The Afterlife
October 27, 2019
I’d like to begin with an old Jewish folktale, the title story from Howard Schwartz’s remarkable collection Leaves from the Garden of Eden. It may not be clear at first how the story relates to today’s topic, but by the end it will be very clear. The story takes place in the old country, in the city of Ludomir. The largest stable in Ludomir was owned by a Jew named Shepsel. All day long, from morning until night, coaches would arrive at the stable and would exchange their exhausted horses for fresh ones. Shepsel was helped in his work by an orphan boy named Hayim, whom he had adopted. Shepsel treated Hayim as a member of his family, and Hayim had become very close to the entire family, and especially to Shepsel’s daughter Leah.
Hayim worked hard for Shepsel, but one day he became ill. He grew weaker and weaker and Shepsel’s daughter Leah sat by his side and nursed him, but eventually Hayim died. The entire family was devastated, but Leah especially was plunged into deep grief. The traditional period of mourning came to end, but Leah was not able to recover from her grief, and could not or would not get out of bed. Shepsel and his wife sat next to her, at her bedside, and prayed for her recovery. One day, while sitting at his daughter’s bedside, Shepsel fell asleep, and dreamed.
In his dream, he saw Hayim, the stable boy, whose face was beaming with joy. “Where have you come from?” Shepsel asked, “ And why are you so joyful?” and the boy replied: “Let me tell you what happened to me after I died. When I left the world, I came before the heavenly court. They asked me about my life and I explained that while I had not received an education, I did serve you as best I could, and tried to be honest, and I tended the horses with care. The court ruled that I had earned a place in the Garden of Eden, and in the Garden they put me in charge of the horses that pull the carriages of the righteous.”
Then Hayim asked Shepsel about his family and Shepsel burst into tears and told Hayim about Leah, and how she had grieved for him, and that now she too was in danger. Hayim said: “Don’t worry. There are leaves in the Garden of Eden that have healing power. Wait and I will bring some.” A moment later, the boy brought Shepsel a handful of leaves and said: “Boil these in a pot of water and give them to Leah to drink.” As Shepsel took the leaves, he woke up, and scattered all over the bed were leaves that had blown in through an open window. Shepsel noticed that they were unlike the leaves of any tree that grew in their region. And they had a wonderful fragrance, like the leaves in his dream.
Shepsel quickly boiled the leaves in water and gave it to his daughter to drink. As he did, he told her of his dream and the leaves that Hayim had brought from the Garden of Eden. As Leah drank and heard about her father’s dream, she began to recover and by the third day she got out of bed. Soon after that, she met someone, fell in love and was married, and she named her first son Hayim, after her friend. And it is said that she loved her son just as much as she had loved her friend Hayim the stable boy.
Now another story, this one not a folktale, but a true story from my own life. One day years ago I was sitting with a friend who at age 42 was dying of cancer. We were together with his sister in his hospital room. And he said to me: “Steve, my sister believes that one day we will see each other again. What do you think?” Until that moment, the question of what happens after we die had been an academic question for me. Now for the first time in my life, the question was urgent and personal.
In speaking to you today, I do not want to offer you an academic discussion of Jewish views of the afterlife. Even though it might be interesting, and we could easily fill this hour and many more with Jewish texts from the Bible, and the Talmud, and the Zohar which speak of the World to Come and the Resurrection of the Dead. I love text and I love history, and I think we could have a stimulating conversation without ever getting personal. But I don’t think that is why we are here this afternoon. Today I want to try to offer some of my own deepest reflections about death, as influenced both by my study of Judaism and also by own life experience so far.
Here is another story out of my own life. About ten years, the two year old grandson of one of our maintenance staff died of leukemia, and our entire Temple staff went to the large Baptist church at the top of Cieneguitas Road to attend the funeral. There were at least four hundred people there and everyone was grief stricken. When the service began, the father of the little boy who had died stood up and declared: “God is good. We will get through this because our Christian faith teaches us that we will see our little boy again.” I sat there in awe, and could not stop wondering “does Judaism have anything to offer that has this kind of power to comfort? Do I as a rabbi have anything to offer that compares with this?”
This is what I want to explore with you today. What does Judaism have to offer us, as we face the death of those we love? As we face our own death? These are not trivial questions.
For most of us, I would say, the problem with death is not that we want to live forever. After a long life, we all need to rest. The problem with death is that we are taken from the people we love. Just like Leah and Hayim in the story, in the course of our lifetime, our soul becomes completely intertwined with other human souls. Our mother. Our father. Our daughter. Our son. Our close friend. Our husband or wife. Our sister or brother. We become so thoroughly enmeshed with each other that when death takes us from each other, like the girl Leah in the folktale, we are overcome with grief.
In the story, Leah’s grief is healed by a tea made with leaves from the Garden of Eden. This afternoon, I want to explore what those leaves represent. And to answer that question, we need to ask: what is the Garden of Eden?
