BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

By Tzvi Freeman Answer: There isn't anything after life, because life never ends. It just goes higher and higher. The soul is liberated from the body and returns closer to her source than ever before. The Torah assumes this in its language many times -- describing Abraham's death, for example, as going to rest with his fathers and similar phrases. The Talmud discusses the experiences of several people who made the trip there and back. Classic Jewish works such as Maavor Yabok describe the process of entering the higher world of life as a reflection of the soul's experiences while within the body: If the soul has become entrenched in material pleasures, she experiences the pain of ripping herself away from them so that she can experience the infinitely higher pleasure of basking in G-dly light. If she is soiled and injured by acts that sundered her from her true self while below, then she must be cleansed and healed. On the other hand, the good deeds and wisdom she has gai...

LIFE IN THE HEREAFTER by Zalman M. Schachter 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...