LIFE*'"°4P1,IFE
is to maintain its purity, so it can be re-
turned to God in its original condition.
Because God loves His people, He gave
them a guide to help them keep their souls
pure, Rabbi Steinger says. That guide is the
Torah. Practicing ethical behavior as
outlined in the Torah serves
as a sort of "spiritual exer-
cise" to keep one's soul clean.
What happens to that
soul — pure or otherwise —
when it returns to God is
another matter altogether.
Rabbi Steinger says Judaism
offers no clear statement on
what the afterlife will be like,
though it does give other
definitive ways of achieving
immortality.
One way of securing a
place in eternity is through
one's children, he says, who
by their very existence bond their dead
descendants to life. Another way is through
friends and acquaintances who keep the
dead alive through memories.
"Man's basic instinct is the search for
immortality," his former teacher, Dr. Saul
Lieberman of the Jewish Theological Sem-
inary, told Rabbi Efry Spectre of Adat
Shalom Synagogue.
Sigmund Freud agrees. The father of
psychoanalysis once wrote: "At bottom no
one believes in his own death, which
amounts to saying: in the unconscious
every one of us is convinced of his immor-
tality."
The ultimate curse in Judaism is to
wish someone's name obliterated, Rabbi
Spectre says. After uttering the name of
Hitler and other villains, many Jews add
"yemech shemo," may his name be erased.
So, too, European Jews at Purim often
wrote the name of Haman on their shoes.
This way, they could literally wipe his
name out as they stamped their feet on the
ground.
Like Rabbi Steinger, Rabbi Spectre says
Judaism gives man the opportunity to
achieve immortality through his children,
who will continue his values, through his
deeds and by furthering Klal Yisrael, the
Jewish people.
One may indeed find immortality
through one's deeds and children, but these
are hardly the only such methods, accor-
ding to Rabbi Chaim Bergstein of Bais
Chabad of Farmington Hills.
"Of course we (Jews) believe in life after
death," he says. "It's so elementary. The on-
ly question is, what form?"
THE TRANSMIGRATION
OF SOULS
WHEN JOHN WAYNE CAME INTO
town on his trusty steed and met up with
the bad guy in black, there was little doubt
what would happen. It was just a matter
of time before the villain was shot dead in
the center of town for all the gasping
townsfolk to see. Then Wayne and a
beautiful girl rode off into a dusty sunset
to happiness, prosperity and other nice
things.
But it doesn't always work that way, as
Judaism can testify. Judaism does not pro-
mise paradise to the righteous and hellfire
and brimstone to the wicked.
What Judaism does espouse, most
Jewish scholars say, is a place for the
righteous of all nations in Olam Haba. For
non-Jews, that means at a minimum obser-
ving the seven Noachide Laws: the
establishment of a legal system, and the
prohibition of idolatry, sexual sins,
thievery, eating from a living animal,
blasphemy and bloodshed.
All Jews are said to have a place in the
world to come, though rabbis throughout
the ages have argued that a possibility ex-
ists that some Jews could be excluded from
paradise. The egregious sins which could
keep one out of Olam Haba include sorcery,
advancing oneself at the expense of others
and reading secular literature.
With all the possibilities for error, it's
nice to know there's a second chance — at
least that's the case according to Rabbi
Bergstein.
"There's no question Judaism believes
in reincarnation;' Rabbi Bergstein says.
"The Kabbalah (the mystical writings) is
filled with the idea of multiple lives."
A standard in Chasidism, belief in re-
incarnation also can be found in the
writings of Martin Buber and was held by
such great rabbis as Manasseh Ben Israel
and Isaac Luria.
According to the Jewish views of "gilgul
nefesh," (literally, the transmigration of
A butcher who sold (treife)
meat to customers who
believed it was kosher could
come back as an animal; a
murderer might be
reincarnated as a lowly drop
of water.
souls), all souls that are incomplete —
namely, have not reached such a high state
they are ready to meet with God — are rein-
carnated in some form, Rabbi Bergstein
says.
Man has four opportunities to complete
his soul and help perfect the world, which
he does by fulfilling the 613 mitzvot.
Those souls, unable to travel alone on
the path of mitzvot to God, may mingle
with other souls. For example, one skilled
at observing Shabbat but who breaks the
laws of kashrut may find a good partner in
a soul faithful to the laws of kashrut who
couldn't resist a cigarette on the Sabbath.
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
27