Most of us are at least a little familiar with the story in the Torah about the Garden of Eden, where God placed Adam and Eve, with the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, and the snake, and the decision to eat the forbidden fruit, which leads to the Expulsion from Eden. The Torah seems to regard the Garden of Eden as the birthplace of humanity, for which we long but to which we can never return. But over the thousands of years since the Torah was written, the Jewish imagination has come to see The Garden of Eden differently....as a place in which our souls exist before we are born, and to which our souls return after we die. Just like Hayim in the story. He was a stable boy in his lifetime, and after his death, he is taking care of the horses that pull the carriages of the righteous...in the Garden of Eden. Where is that?
The Garden of Eden is the spiritual world. Sometimes called Olam Haba, The World that is Coming. Also sometimes called Heaven.
We step into that spiritual dimension when we come under the wedding canopy.
We may feel a breeze from that spiritual dimension enter our house of prayer on Friday evening, at the beginning of Shabbat.
We may touch that dimension when we read a bedtime story to a child.
We spend most of our ordinary lives on the plane of physical reality, touched occasionally, if we are lucky, by fleeting moments of transcendence.
When we die, we leave this physical plane and move to the Garden of Eden. We depart the physical plane and enter the realm of spirit.
When I sat with my sister next to my father in the last hours of his life, I said to her, “I’m going to miss this body,” and we both began to cry. So much of our relationship with our father was with his body. His hands. His chest. His voice. The way he would carry us when we were little, and hug us when he met us at the airport every time we came home to Rochester. The way he would gently but firmly examine us with his hands if we had a medical complaint. Massages and back rubs. Chocolate butter almond ice cream. Hiking and camping and splitting wood. Still now, years after he died, I miss my dad’s body. He is gone from this physical world, and will not return.
But this physical world is not the only reality.
The Garden of Eden is the spiritual world which exists in parallel to our physical world. Ever since our patriarch Jacob fell sleep and dreamt of a ladder stretching between earth and heaven, with divine messengers moving up and down on the ladder, we have known that this material world is not the only reality. There are higher, spiritual dimensions of reality.
Sometimes, often in dreams, a presence or a memory or a message may pass between our world and the Garden of Eden. Shepsel meets Hayim when he falls asleep by Leah’s bedside and dreams; and Hayim brings Shepsel the healing leaves from the Garden of Eden. And when Shepsel awakes, those leaves have crossed the barrier between the two worlds. Those leaves from the Garden of Eden heal Leah and allow her to return to life and to give birth to a child.
What are those leaves? What is it that can cross the barrier between the spiritual world and our material world?
Stories are leaves from the Garden of Eden.
Songs are leaves from the Garden of Eden.
Rituals are leaves from the Garden of Eden.
Stories, songs and rituals... these leaves from the Garden of Eden can heal our grief, and repair the torn fabric of our lives. I would like to share with you some of the old, beautiful, powerful Jewish rituals surrounding death.
In our tradition, when a person is close to death, there are words to be said, by anyone who feels able to do it for this person preparing to leave this physical plane. These words are for the person who is dying, and for the people who love them, who are there at their side.
First, Vidui, which means “confession.” The words of vidui are basically this:
“I know this may be the end of my life. I have not been perfect, but I have tried to be a good person. Forgive me for the mistakes I have made. Please protect my family, and comfort them. Shma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad.”
Second, traditional words of farewell are spoken by the family or the rabbi, to the person dying:
“Lech, ki shilachacha Adonai. Go, for God has sent you. Lech, v’Adonai yihyeh imach. Go, and God will be with you.” In other words: You can go. We will be OK.
And a song, that is traditionally sung at bedtime.
Four angels are with you, one at each side. Michael on your right. Gavriel on your left. Uriel before you and Rephael behind you. And the Shechina, the Presence of God, above your head. B’shem haShem elohei Yisrael. Miy’mini Michael, umismoli Gavriel. Umilfanai Uriel umeiachorai Rephael. V’al roshi, v’al roshi haShechina El.
And a verse that describes God hovering over this beloved human being, like an eagle over her nest, spreading her wings and preparing to take her children on her wings.
And a verse from the Song of Songs, an erotic verse, a woman’s voice calling on the north wind and the south wind, to come and blow upon her garden, and to cause her perfume to come forth. Inviting her lover to come into the garden and to enjoy the fruits.
These are the old words with which our people for many centuries have pictured what is happening at the moment of death. Death is the moment of most intense intimacy, between a human being and God.
And finally, when the family sees that the soul has passed from the person’s body, they stand up and recite the Shma, seven times. Why is the Shma so central at the end of life? In part because death feels like the ultimate tearing apart, the most intense experience of our world breaking. And the Shma declares: Nevertheless, in the midst of all this tearing and breaking, and loss and pain and separation, all of this is One. God is One.
I have never met a person or a family facing the reality of death, who wanted a logical argument for the immortality of the soul, or a history of the Jewish views of the afterlife. But I have known many, many members of this community who have found comfort and healing in the prayers, songs and rituals of tradition....if offered with love and honesty.
These are the leaves from the Garden of Eden.
