find a unified view about life after death that reflects postmortem beliefs of the entire biblical era, or even of any one period. The biblical text is a historical amalgam, a melange of centuries of experience… Because of this, it is not possible to present a strictly chronological delineation of the afterlife interwoven with the various strata of sacred writings… At this state in biblical history, the notion of personal immortality does not yet exist.” (Pg. 42, 46)
He explains, “The first important shift in the Israelite conception of Sheol came about with the increase… fo YHVH’s power… God’s power widened and could now save human beings from the clutches of Sheol… In its earliest conception, Sheol was a world... paralleling the human realm; those in Sheol … possessed life, knowledge, and the power to interact with … the living… However, according to a later view, the dead in Sheol have absolutely no knowledge of what transpires in the earthly realm… At this point, a number of conceptual changes take place in the biblical understanding of Sheol… originally, Sheol was simply a habitation of the ancestral dead … there [was]… no reward or punishment… Sheol came to be seen as a place of punishment for the enemies of YHVH and of Israel.” (Pg. 58-60)
He states, “The idea of individual immortality is not found in the apocryphal and pseudepigraphic writings of Palestinian Judaism. It never replaced the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead for the Palestinian authors, as it did for those in Alexandria. Nonetheless, it was a very important development in the evolution of Jewish ideas on the afterlife…. however… even in the subsequent period of rabbinic Judaism individual immortality never became the predominant belief regarding life after death.” (Pg. 104) He continues, “Even with the influence of the Greek doctrine of the soul, Jewish teachings in postmortem immortality never supplanted the primacy of belief in physical resurrection.” (Pg. 114)
He records, “the doctrine of resurrection… had become a prevalent belief in Judaism… this eschatological doctrine was at the root of the polarization between the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The former completely rejected the notion of postmortem reward and punishment, and… the belief in bodily resurrection. In place, they taught that the soul totally ceased its existence at the time of death… On the other hand… the Pharisees assiduously upheld a belief in reward and punishment, which… assumed a physical resurrection for the righteous dead… in the Gospels we see how Jesus, obviously a product of early first-century Judaism, tacitly accepted the pharisaic belief in a resurrection of the dead for all humanity.” (Pg. 156)
He continues, “Next, we will look at a series of five texts on the theme of punishment in Gehenna… a major theme… is that of sins and their punishments… we find a recurrence of the motif of specific postmortem punishment meted out based on and nature of one’s sins. Individual senses and body parts are tortured in retribution for behavioral transgressions…” (Pg. 173-174)
He explains, “Saadia Gaon (882-942)… was the first eminent philosopher of medieval Judaism… With regard to reincarnation, Saadia stands vehemently opposed to any such belief… around this time the doctrine of reincarnation of souls began slowly gaining popularity among mystically oriented schools of Judaism. Such a view maintained that the infinite soul would reeenter another body in a future lifetime... Saadia was philosophically at odds with any such belief because he maintained there was an essential unity of body and soul; the resurrection required a full and total reunion of body and soul; hence, the idea of reincarnation in another physical form… was an utter impossibility.” (Pg. 238, 244) But later, he adds, “Nevertheless, it is clear that during the middle Ages, the doctrine of reincarnation began to seep into Judaism.” (Pg. 315)
He notes of Maimonides, “With regard to teachings on immortality and the afterlife, it is safe to say that eschatology is not the most discussed topic in Maimonidean writings. He hardly gives much consideration to the subject in the ‘Guide to the Perplexed,’ although some of his views on immortality can be inferred … in other texts.” (Pg. 246)
He points out, “Along with medieval Midrash, the Zohar is the richest resource for understanding the Jewish philosophy of the afterlife. However… the Zohar never systematically outlines teachings on life after death in any one place. Rather, they appear randomly throughout the text…” (Pg. 277)
He states, “Inherent to the kabbalistic view of life after death is the doctrine of reincarnation of souls… This philosophical belief asserts that after death a soul eventually returns to earth and assumes a new physical body… Through the process of physical reimbodiment, the soul can bring about a restitution for the wrongdoings of a previous life and attain further perfection.” (Pg. 314)
He summarizes the views of the hasidim toward dying and a life after death: “the notion of immortality and life after death was integrated into the … teachings of Hasidism… there was never any sense of doubt or question about the continuation of some form of existence after bodily death.. Hasidic deathbed stories indicate how, with a spiritual attitude, one may die peacefully and accepting of death as a spiritual transition to another realm of existence.” (Pg. 356)
Perhaps surprisingly, he also suggests, “a synthesis of Tibetan Buddhist and Jewish afterlife sources can help us to comprehend more fully the inner dimensions of the dying process… To explain this stage more fully, we need to draw once again from NDE research and also from Theosophy, a body of metaphysical writings about the spiritual life… Bringing the wisdom of Theosophy to NDE research, we might conjecture that the experience of crossing the tunnel corresponds with the final rending of the silver cord. Once the tunnel is crossed, death is irreversible, and the silver cord linking body and soul is severed. Physical resurrection is out of the question; there is no longer a possibility of reentering and reanimating the body. Now, in the inner planes of awareness, a whole other stage of the postmortem journey begins to unfold.” (Pg. 379-380)
Although Raphael’s sympathy with Theosophy may repel some readers (including me), this book will be ‘must reading’ for anyone seriously studying Jewish perspectives on life after death.
