IMPORTANT ADVISORY: In Jewish culture, beliefs about the afterlife are personal to the individual; this article is solely about what I have personally come to believe about the afterlife. Whatever may be your own personal beliefs about the afterlife, they should make you a better and more hopeful person, not make you judgmental, bitter or fearful. The only advisory I have on the afterlife is that people stay away from beliefs that are harmful to the way you think and behave in this earthly life (such as hell, reincarnation etc).
Shalom everyone,
I was recently asked by a Talmidi friend for my personal views, thoughts, experiences etc, on what life in heaven might be like. I was asked because there are some confusing statements in scripture, like how God is the God of the living, but elsewhere that the dead are unknowing (a conflict between the gospels and Ecclesiastes, for example). I wrote an answer, and I thought I would share this answer with you:
“I have indeed learnt something from my studies and experiences. My earliest memory is of a brief moment of my pre-existence, from before I was born, and I even remember my journey to earth – memories which played a big part of my impressions as a small child (I used to think that everyone naturally remembered their pre-existence in heaven)! I’ve written a summary of ancient ‘Jewish-Christian’ and biblical views of the afterlife a bit further down.
Brief history of Hebrew beliefs on the Afterlife
Hebrew beliefs about the afterlife have fluctuated and radically changed over the millennia:
— The very earliest Yahwist belief was that there is an afterlife and therefore a soul (as belief in Azza Zel attests – Azza Zel, ‘the Fortress of Shadow’ in proto-Semitic, is where souls are purified of their unrepented sins, which is what the Temple rituals on Yom Kippur are meant to tell us);
— then they had no belief in an afterlife at all (because they lost all belief in a soul, along with all knowledge of what Azza Zeil was); they only believed in a dark, unknowing place called Sheol
— then they believed that the bodies of the righteous would be physically resurrected at the end of time, to live a perfect life on earth (because there was still no belief in a soul, and no belief in heaven);
— then they regained belief in a soul and heaven, and believed that the soul alone would be taken into heaven after death first, with the body taken later, rising from the grave, at the end of time.
As you can see from this wild and conflicting summary, Hebrew beliefs have fluctuated and changed over the millennia, so if you want to understand any particular biblical passage, you have to know which ‘belief-period’ it was written in.
The mention of being in a state of unknowingness after death comes from a period of Hebrew religious development, when there was no belief in an afterlife or in a soul (merely a belief in Sheol as the underworld, a dark place of eternal unknowingness, where the dead remain forever). I personally think that Sheol is a remnant of the even earlier belief in Azza Zeil (a place where sins are removed from the soul to purify it, before entering heaven)
Yeshua referred to this place as, ’the Outer Darkness’, chashokhā dė-barā in Aramaic, and ha-chóshekh ha-chitzon in Hebrew. The gospel writers, being unfamiliar with this term, equated it instead with the pagan concept of hell, and therefore described it as such. I think that Yeshua’s parable about debtors being put in prison is a reflection of this belief: ‘Believe me I tell you, you won’t get out of there until you’ve paid the very last prutah’ (Mt 5:26), implying that the Outer Darkness is a place that one can leave, once all one’s unrepented sins are ‘paid for‘ (prutah was the smallest Jewish coin; in the Greek, it says quadrans, which was the smallest coin in the Roman world).
The Afterlife in Yeshua’s time
In Yeshua’s day, most Jews believed that the soul would be taken into heaven upon death and judged by God, and also that the bodies of the righteous would be resurrected at some future end-time, to be reunited with the soul.
This created the odd dilemma of the soul being judged twice (the soul is judged at death, and again when the body joins it). In modern times, only the Orthodox still believe in the final resurrection of the body; Liberal and Reform Jews don’t. This also tends to be the general consensus among Massorite Talmidis too – that there is only one judgement, and no resurrection of the physical body at the end of time – after all, if you are already alive in heaven as an incorporeal soul, functioning and existing happily as an eternal spirit in heaven, why would you need a physical body (consider Yeshua’s answer in Mk 12:18-25 to the Sadducees regarding a woman married to ten brothers, at the resurrection, whose wife would she be?) Yeshua’s answer in Mk 12:25, was that at resurrection, we are like the angels in heaven (presumably because angels only take physical form when they appear on earth; in heaven they are spirit, and so have no physical needs there).
