Who will Live and Who will Die: Reflections on Death
Shabbat Shuvah--5768
Shmuel Herzfeld
I. Introduction
Let us now relate the power of this day's holiness, for it is awesome and frightening. On it Your Kingship will be exalted; Your throne will be firmed with kindness and You will sit upon it in truth. It is true that You alone are the One Who judges, proves, knows, and bears witness; Who writes and seals, (counts and calculates); Who remembers all that was forgotten. You will open the Book of Chronicles - it will read itself, and everyone's signature is in it. The great shofar will be sounded and a still, thin sound will be heard. Angels will hasten, a trembling and terror will seize them - and they will say, 'Behold, it is the Day of Judgment, to muster the heavenly host for judgment!'- for they cannot be vindicated in Your eyes in judgment. All mankind will pass before You like members of the flock. Like a shepherd pasturing his flock, making sheep pass under his staff, so shall You cause to pass, count, calculate, and consider the soul of all the living; and You shall apportion the fixed needs of all Your creatures and inscribe their verdict.
On Rosh Hashanah will be inscribed and on Yom Kippur will be sealed how many will pass from the earth and how many will be created; who will live and who will die; who will die at his predestined time and who before his time; who by water and who by fire, who by sword, who by beast, who by famine, who by thirst, who by storm, who by plague, who by strangulation, and who by stoning. Who will rest and who will wander, who will live in harmony and who will be harried, who will enjoy tranquility and who will suffer, who will be impoverished and who will be enriched, who will be degraded and who will be exalted.
But REPENTANCE, PRAYER and CHARITY Remove the Evil of the Decree
For Your Name signifies Your praise: hard to anger and easy to appease, for You do not wish the death of one deserving death, but that he repent from his way and live. Until the day of his death You await him; if he repents You will accept him immediately. It is true that You are their Creator and You know their inclination, for they are flesh and blood. A man's origin is from dust and his destiny is back to dust, at risk of his life he earns his bread; he is likened to a broken shard, withering grass, a fading flower, a passing shade, a dissipating cloud, a blowing wind, flying dust, and a fleeting dream.
The words of this prayer known as U-Netane Tokef are powerful and emotional. They are arguably the most moving words found in the liturgy for the High Holy Days. U-Netane Tokef is also the only prayer included in the liturgy which has a story about its composition.
According to tradition, around a thousand years ago in Mainz, there lived a man named Rav Amnon of Mainz. This rabbi was summoned by the Bishop of Mainz and pressed to convert to Christianity. After initial refusals, the rabbi put off the persistent Bishop by asking him for three days to consider his offer. Immediately, he regretted the fact that he even gave the appearance of contemplating conversion. When the Bishop called him, instead of coming he said: “I should have my tongue cut out for not having refused immediately." Instead, the Bishop had Rabbi Amnon's hands and feet cut off.
Dying from his wounds a few days later, Rabbi Amnon ascended the Bimah on Rosh Hashanah, stopped the service and said this prayer and then immediately died. Three days later he appeared in a dream to his friend, Rabbi Kalonymous ben Meshullam, and taught him the words of the prayer.
This back story contributes to the power of the prayer and implies that this early medieval prayer is holier than all other medieval prayers. But ultimately, the power of the prayer does not come from the story of its composition but from its theme; i.e. that our life hangs in the balance of God’s judgment specifically in the period of the High Holidays.
The prayer’s centrality to our service certainly intertwines with the fact that many of us have a fear of death. Many of us prefer not to think of death. After all, it is depressing!
But the liturgy challenges us. Part of the reason why the High Holidays have so much power is the way that they are intimately connected with death. The Book of Life and Death are open before God in these days. The theme of “Life or Death” is ever present as we conduct our lives. The traditional greeting is “May you be inscribed in the Book of Life.” We all know what the alternative is!
For these ten days a year we are forced by the calendar to think about death in a way that many of us would rather not do.
But there is good reason to do so. The High Holidays challenge us to focus on death so that we may be reminded that our life is but a fleeting shadow. As King Solomon says in the Book of Kohelet, “Tov lalekhet el beit avel, mi lalekhet el beit mishteh, it is better to go to the house of a mourner than to the house of a party.” For in the house of a mourner we are reminded of our path in this world. Thinking about death is a good thing; it spurs us to repent!
Similarly it is a custom to visit the cemetery on the eve of Rosh Hashanah in order to remind ourselves of our mortality. On the High Holidays we don’t flee death; we push ourselves to confront the reality that we are one day closer to our death. We remind ourselves, “Shuv Yom Echad lifnei mitatekh, we must repent one day before our death.”
So one reason we think about death in the period of the High Holidays is to spur us to repent. A constant reminder of our mortality is the best way to prevent us from falling into the trap of arrogance which is the source of all sin.
There is a second reason why we focus on death in this period.
Rabbi Soloveitchik explains why the Yizkor ceremony is so central to the Yom Kippur service. In his view when the word Yizkor in used in the context of the memorial service it doesn’t retain its traditional meaning of “remember.” Instead, it means “atone.” “We recite Yizkor as a means to effect atonement for those who have passed on. Yom Kippur is actually called Yom Kippurim in the plural, because…it provides atonement for both the living and the deceased.” (Soloveitchik, Yom Kippur Machzor, 496.)
In 1968, Rabbi Soloveitchik delivered a lecture where he taught us a third reason to focus on death over the Days of Awe: “Every person during his lifetime is confronted by the tragedy of longing for one who was near just a short while ago and is now irrevocably gone. How intense is the desire to make contact with a loved one who is no longer here! One who does teshuvah undergoes a similar experience. When a Jew sins he banishes Hashem from his presence. At first, man may not sense his loss, just as one fails to fully grasp the horrible tragedy of the death of someone dear immediately after the loss occurs. Only later does one feel the loss of God’s presence, and sense that the most precious part of life has vanished. The penitent then longs for the Master of the universe in the same way that a mourner longs for his loved one.”