Simcha Paull Raphael (b. 1951) was a professor in Jewish Studies at Temple University (2007-2014), spiritual director at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College (1999-2009), and an adjunct professor of religion and theology and Jewish chaplain at La Salle University. He is also a licensed psychotherapist, who has worked as a bereavement counselor and death educator.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1995 book, “In 1978… I first began systematic research on the topic of life after death in Judaism… I was continually amazed… at the magnitude of Jewish teachings on the afterlife… teachings on life after death have always been part and parcel of the Jewish spiritual legacy… in no way is this book exhaustive… Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi encouraged me to take on the task of researching and writing this book. Reb Zalman is a Jewish visionary and one of the great teachers of our age.” (Pg. xxxiii-xxxiv)
He notes, “the scholar of modern Judaism may be disappointed to discover that I do not have an extensive survey of what early modern Jewish theologians had to say about the afterlife. Part of the problem is that they did not have much to say… in the modern era Judaism does not have an extensive tradition on the afterlife. Ideas about life after death take a back seat to rationalism and scientific materialism.” (Pg. 6)
He reports, “Recently, a rabbi lecturing a group of nurses … When asked… ‘Does Judaism believe in an afterlife?’… the rabbi replied, ‘Judaism celebrates life and the living. It dwells on life here rather than the hereafter as other religious faiths do…’ This response, which is absolutely characteristic of modern Judaism’s attitude toward the afterlife, is the singularly more problematic Jewish belief about life after death today. Why? Because it is simply not true!” (Pg. 13)
He suggests, “Before reading on, conjure in your mind a picture of the realms of heaven and hell… Do you see Adam? Abraham? Moses?… Seven regions of heaven? Seven realms of hell, presided over by the angel of death? These are the images found in Jewish sources. Yet the likelihood is that the afterlife images that come to mind---for both Jews and non-Jews---are closer to medieval Christian art than to … Jewish mysticism or legend… Christian notions of life after death have permeated Jewish awareness, at a very deep, unconscious level.” (Pg. 27)
He summarizes, “Absolutely nowhere in the Bible do we find a unified view about life after death that reflects postmortem beliefs of the entire biblical era, or even of any one period. The biblical text is a historical amalgam, a melange of centuries of experience… Because of this, it is not possible to present a strictly chronological delineation of the afterlife interwoven with the various strata of sacred writings… At this state in biblical history, the notion of personal immortality does not yet exist.” (Pg. 42, 46)
He explains, “The first important shift in the Israelite conception of Sheol came about with the increase… fo YHVH’s power… God’s power widened and could now save human beings from the clutches of Sheol… In its earliest conception, Sheol was a world... paralleling the human realm; those in Sheol … possessed life, knowledge, and the power to interact with … the living… However, according to a later view, the dead in Sheol have absolutely no knowledge of what transpires in the earthly realm… At this point, a number of conceptual changes take place in the biblical understanding of Sheol… originally, Sheol was simply a habitation of the ancestral dead … there [was]… no reward or punishment… Sheol came to be seen as a place of punishment for the enemies of YHVH and of Israel.” (Pg. 58-60)
He states, “The idea of individual immortality is not found in the apocryphal and pseudepigraphic writings of Palestinian Judaism. It never replaced the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead for the Palestinian authors, as it did for those in Alexandria. Nonetheless, it was a very important development in the evolution of Jewish ideas on the afterlife…. however… even in the subsequent period of rabbinic Judaism individual immortality never became the predominant belief regarding life after death.” (Pg. 104) He continues, “Even with the influence of the Greek doctrine of the soul, Jewish teachings in postmortem immortality never supplanted the primacy of belief in physical resurrection.” (Pg. 114)