Another experience that I have found to be extremely important is to have the family come together and share stories about the person who has just died. It is always a huge honor for me to be present, and to facilitate the sharing. I usually start by asking about the person’s parents and their childhood. Where did they grow up? Was it a happy childhood or difficult? Were they well off or were they poor? And then about how they became an adult. Did they go to college, or serve in the military, and how did they meet their husband or wife? The most important family stories. Usually we spend an hour and a half or two hours, and everyone gets to talk and offer their memories, and there are tears but also laughter, and the family comes together and remembers together and the realization begins to dawn that this person they love has departed this physical plane, but is very much alive...in the realm of spirit. Healing has begun. These family stories are leaves, blown in the window, from the Garden of Eden.
The old Jewish custom of ritual washing of the body has come back and has been followed by some families in our community. About 10 years ago, we formed a Santa Barbara Chevra Kadisha, a group of trained volunteers from our community, who will respond at short notice to come and prepare a Jewish body for burial. There is no talking, verses of psalms are recited, and the body is gently washed, always covered for modesty, and some earth from the land of Israel is placed on the eyelids, and the body is dressed in traditional linen clothes. I have seen it done once, and found it deeply moving, and I have left instructions that I would like my body washed by our Chevra Kadisha when my time comes.
We Jews have buried our dead, traditionally, although in this generation many Jews are choosing cremation. While I encourage people to follow tradition, I do officiate at funerals for a person who has chosen cremation. I’ll be happy to say more about this during the Q&A if you would like. For burial, our tradition recommends a plain pine box, so that there will be no distinction between rich and poor and no competition to see who can afford a more expensive casket.
The funeral service may be conducted completely at the graveside, or there may be a service first here at the temple or at the cemetery chapel, and then a procession to the grave for burial. Here in Santa Barbara, we have no kosher Jewish cemetery, but we do have several Jewish neighborhoods in the Santa Barbara cemetery. After Marian and I bought our plots, next to some of our closest friends, Marian declared to me that she felt completely different about dying!
We carry the casket in a procession from the car to the grave. Along the way, we pause seven times, to express our reluctance about what we are doing. At the grave, we tear a cloth. When my father died, I followed the old custom of tearing my clothing, cutting the fabric of my black suit....but that was extreme. Most people follow the custom of tearing a black ribbon which they pin to their clothes.
At the cemetery, I feel strongly the presence of all the members of our community who are buried there. Friends from 30 years ago and others who we just laid to rest a year or two ago. The place itself feels like a gateway to the Garden of Eden, and the open grave is a stark and dramatic reminder that our bodies come from the earth and to the earth we return. The material world and the spiritual world come together there in the cemetery. We say some prayers, and attempt in a eulogy to capture some of the most important moments of the person’s life, and then we lower the casket into the ground and, members of the family are invited to throw a shovel full of earth onto the casket, followed by any others who would like to perform this mitzvah. The sound of the earth falling on the casket is heartbreaking and cathartic...sometimes making it possible to cry for the first time.
The Cantor chants in an exquisitely poignant melody, the El Maleh Rachamim, which imagines God as a mother bird, taking this person’s soul under her wings, and then imagining the soul shining as bright as the splendor of the sky...together with all of the other holy and pure soul that have passed from this material plane. The El Maleh prays that this beloved soul find his or her way to the Garden of Eden, and there be bundled up in the bond of life.
Each phrase is poetry. Each image tells a story. These words, these melodies, these rituals are leaves blown in through our window, leaves from the Garden of Eden....to heal our broken hearts.
The best known of all Jewish prayers for the dead is the Kaddish. Let me share with you the old, traditional understanding of why we say kaddish. We say kaddish for our close family member, according to the earliest sources, to assist the person’s soul on their journey from this world to the next. This soul is in transition from this material world to the spiritual realm of the Garden of Eden. Down here on earth, we are the ground crew, and our prayers are the wings carrying our parent’s soul....our wife or husband’s soul...on their journey.
Before concluding, I would like to share with you one final true story from my own life. Some of you may have heard me share this before.
Several years ago, one April, we had a number of deaths in the congregation and I was called on to officiate at several funerals in a row....it was a demanding and exhausting time for me. One day in the middle of all that, I came into my office and found an envelope on my desks, with the words Rabbi Steve, personal and confidential on it. I opened the envelope and found a one page typed letter, with the words at the top From the Other Side. The letter was written from all the members of our community who have died, and spoke to me...very movingly...about the way I led the community through the difficult times of grief. At the end of the letter, the closing line read: There are so many of us here waiting, patiently of course, to be with you and to thank you once again. You have the most honored seat at our large and growing table. Shabbat Shalom. And then a PS added: You’ll be happy to know that, here, everybody observes Shabbat...and the hiking is as good as anything you can possibly imagine.
After reading that letter, I started asking everyone I could think of if they had written the letter...because I wanted to thank them. I became obsessed with finding the author, and asked dozens of people, and no one would admit to having written it.
And then I realized what a gift I had received.
That letter is the most potent leaf from the Garden of Eden that has ever blown through my window, and I have left instructions that I would like it read to me by whoever is sitting next to me, as I am dying.