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What happens when we die?

ADAM KATZ-STONE SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

ike a dead man rising from the grave, the
long-forgotten notion of a Jewish afterlife
has itself been resurrected.
For years no one talked about Gan
Eden, the Jewish paradise. Who knew
from Gehenna, the Jewish hell, or Sheol,
the Bible's nebulous netherworld? And
don't even mention tehiyyat ha metim, the
literal rising of the dead at the end of days.
This is the 20th century, after all. Judaism is for this world,
for the here-and-now, we told ourselves. They are the ones
who fidget about Heaven and Hell, who stand in awe of
ultimate judgment. Our God hadn't judged since the Flood.
But something is changing. With the quest for Jewish
spiritual renewal has come, in recent years, an interest
in things mystical — and a door in our cultural cellar has
been pried open, throwing light on one of the most obscure,
and most often neglected, aspects of Jewish spirituality.
With the High Holidays here, we take stock of our tri-
umphs and failings. Tradition teaches that another ac-
counting awaits us in the hereafter. There is a
world-to-come, the rabbis tell us ... and we will be judged.
The sage known as Rav wrote in the Babylonian Tal-
mud, "In the world to come, there is neither eating nor
drinking nor procreation nor business dealings nor jeal-
ousy nor hate nor competition. But righteous men sit with
their crowns on their heads and they enjoy the splendor
of the Divine Presence."

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Adam Katz-Stone is a free-lance writer based in
Annapolis, Md.

In the next world, the rabbis say, Moses teaches Torah
all day and all night. For the righteous, this is heaven.
For the wicked, hell.
Steven Fine, a 38-year-old professor of rabbinic litera-
ture and history at Baltimore Hebrew University, had to
ponder the hereafter just recently, thanks to his son.
"My kid is 5 years old,
and he wants to know
what happens after you
die. We were driving past
the cemetery, and he
asked, 'Where are those
people?' I said they are
with Hashem. 'What are
they do-
ing?' They
Rabbi Stanley
Davids of
are waiting
Temple
for tehiyyat
Emanu-El
ha-metim,"
in Atlanta.
the resur-
rection of
the dead.
"That's the answer I
give him now. When he's
older, there will be differ-
ent answers. I'll show him
the books, and he'll read."
One of the books Pro-
fessor Fine will show his
son will likely be his own.
He's writing about ancient

Jewish funerary customs, a subject in which he became
interested after a favorite professor was killed by a novice
terrorist out to prove his stripes.
Menachem Stern, a professor at Hebrew University,
used to walk across Jerusalem every day between his
office and his home, and "one day he didn't make it. His

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