He records, “the doctrine of resurrection… had become a prevalent belief in Judaism… this eschatological doctrine was at the root of the polarization between the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The former completely rejected the notion of postmortem reward and punishment, and… the belief in bodily resurrection. In place, they taught that the soul totally ceased its existence at the time of death… On the other hand… the Pharisees assiduously upheld a belief in reward and punishment, which… assumed a physical resurrection for the righteous dead… in the Gospels we see how Jesus, obviously a product of early first-century Judaism, tacitly accepted the pharisaic belief in a resurrection of the dead for all humanity.” (Pg. 156)
He continues, “Next, we will look at a series of five texts on the theme of punishment in Gehenna… a major theme… is that of sins and their punishments… we find a recurrence of the motif of specific postmortem punishment meted out based on and nature of one’s sins. Individual senses and body parts are tortured in retribution for behavioral transgressions…” (Pg. 173-174)
He explains, “Saadia Gaon (882-942)… was the first eminent philosopher of medieval Judaism… With regard to reincarnation, Saadia stands vehemently opposed to any such belief… around this time the doctrine of reincarnation of souls began slowly gaining popularity among mystically oriented schools of Judaism. Such a view maintained that the infinite soul would reeenter another body in a future lifetime... Saadia was philosophically at odds with any such belief because he maintained there was an essential unity of body and soul; the resurrection required a full and total reunion of body and soul; hence, the idea of reincarnation in another physical form… was an utter impossibility.” (Pg. 238, 244) But later, he adds, “Nevertheless, it is clear that during the middle Ages, the doctrine of reincarnation began to seep into Judaism.” (Pg. 315)
He notes of Maimonides, “With regard to teachings on immortality and the afterlife, it is safe to say that eschatology is not the most discussed topic in Maimonidean writings. He hardly gives much consideration to the subject in the ‘Guide to the Perplexed,’ although some of his views on immortality can be inferred … in other texts.” (Pg. 246)
He points out, “Along with medieval Midrash, the Zohar is the richest resource for understanding the Jewish philosophy of the afterlife. However… the Zohar never systematically outlines teachings on life after death in any one place. Rather, they appear randomly throughout the text…” (Pg. 277)
He states, “Inherent to the kabbalistic view of life after death is the doctrine of reincarnation of souls… This philosophical belief asserts that after death a soul eventually returns to earth and assumes a new physical body… Through the process of physical reimbodiment, the soul can bring about a restitution for the wrongdoings of a previous life and attain further perfection.” (Pg. 314)
He summarizes the views of the hasidim toward dying and a life after death: “the notion of immortality and life after death was integrated into the … teachings of Hasidism… there was never any sense of doubt or question about the continuation of some form of existence after bodily death.. Hasidic deathbed stories indicate how, with a spiritual attitude, one may die peacefully and accepting of death as a spiritual transition to another realm of existence.” (Pg. 356)
Perhaps surprisingly, he also suggests, “a synthesis of Tibetan Buddhist and Jewish afterlife sources can help us to comprehend more fully the inner dimensions of the dying process… To explain this stage more fully, we need to draw once again from NDE research and also from Theosophy, a body of metaphysical writings about the spiritual life… Bringing the wisdom of Theosophy to NDE research, we might conjecture that the experience of crossing the tunnel corresponds with the final rending of the silver cord. Once the tunnel is crossed, death is irreversible, and the silver cord linking body and soul is severed. Physical resurrection is out of the question; there is no longer a possibility of reentering and reanimating the body. Now, in the inner planes of awareness, a whole other stage of the postmortem journey begins to unfold.” (Pg. 379-380)
Although Raphael’s sympathy with Theosophy may repel some readers (including me), this book will be ‘must reading’ for anyone seriously studying Jewish perspectives on life after death.
May 11, 2016
Afterlife beliefs for Jew were by no means a tacked-on continuance of life, but rather a continuance of their existence, as normal as anything within their culture.
I used this book as part of a research project on the Jewish understand of Jesus' resurrection in light of eschatology. This book was both scholarly well-cited as well as an easy read. I feel this as an excellent journey through the evolution of Israelite/Jewish beliefs revealing that the Isreal/Jewish belief of afterlife evolved alongside their developing worldview.