The Sadducees, however, did not believe in any afterlife; they came to believe that, if they had money, power and influence, they could have a good and comfortable life, and there was nothing that God could do to punish them. The Book of Ecclesiastes is often thought of as ‘proto-Sadducean’ in its theology, since it holds that we cannot possibly know what comes after death (Ecc 9:1–11:6).
Views on the Afterlife in ‘The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs’
The Book of Levi in the ‘Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs’ (the T12P), which some scholars believe was written by ancient ‘Jewish-Christians’, has a revelatory vision of a journey to heaven and the afterlife (Emeritus Professor Marinus de Jonge, a Dutch/Belgian professor, is one such pre-eminent scholar on the T12P – I met him once at a riveting lecture he gave at the British Library on the T12P, and had a brief opportunity to speak to him). Upon reading Levi’s vision of the afterlife in the T12P, it more or less settled the question for me about what to think about the afterlife (what beliefs to accept, and which to discard).
I often think to myself, wow, if I‘d never met Dr de Jonge, and never attended that lecture back in the 90‘s, I would never have arrived at my current theological position on the afterlife. It was a pivotal event for me – meeting Dr de Jonge, I learned that Jewish-Christians might have written the original layer of the T12P, which led me to reading and studying it, which led me to learning about their beliefs about the afterlife. I‘m glad that God gave me the opportunity to choose to attend that lecture.
A Summary of my own personal beliefs on the Afterlife
I’m now going to summarise what Levi’s vision, when placed alongside biblical beliefs, implies to me for beliefs about the afterlife:
1. Every human soul has a pre-existence before earthly life (Jer 1:5, and also implied in the mention of ‘holy ones’ at Dt 33:2-3, and how the Covenant at Moab was sworn with every soul, both the living and those yet to be born); and also a post-existence, as an incorporeal soul after earthly death (so ‘the living’ would refer to the soul, not the body, since the body is merely a shell, a casing for the eternally living soul; a soul without a body could not be classified as ‘dead‘).
2. While in heaven (that is, before and after earthly life), we are beings known as ‘holy ones’ (which is what they were called in the Hebrew Bible e.g. in the Book of Daniel 7:18 and in Deuteronomy 33:2-3, also Ps 89:5-7).
3. Only the bravest and most capable souls are chosen and sent to earth to do God’s work (most ‘holy ones’ do not get the chance to live on earth). So the mere fact that you are here, implies that GOD CHOSE YOU TO BE HERE, and that God sent you!
4. One of the many purposes of our collective time on earth, is to prepare the way for the future time when humanity will be perfected, so that the Glory of God can dwell on earth without harming human beings (Isa 60:19-20, Rev 21:23, 22:5). We do this by sowing the seeds of the Kingdom.
5. One of our many personal goals on earth is to remember our heavenly existence, in order to behave like ‘holy ones’ while we live on earth (to awaken our heavenly selves, Ps 57:8), in order to better work for the present Kingdom, as well as for the future fulfilment of God’s Kingdom.
6. Our earthly existence and our earthly actions can sully our souls, especially if we have acted wrongfully, so we need to be purified before we can enter heaven (since nothing impure or uncleansed can enter into the heavenly presence of God, otherwise such an uncleansed human soul would be obliterated by the Glory of God). This is what the symbolism of the 2 black goats on the Day of Expiations represented (one is the cleansed human soul that goes on to God [‘the goat for YHVH‘], and the other represents our sins which remain in Azza Zeil [‘the goat for the Azza Zeil‘, which was sent to remain in the wilderness]).
7. In pursuit of this purification, souls after death are shown a review of their entire lives, good and bad. Good actions uplift the soul, bad actions harm the soul (Book of Levi chapter 1). Any wrongful actions that have not been repented of before earthly death, need to be purified and removed in the Outer Darkness (a.k.a. the Azza Zeil). Once we feel remorse for our sins, the individual sins fall away and remain in the Outer Darkness. The Book of Levi describes this process – the sins after removal are called, ‘the spirits / shadows of sin’ (tsėlalim in Hebrew), and it describes Azza Zeil as ‘the lowest heaven‘ and ‘a dark place‘.
