What is the Judaism religion view on the afterlife?

Answer 1

Jewish ResponseWe don't believe in the existence of either heaven or hell. Judaism barely spends any time discussing what may or may not happen when we die; in fact, there's barely any mention of this subject in the Tanach (Jewish Bible). This is because the focus of Judaism is to make the world as good as possible in this life.

There are some loose theories of what might happen though:

• When we die, our souls are cleansed of any wrongdoings. This is done by our accounting of every action done in life. It's believed that this process takes no longer than 12 months but most people don't do enough bad in life to warrant it taking a full 12 months.
• Our souls return to God to wait for the world to come.
• Our souls may be reincarnated into different people so that we have additional chances to work to become closer to God.
• Those souls that choose to be truly evil in life, cannot survive the process of cleansing and cease to exist.

The following response is not what Jews believe, but it's what others think Jews believe:

Non-Jewish ResponseMost of Jews believe that the actual Judgement day and the Resurrection of the dead, will occur when the Messiah comes. On that fateful day, both Israel and the Gentile nations will be summoned to the place of judgment by the blowing of the great ram's horn to awaken the people from their spiritual slumber. The day when the Lord judges "will be dark, very dark, without a ray of light" (Amos 5:20). Those who have maintained righteous lives and kept their covenant with God will be taken to the Paradise. Those who have been judged as deserving of punishment for their misdeeds will be sent to Hell-fire, to stay there either eternally or for a length of time commensurate with the seriousness of their transgressions.

Jewish answer:

One of the central beliefs of Judaism, as stated in the Talmud (Mishna, Sanhedrin 11:1) and codified by Rambam (Maimonides, 1135-1204), is that the soul continues to exist and is treated in accordance with the person's actions while he or she was alive.

The Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) doesn't dwell at length on the afterlife; and nor do we spend a lot of time speculating on its details. However, that is not meant to diminish from its importance. Rather, the Torah implies that we are to use the bulk of our energies in keeping God's ways and commands in this world, with our feet firmly planted on Earth; while nonetheless not losing awareness of our beliefs.

Our ancient sages stated the importance of being aware of the next world: "This world is a mere entrance-way before the afterlife" (Mishna, Avot ch.4).

All outstanding accounts are settled after this life. Some cases illustrate this point, since this entire world wouldn't be enough to reward a Moses or punish a Hitler. And while we're alive, knowledge of the future world serves as one of the motivations to keeping God's will.

The Tanakh does not delve into detail of the rewards of the righteous, because other religions could compete with even more poetic promises. Also because belief in the afterlife was shared by all ancient societies and needed little reiteration. Besides, it would be like describing the colors of a sunrise to someone who was blind from birth.

It is, however, referred to briefly in Torah verses such as Genesis 15:15, which states that "You (Abraham) will come to your fathers in peace and will be buried in good old age." Coming to his fathers does not mean simply to be buried with them, since Abraham was not buried with his ancestors. Such verses are stated many times.

The prophets are more explicit with such references (see Isaiah 26:19 and 66:24, Daniel 12:13, Zechariah 3:7, 1 Kings 8:30, 2 Kings ch.2, Ecclesiastes 12:7). The afterlife is spoken of at length in the Talmud. More than 20 pages of Talmud (Sanhedrin 90-110, Rosh Hashanah 16-18, and other passages) are given to this subject.