I found the section on the importance of land in relation to family for the Israelites especially interesting. The verse in the Old Testament permitting stoning children sounds abominable until you understand the greater context.1) Israelites as a tribal people found land of great importance; sheol (their afterlife realm) existed in parallel with present world and there were certain burial rites requires to ensure a proper transition. If a child was disobedient to their parents, then there is no assurance the child would be socially compliant enough to bury his parents correctly, thus preventing their continued existence in sheol; much better to kill the child, bury him properly (he would still continue his existence in sheol) , and then have another child to ensure the family's benefit.
In researching other books on Jewish Afterlife beliefs, another reviewer suggested Kin, Cult, Land, and Afterlife by Herbert Brichto which I read. As an article, it is much shorter and offers comparative cultural info on the four topics in its title. NT Wright's book titled The Resurrection of the Son of God is also excellent as a survey of resurrection across cultures contributing to his thesis that resurrection could only be understood by the Jews in a physical/eschatological sense. He offering a large section on the difference between Platonism and the second temple period Jewish ideas of resurrection which I found interesting, as well as the uniqueness of the New Testament resurrection versus the ascension texts of the Israelites, such as Enoch. Finally, I also recommend Lenowtiz's The Jewish Messiahs; From Galilee to Crown Heights which surveys the evolution of Jewish messianic concepts; in many ways integral to their understanding of afterlife.
I hopped around in the book so I can't review it in its entirety, nor can I offer specifics as it has been several months since I read it, but I do offer praise for the book in general. It is great supplemental information for research but also written where a general reader would receive benefit. Once the "Jewish culture" receptors in my brain are no longer burnt out, I will likely return to this book due it's vast insight.
I used this book as part of a research project on the Jewish understand of Jesus' resurrection in light of eschatology. This book was both scholarly well-cited as well as an easy read. I feel this as an excellent journey through the evolution of Israelite/Jewish beliefs revealing that the Isreal/Jewish belief of afterlife evolved alongside their developing worldview.
I found the section on the importance of land in relation to family for the Israelites especially interesting. The verse in the Old Testament permitting stoning children sounds abominable until you understand the greater context.1) Israelites as a tribal people found land of great importance; sheol (their afterlife realm) existed in parallel with present world and there were certain burial rites requires to ensure a proper transition. If a child was disobedient to their parents, then there is no assurance the child would be socially compliant enough to bury his parents correctly, thus preventing their continued existence in sheol; much better to kill the child, bury him properly (he would still continue his existence in sheol) , and then have another child to ensure the family's benefit.
In researching other books on Jewish Afterlife beliefs, another reviewer suggested Kin, Cult, Land, and Afterlife by Herbert Brichto which I read. As an article, it is much shorter and offers comparative cultural info on the four topics in its title. NT Wright's book titled The Resurrection of the Son of God is also excellent as a survey of resurrection across cultures contributing to his thesis that resurrection could only be understood by the Jews in a physical/eschatological sense. He offering a large section on the difference between Platonism and the second temple period Jewish ideas of resurrection which I found interesting, as well as the uniqueness of the New Testament resurrection versus the ascension texts of the Israelites, such as Enoch. Finally, I also recommend Lenowtiz's The Jewish Messiahs; From Galilee to Crown Heights which surveys the evolution of Jewish messianic concepts; in many ways integral to their understanding of afterlife.
I hopped around in the book so I can't review it in its entirety, nor can I offer specifics as it has been several months since I read it, but I do offer praise for the book in general. It is great supplemental information for research but also written where a general reader would receive benefit. Once the "Jewish culture" receptors in my brain are no longer burnt out, I will likely return to this book due it's vast insight.
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July 29, 2025I have difficulty with this book. It mixes theological arguments with scholarly analysis which to me is iffy. It shifts between descriptive (here’s what people believe or believed) and prescriptive (here’s how our views of the afterlife SHOULD change). It also is extremely dated in many respects and new editions do include additional content but don’t seem to update old claims.
October 7, 2025
The chapters were wildly uneven and disparate in content, to the point of distraction.
November 20, 2008
What a great book for someone who wants more understanding of different religions. You don't have to be agnostic, but you do have to have an open mind and be willing to question your own beliefs. It has strengthened mine.
September 21, 2009
exploring more modern views on Jweish thought and the "afterlife"
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews