Dear Richard & Miriam ~
What do you believe happens to a person after he dies? Dwayne Howard, TEXAS
OUR REPLY: Great question! I tried to find
something in a back issue of Petah Tikvah that might answer the
question. However, despite the decades of publishing, there were no articles
dealing with this subject. Compared to eternity, we are crawling around on
Planet Earth for a very short time. It seems like we should have had something
on this topic decades ago, but we didn’t! I hasten to add: In Judaism, the
emphasis is on what we do in this life. There is not as much emphasis on the
afterlife.
I am not an expert on the topic, as I have no experience dying and coming back to life to tell you what it is like beyond death’s veil. However, I did do some research, and hopefully will provide good answers. I will be borrowing heavily from www.chabad.org as well as from Dr. Maurice Rawlings, the cardiologist who wrote the book Beyond Death’s Door. Dr. Rawlings was previously an atheist. However, after successfully reviving several patients who were clinically ‘dead,’ he became a genuine Bible believer. His book was written back in 1978, but is still easily available on various websites. I obtained my book from www.Thriftbooks.com. Regretfully, I don’t have a physical address on where to buy it. However, the book I received was used, very good condition, and very inexpensive.
I am first going to borrow from the scholarship of Shlomo Yaffe and Yanki Tauber, who wrote the article, “What Happens After We Die?” for Chabad.org. Chabad is an ultra-Orthodox Chassidic organization with ministries all over the world. Their Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson, was born in 1902 and passed away in 1994. Their Rebbe pointed out that a basic law of physics (The First Law of Thermodynamics) states that no energy is ever lost of destroyed. It only assumes a different form. How much more to a spiritual entity such as the soul? Rebbe Schneerson insists that consciousness does not cease simply because the physical body has ceased to function. Rather, “it passes from one form of existence (physical life as expressed by the body) to a higher, exclusively spiritual form of existence.” Many (perhaps most) Orthodox Jews believe the departed spirit hovers around the dead body for about three days, completely aware of the surroundings. He can see us, but we are unable to see him (or her).
Five Levels of the Soul
Again, quoting Yaffe & Tauber, there are five names for the human soul. “She is called by five names: Nefesh (breath), Ruach (wind / spirit), Neshama (intellect, inspiration), Chayah (life), and Yechidah (singularity).” Nefesh is the soul that is the engine of life. The Ruach is the emotional self. The Neshamah is the intellectual self. The Chayah is the supra-rational self — the seat of will, desire, commitment, and faith. The Yechidah is the singular essence of God, literally a part of G-d above.”
The Journey of the Soul
The Chabad believes that there are four basic phases to the journey of the soul:
- The wholly spiritual existence of the soul before it enters the body.
- Physical life.
- Post-physical life in Gan Eden (the “Garden of Eden,” also called “Heaven” or “Paradise”).
- The “world to come” (Olam HaBa) that follows the resurrection of the dead.
Chabad believes that the ultimate purpose of the soul is fulfilled during the time it spends in the physical world through the fulfillment of mitzvot, that is, how well we do in observing God’s instructions (commandments). However, it must be free choice. God gave us the choice of obeying Him or disobeying Him. The choices we make in this life determine our eternal destiny. In this respect, God is “pro-choice.” He could have created a bunch of robots already pre-programed to love Him and to keep His commandments. But such love and obedience would be meaningless if there was no actual choice involved.
The writers of this Chabad article write that “Gan Eden is a spiritual world, inhabited by souls without physical bodies; the world to come (Olam HaBa) is a physical world, inhabited by souls with physical bodies.”
On a personal note, I would like to emphasize that most Jews have been only exposed to “another Jesus” (2 Corinthians 11:4), which is often an antisemitic Jesus who has “done away” with the commandments, contrary to Yeshua’s plain instructions in Matthew 5:17-19. The Jews who rejected a counterfeit Jesus did the right thing. Yes, Yeshua is the only way to the Father. However, I believe most Jews will eventually recognize their genuine Messiah, either in this life or in the Olam HaBa. In 1 Peter 4:6, we read that the gospel “has been preached even to those who are dead, that though they are judged in the flesh as men, they may live in the spirit according to the will of God.” I don’t see this verse being preached very often. But it is in the Bible. You might also want to look up 1 Peter 3:18-20. When Yeshua’s body was in the grave, his soul was someplace else. He was making proclamation “to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient, when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah, during the construction of the Ark…”
At this time, I would like to quote from Dr. Maurice Rawlings’ book, Beyond Death’s Door. As mentioned earlier, Dr. Rawlings was formerly an atheist who did not believe in the afterlife. He first began to believe in life beyond death’s door when resuscitating an individual who was clinically dead:
“I was resuscitating a terrified patient who told me he was actually in hell. He begged me to get him out of hell and not to let him die. When I fully realized how genuinely and extremely frightened he was, I too became frightened… Now I feel assured that there is life after death, and not all of it is good.”
On page 1 of his book, he writes: “More and more of my patients who are recovering from serious illnesses tell me there is a life after death. There is a heaven and hell. I had always thought of death as painless extinction. I had bet my life on it. Now I have had to reconsider my own destiny, and what I have found isn’t good. I have found it really may not be safe to die!”
Dr. Rawlings notes that about half of the resuscitated patients with visions beyond death’s door report the horror of a place we might call hell, and about half report visions of a place we would call heaven. However, he notes also that those who have experienced the horrors of hell often have these horrors erased from their memories days later, perhaps for their own mental health. Therefore, it is important to communicate with these patients during or very shortly after the resuscitation process.