8. Once the stain of all our wrongful actions have been removed in the Azza Zeil (that is, the sins you did not repent of in life), your soul then goes on to dwell eternally in heaven. In ancient Yahwism, there was no hell, and no place of retribution which you could never leave. In Jewish belief, everyone eventually gets to heaven.
9. If you have basically been a good person who has occasionally strayed (which is most of us), and you have repented of your wrongdoings, then after purification, you will be rewarded with entry to the highest heaven, into the Inner Council of God (sodh YHVH, mentioned without any description or explanation in Jer 23:18, 23:22, Ps 82:1, Job 15:8). There you will be allowed to know the inner mind of God (implied in Jer 23:22 & Job 15:8), have all your questions answered, be given all the knowledge and wisdom of the universe, be able to explore all of time and space, learning and seeing all things that ever were and will be, and dwell in eternal happiness as an immortal living soul, far far beyond any happiness you ever knew on earth (‘seeing’ God, that is, being shown into the blessed and immediate Presence of God). You will see all those you loved who have gone before you again, even getting to meet historical holy people, like Moses, Elijah and Yeshua! This ascension to the highest heaven is often referred to as ‘union with God’, or ‘being seated at the right hand of God’. This ultimate reward is only available to human beings who have accepted God’s call to spend time on earth; it is the only way for a ‘holy one’ to ascend to God’s highest heaven.
10. If someone has spent most of their life being a thoroughly wicked person, who never once felt any remorse for anything they ever did, then after purification in the Azza Zeil, they merely return to the state they existed in before their earthly life; they are metaphorically seated at the left hand of God in heaven, and such a person will have essentially wasted their time on earth.
As I mentioned, ‘the living’ refers to living souls in heaven, because the body is only considered as a shell, a temporary, mortal vessel for the living and eternal soul. The only people in heaven who still have their earthly bodies are Enoch, Elijah and Yeshua.
The Effect of these ancient ‘Jewish-Christian’ beliefs from the T12P on me personally
It will be useful to carefully read each point above, so that you take them in, and absorb their implications. These things have had a profound effect on my life here on earth. If you want to read the relevant chapter from the Book of Levi I mentioned earlier, then if you have a copy of The Exhortations, go to The Testament of Yudah ha-Nasi, and read the first chapter (it is about page 310 or 312 or somewhere like that, depending on the edition you have).
The promise of eternal happiness was a consolation and a comfort for me, being weighed down as I was by my unhappiness and suffering (both mental and physical). It was a blessed comfort that I would one day have true peace, and be happy with God.
These beliefs also encourage me to be the best person I can be, to be the kind of person that is a boon to God, someone who is true to myself. By connecting with your heavenly self – the ‘holy one‘ that you once were in heaven – you will be remembering the greatest and truest version of yourself; this will make you eager to work towards returning to what you were meant to be from the very beginning, when your soul was first created. Remembering your pre-existent soul gives you a vision of a perfect version of yourself, as well as something greater than yourself – that there is something awesome and magnificent out there that you will one day return to, because you will be going home.
Understanding what the Azza Zeil / the Outer Darkness was, made me realise that whatever I do to others, will be returned to me (2Sam 3:39, Lam 3:64, a concept called gėmulāh, which is the Yahwist equivalent of karma). I will have to face my wrongdoings and be on the receiving end of them myself one day, if I don’t repent of them in this life. I carefully weigh my words and my actions now – I always ask myself, ‘Is this something that YHVH my Saviour would want me to do? Or is it something that shames YHVH, my dearest and closest Friend?‘. When I face my Judge, I cannot lie about anything; my soul will be laid bare. However, knowing that I will eventually leave that place and be allowed into heaven – that every soul will eventually be allowed into heaven – was a hopeful belief for me. In Yahwism, there is no eternal damnation; there is redemption for everyone, a chance to be seated at the right hand of God, regardless of their religion or lack of religion.
This means that the Paullist teaching that only those who believe in the death and resurrection of ‘Christ’ will get into heaven is a bit of a con, because everyone will eventually get there; most people will be rewarded with entry into the highest heaven (as the T12P calls it). There are many people who think that their religion and their beliefs give them a free pass into heaven, without ever having to face judgment for their sins. YHVH is a merciful and loving God, who loves every soul so much, that YHVH desires every soul to be close to God.
If anything is unclear, please do ask.
blessings
Shmuliq