January 17 • 2019 29
jn

continued from page 28

“then [looked] over their shoulders, 
past them; his final words being, ‘
Oh, 
wow. Oh, wow. Oh, wow!’
” 
Blech surmised the dead, like Jobs, 
saw God when they would live no 
more.

ADVICE FROM THE AFTERLIFE
It is a Jewish tradition to go to the cem-
etery and ask the dead for assistance or 
to invite dead relatives to a wedding. 
Blech explained souls not only have a 
consciousness, but they also can com-
municate with the living.
In the Small Miracles book series by 
Yitta Halberstam and Judith Leventhal, 
they document death-to-life commu-
nications during the Holocaust. One 
woman, Esther, said that in Sobibor she 
had a dream in which her dead moth-
er gave her detailed instructions and 
a vision about escaping to a barn, 35 
miles away, in a dangerous Nazi strong-
hold. “Here you’
ll go,
” said the mother, 
“and here you’
ll survive.
” 
The next day, 300 prisoners revolt-
ed and Esther escaped into the forest. 
After almost a week of following her 
mother’
s nocturnal navigation, Esther 
found the barn that matched the vision. 
She sensed another person hiding 
in the dark. At dawn, she saw it was 
her brother. And there they hid safely 
until the war’
s end. How could Esther 
possibly have known how to get from 
Sobibor to that exact barn, 35 miles 
away, without her dead mother’
s guid-
ance from the Other World?
Another story: Blech said, “I had 
someone in my shul who was a bom-
bardier in World War II. He was 
flying in combat and heard his father, 
who was dead, call his name. The 
son turned. A bullet whizzed by. The 
son would have been shot if he hadn’
t 
turned.
“Obviously,
” Blech said, “the question 
is, why didn’
t [these warnings] happen 
to the next guy? I can’
t answer that. 
All I can say is, if it can happen even 

sometimes, that means communication 
between the living and the dead exists.
”

RETHINKING REINCARNATION
The dead can become the living. Blech 
writes in Hope, No Fear, many “have 
mistakenly claimed the concept of 
reincarnation has no source in Judaism. 
That is not correct. It has long been part 
of the Oral Tradition. The Zohar, the 
classic work of Jewish mysticism, makes 
frequent and lengthy references to it … 
Nachmanides (Ramban) attributed Job’
s 
suffering to reincarnation.
” 
Mystical texts consider Mordechai, 
whose pivotal moment in the Purim 
story was refusing to bow to Haman, 
to be the reincarnation of Jacob, 
who wrongly bowed to Esau. Jacob 
“required another lifetime,
” writes 
Blech, “in order to atone” for bowing 
to his brother. Moses, who floated in a 
basket (same Hebrew word as “ark”) on 
the Nile, was the gilgul (reincarnation), 
echoing and repairing Noah’
s story. 
It happens to the most modest 
among us. Reincarnation, he writes, 
“offers a powerful response to the prob-
lem of theodicy, the lack of reward for 
the righteous or punishment for the 
wicked during our lifetimes.
”
The ancient Jewish mystics say that 
when the angel taps the indentation 
above our lips before birth, we forget 
who we were, how we died in our pre-
vious life and what failings we are sup-
posed to repair by rebirth.
After 6 million Jews were murdered, 
one-third children, God decided to 
provide them with another chance, 
say some. Many were “reborn,
” Blech 
writes, “to live out their lives anew.
”
The rabbi is a gentle persuader. He 
immediately concedes, “We need not 
accept it at face value. We need only to 
acknowledge that it is possible.
” People 
often pray for a second chance, he says. 
“God sometimes agrees.
” ■

Jonathan Mark is associate editor of the New 
York Jewish Week, where this story first 

“To understand death is to enter a realm 
that of necessity requires faith as a guide.” 
Most religions “have somehow come to 
very similar conclusions:
Th
 ere is life aft
 er this life.”

— RABBI BENJAMIN BLECH

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