Dr. Rawlings also proposes a new definition of death, which is an old definition: “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead (James 2:26). Most religions for thousands of years believe that there is life beyond the grave. Regretfully, most rabbis in Reform Judaism no longer teach of life beyond the grave. I would also include secular humanism and atheism as religions that do not believe in the afterlife. (It takes a lot of faith to believe that everything we see and hear around us just came about by series of accidents.)
Dr. Rawlings writes: “Yet many people who have experienced clinical death tell us of seeing themselves actually separate from their dead bodies into spiritual form, and then wonder why people can’t hear them talking. As mentioned before, they are perturbed that everyone in the room keeps looking at the dead body and cannot see the ‘real’ them. The ‘departed’ person can see and hear the people in the room but cannot be seen or heard in return. Apparently, you and I are ‘blinded’ to this spiritual world in our present life.”
In much the same way, Balaam didn’t see the angel of the LORD in Numbers 22:25. A few verses later, Balaam’s spiritual eyes were opened, and he could finally see what his donkey had already seen. There are various ways in which people describe their personal “life after life” experiences. However, Dr. Rawlings describes a typical experience:
“A dying person… painlessly loses consciousness as death occurs, and yet he is still able to hear himself pronounced dead by his doctor. He then discovers that he is out of his own body, but is still in the same room, looking on as a bystander and observing the procedures. He watches himself being resuscitated, and frequently is compelled to walk around other people who might be obstructing his view. Or he may look down upon the scene from a floating position near the ceiling… He notices who is in the room and knows what they are saying. He has difficulty believing that he is dead, or that that lifeless body used to be his. He feels fine! The body has been vacated as if it were a strange object.
“After he becomes more accustomed to this odd condition, he notices that he has a new body… with superior senses. He can see and feel and think and talk just as before. But now fringe benefits have been added… He finds himself moving through a long dark passage with walls… As he emerges from the tunnel, he may see a brilliantly lighted environment of exquisite beauty where he meets and talks with friends and relatives who have previously died. He may then be interviewed by a being of light or a being of darkness. The environment may be inexpressibly wonderful, frequently a rolling meadow or a beautiful city, or it may be inexpressibly horrible, frequently a dungeon or a cave. His life may be played back as an instant review of all the major events of his life, as if anticipating a judgment.
“As he walks along with friends or relatives… a barrier is encountered beyond which he cannot go and still return. He is turned back at this point and suddenly finds himself back in his body where he may feel the shock of an applied electric current or chest pains from someone pushing upon his chest.”
If the experience is good, one is not afraid to die again… Finding the words to describe these unearthly experiences is difficult enough, but if ridiculed, he may keep the episode a secret and say no more. If it is of damning incrimination, he may prefer to leave the story alone.
The November 1889 issue of the St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal published the life after life experience of Dr. Wiltse of Skiddy, Kansas. He wrote of his experiences at different stages:
“I have died, as men termed death, and yet I am as much a man as ever. I am about to get out of the body. I watched the interesting process of the separation of soul and body… I recollect distinctly how I appeared to myself as something like a jellyfish as regards color and form. I floated up and down and literally like a soap bubble attached to the bowl of a pipe until I at last broke loose from the body… where I slowly rose and expanded into the full stature of a man… To my surprise, (a man’s) arm passed through mine without apparent resistance, the severed parts closing again without pain as air reunites… I saw my own dead body. I noticed two women weeping by my left side. I learned that they were my wife and my sister.
“I now attempted to gain the attention of the people… I passed about among them, also, but found that they gave me no heed. The situation struck me as humorous, and I laughed outright… I concluded the matter by saying to myself, ‘They see only with the eyes of the body. They cannot see spirits. They are watching what they think is I, but they are mistaken. That is not I. This is I and I am as much alive as ever.’ … Only a few minutes ago, I was horribly sick… then came the change called death… Here I am, still a man, alive, thinking as clearly as ever, and how well I felt. In sheer exuberance, I danced a figure and then turned about to see the head of my body.”
He then described himself as being lifted up and gently propelled through the air by someone’s hands and placed on some road in the sky. However, his spirit was returned to what had been his dead body. In deep disappointment, he exclaimed, “What in the world has happened to me? Must I die again?”
This book contains 157 pages, with many more examples of life beyond death’s door, some wonderful, and some horrifying. As a result of his interviews with those who had these experiences, as well as documented experiences of others, Dr. Rawlings became a born-again believer in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He left atheism behind, and accepted both the Tanach (OT) and Newer Testaments as being the inspired word of God. He was born in 1922, and passed from this life in 2010. I suspect that he has now experienced the same (or similar) experiences as those mentioned above.
Life After Life in the Scriptures
“And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever.” Daniel 12:2-3
Orthodox Jews believe in a literal interpretation of Ezekiel 37:1-10, the so-called “Dry Bones” prophecy. In other words, they believe that these verses refer to a literal resurrection of Jews from throughout the ages. Most Christians believe in an allegoric interpretation, whereby the remnant of the Jewish people is brought back into the land. That’s also very nice, but I prefer the literal interpretation.
Also, the Books of the Maccabees strongly emphasize the resurrection of the dead, particularly in 2 Maccabees 7, which describes the martyrdom of Hannah’s seven sons.
There are also many references to life after life in the Newer Testament, including Luke 14:13-14; 20:34-38; John 5:25-29; 11:25-26; 1 Cor. 15:20-22; 1 Peter 1:3-5; and 2 Cor. 5:6-10. Ultimately the most important references for what happens to a person after he dies are found in the pages of the Bible. Nonetheless, it is also refreshing to see men of science also agreeing, and backing up their beliefs with Scripture, as well as scientific research. Dr. Rawlings, a former atheist, sprinkles Bible verses throughout his book Beyond Death’s Door, which I recommend.