For these three reasons, I’d like to focus our Shabbat Shuvah discussion on Jewish attitudes towards death and the afterlife with the hope that in talking about death we will be moved to repent.
II. Life is but a Hallway
The story is told of a tourist who stops at the home of the great sage, the Hafetz Hayyim. Since the Hafetz Hayyim has such a world renowned reputation the visitor expects to see a great home filled with valuable treasures. However, he is shocked when he sees a bare home with almost nothing in it. “Where are your possessions,” he asks in astonishment? The Hafetz Hayyim responds, “Where are yours?” “What kind of question is that?” the tourist said. “I’m a visitor here.” “I am too,” the sage replied.
The rabbinic approach to death is to view it with mixed feelings. On the one hand, we see death as a sad ending. Those who remain on this earth are expected to grieve intensely. As survivors we are distraught; heartbroken at the loss of our loved ones. Moreover, we treat the body in a way that reminds us of the finality of death. We bury the corpse immediately without any embalming, viewing or beautification. This reminds us that the person we loved is no longer present in the physical body that remains. We treat the body with holiness because it once contained something holy, but intrinsically it is empty of significance. At the home of a mourner, day and night we recite psalm 49 which emphasizes that ‘man is like a beast that perishes.’ All this is to create the impression that our lives are over when we die.
On the other hand, rabbinic tradition also emphasizes that our lives really only begin once we die. In Pirkei Avot, Rabbi Yaakov teaches: “This world is like a corridor (or hallway) before the world to come. Prepare yourself so that you might enter into the main banquet room.” (Avot 4: 21.)
Our lives in this world are transitory. We are not meant to place too much significance in anything that we possess (materially or personally) in this world, since real life and the ultimate pleasure only begin once we die. Everything we have in this world is just a small taste of the World to Come
The great Rabbi Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto summarized this idea at the very beginning of his classic work, Mesillat Yesharim (The Path of the Just): “Our sages have taught us that man was created for the sole purpose of reveling in the Eternal and delighting in the splendor of the Divine Presence, this being the ultimate joy and the greatest of all pleasures in existence. And the true place for this pleasure is in the World to Come, which was created with this purpose in mind.
Rabbi Maurice Lamm, in his book, The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning offers a parable:
Imagine twins growing peacefully in the warmth of the womb. Their mouths are closed, and they are being fed via the umbilical cord. Their lives are serene. The whole world to these brothers is the interior of the womb. Who could conceive anything larger, better, more comfortable? They begin to wonder: “We are getting lower and lower…What will happen after we exit?”
The first infant is a believer. He is heir to a religious tradition that tells him that there will be a new life after this wet and warm existence of the womb…. The second infant is a thorough going skeptic. Legends do not deceive him. He believes only that which can be demonstrated….
Says the faithful brother: “After our ‘death’ here, there will be a new great world. We will eat through the mouth. We will see great distances, and we will hear through the ears on the sides of our heads….
Replies the skeptic: “Nonsense…there is no foundation for this belief. It is only your survival instinct, an elaborate defense mechanism, a historically-conditioned subterfuge…there is only this world. There is no world to come!”
Suddenly the water inside the womb bursts. The womb convulses. Upheaval. Turmoil. Writhing. Everything lets loose. Then a mysterious pounding—a crushing, staccato pounding. Faster, faster, lower, lower.
The believing brother exits. Tearing himself from the womb, he falls outward. The second brother shrieks…he bewails and bemoans the death of a perfectly fine fellow…. He hears a cry and a great tumult from the black abyss and he trembles: “Oh my! What a horrible end! As I predicted!”
As the skeptic brother mourns, his “dead” brother has been born into the “new” world. The cry is a sign of health and vigor, and the tumult is really a chorus of Mazal Tovs sounded by the waiting family thanking God for the birth of a healthy son.
III. What does the Bible say?
While it is true that rabbinic Judaism looks at life in this world as a passageway to the eternal life, this theme is absent from the actual text of the bible. In fact, just the opposite appears to be the case.
The Torah does not mention anything relating to the World to Come nor does it imply that there will be a resurrection of the dead.
The phrase memit u-mechaye does appear in the Torah (Deut: 32:39), but it does not mean resurrection—it means that Hashem has the power to cause death and to heal people from dying.
According to Maimonides, there is only one verse from the entire 24 books of the Bible that specifically refers to the idea that there will be a resurrection of the dead. It appears at the very end of the Biblical books, in the Book of Daniel: “And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to reproaches and everlasting abhorrence.” (Daniel 12:2)
All other Biblical texts see death as final. This point is especially emphasized through the deaths of Moses, Aaron, and Miriam. The death of Aaron is related in Numbers, chapter 20. It says that the “entire community” saw him die. Rashi comments on this phrase: “When they saw Moshe and Elozor descending, and Aharon did not desend, they said,"Where is Aharon"? He said to them, "He died." They said, "Can it be that someone who stood up to the angel and stopped the plague is under the dominion of the angel of death"? Moshe immediately begged for mercy, and the ministering angels showed him to them, lying in the bed. They saw, and believed.
The Torah wants to make sure that we realize that they are dead. The words of Rashi reflect the fact that people sometimes are unable to accept the death of their religious leader. But accept they must! It is perhaps for this reason that the Torah does not relate to us anything at all about their afterlife experience.
In the Torah not only do ALL our religious leaders die, but there is also an attempt to distance us as much as possible from death. Contact with death renders one impure, and it is absolutely forbidden for kohanim. The dead are supposed to remain dead. Only God is immortal.