Jewish Views of the Afterlife
Simcha Paull Raphael has performed an act of resurrection. He has restored the rich heritage of Jewish thought about life after death that has been repressed, disdained, or ignored for so long and he has made the heritage accessible for the first time toa new generation of Jews. His timing could not be better. This book arrives at a time when there is a Jewish renewal movement springing up that has new questions and that is in search of new perspectives on what life is really all about. It comes at a time when there is a new awareness of cosmology, a new curiosity about mysticism, and a new understanding of the nature of matter and energy. All these things come together to create a community that will be receptive to this book. There is enormous scholarship here, but even more important than the facts and the footnotes that it contains, there is a sense that this is a writer who writes out of his won innermost concerns. He is not just an archaeologist digging up the beliefs of his ancestors; he is a pathfinder pointing the way for many who want to learn. (Rabbi Jack Riemer, editor of The World of the High Holy Days and So That Your Values Live On )[Raphael] traces, in a synoptic style, 4,000 years of Jewish thought on the afterlife by investigating pertinent sacred texts produced in each era. From the Bible, Apocrypha, rabbinic literature, medieval philosophy, medieval Midrash, Kabbalah, and Hasidism, the reader learns how Judaism conceived of the fate of the individual after death throughout Jewish history. (Journal Of Nietzsche Studies)Simcha Paull Raphael has performed an act of resurrection. He has restored the rich heritage of Jewish thought about life after death that has been repressed, disdained, or ignored for so long and he has made the heritage accessible for the first time to a new generation of Jews.His timing could not be better. This book arrives at a time when there is a Jewish renewal movement springing up that has new questions and that is in search of new perspectives on what life is really all about. It comes at a time when there is a new awareness of cosmology, a new curiosity about mysticism, and a new understanding of the nature of matter and energy. All these things come together to create a community that will be receptive to this book.There is enormous scholarship here, but even more important than the facts and the footnotes that it contains, there is a sense that this is a writer who writes out of his won innermost concerns. He is not just an archaeologist digging up the beliefs of his ancestors; he is a pathfinder pointing the way for many who want to learn. (Rabbi Jack Riemer, editor of The World of the High Holy Days and So That Your Values Live On )