Does the Torah Teach about an Afterlife?

Ladder to the Moon, Georgia O’Keeffe, 1958

Parashat Chukat, Numbers 19:1–22:1

Russ Resnik, UMJC Rabbinic Counsel

 “Christians worry about eternal judgment and whether they’ll go to heaven or hell when they leave this world. Jews are concerned about life in this world, and how to make it a better place while they’re here.”

I’ve heard this sort of comparison many times, and there’s some truth to it. Christianity does emphasize the afterlife more than Judaism does, and Judaism does focus more on this life and how to live redemptively within it. But even a quick look at traditional Judaism reveals that it has plenty of concern, and lots to say, about the life to come. In one of our earliest post-biblical texts, Rabbi Jacob says, “This world is like an antechamber before the World to Come. Prepare yourself in the antechamber so that you may enter the banqueting hall” (Avot 4.21, Koren Siddur).

Still, it’s true that there’s very little about the afterlife in the Torah itself, the text upon which the whole edifice of Jewish thinking rests. One early Jewish text responds to this fact by declaring that anyone who says the teaching about resurrection doesn’t derive from the Torah has no share in the world to come (m. Sanhedrin 10.1). One scholar notes,

The insistence, against the plain sense of the text, that the Torah asserts the resurrection of the dead, is an indication of the importance that the rabbis attach to the belief, while the threat of losing one’s portion in the world to come for rejecting not the belief itself, but rather the claim that it comes from the Torah, presumably reflects some anxiety about its derivation. (Martha Himmelfarb in The Jewish Annotated New Testament)

I won’t argue about whether our sages felt “some anxiety about” deriving belief in the resurrection from the “plain sense” of Torah, but I’ll be happy to consider a hint of life beyond this life in this week’s parasha:

And the people of Israel, the whole congregation, came into the wilderness of Zin in the first month, and the people stayed in Kadesh, and Miriam died there and was buried there. And there was no water for the congregation, and they gathered themselves against Moses and against Aaron. (Num 20:1–2)

The water runs out after Miriam dies and our sages conclude that Israel’s supply of water in the wilderness depended on the merit of Miriam, Moses’ big sister, who was instrumental in saving his life as a baby (Exod 2:1–10) and later became a prophetess and leader herself (Exod 15:20–21), although not without flaws, like her two brothers (Num 12).

Miriam lives on after her death through her legacy, but of course, that’s hardly a share in the world to come, or the sort of resurrection the rabbis are discussing in Sanhedrin 10.1. But there’s a clue of something more in the wording here: “Miriam died there and was buried there.” Why does “there,” or sham in Hebrew, appear twice, when it could have simply said, “Miriam died and was buried there”? The word “there/sham” points ahead to a second death in our parasha. When the time for Aaron’s death comes, the Lord tells Moses to bring him and his son Eleazar to Mount Hor. “And Aaron shall be gathered and die there.”

Moses did as Hashem commanded. And they went up Mount Hor in the sight of all the congregation. And Moses stripped Aaron of his garments and put them on Eleazar his son. And Aaron died there on the top of the mountain. (Num 20:26b–28a, emphasis added)

“There” is a common word, of course, but it’s striking that it is again repeated unnecessarily. We’ve already been told that Aaron shall “die there” on Mount Hor, and then we’re told again that “Aaron died there on the top of the mountain.” The sages see in this repetition a connection between the deaths of Aaron and Miriam so that the details of Aaron’s death apply to Miriam as well.

Aaron doesn’t just die, as we’re told of Miriam, but “shall be gathered and die there.” This gathering is described more fully several times in the account of our forefathers in Genesis. Abraham dies and is “gathered to his people” (Gen 25:8), as are Isaac (35:29), Jacob (49:33)—and even Ishmael (25:17). I’ve heard this phrase explained as a reflection of ancient burial customs, in which the recently deceased corpse is placed in a tomb until the flesh decomposes. Then the bones are placed in an interior chamber of the tomb where the bones of the ancestors lie, thus being “gathered to his people.” But something different seems to be going on here. Back in Genesis, Jacob was gathered to his people well before his body was returned to the land of Canaan and the ancestral burial site. Likewise, Aaron isn’t literally gathered to his people, and the same is true of his brother Moses, who dies soon after Aaron. When the time comes, Hashem tells Moses,

“Go up this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo. . . . And die on the mountain which you go up, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died in Mount Hor and was gathered to his people.” (Deut 32:49–50)

Aaron was gathered to his people on Mount Hor, but no ancestors were buried there—in the plain sense of Scripture he was not literally gathered to his people. This is even more evident with Moses:

So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord, and he buried him in the valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor; but no one knows the place of his burial to this day. (Deut 34:5–6)

Here’s another superfluous “there/sham.” The text could have simply said, “So Moses the servant of the Lord died in the land of Moab,” but “there/sham” links his death to the deaths of his siblings Miriam and Aaron. They’re all gathered to their people, not through an ancient burial custom, but through joining their forebears in another realm, in a life beyond this one.

It’s possible that the phrase “gathered to his people” simply means joining them in death without any reference to life beyond death. But Messiah Yeshua draws upon the words of Torah to make the teaching about the afterlife more explicit.

“But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.” (Luke 20:37–38)

 “All live to him.” There is life beyond this life, life in God, and the Torah itself testifies of it.

We must admit, though, that this testimony is not as explicit as we might think it deserves. One can read through the whole Torah and miss its promise of the afterlife. Why is this so? Perhaps the Torah is providing a balance between focusing on the afterlife to the point of neglecting real life in this world and, on the other hand, denying any afterlife at all. The assurance of life to come gives us courage and hope in this life, and at the same time remains mysterious and undefined enough to avoid diverting our attention from this world and our assignment within it. As the sages say,

This world is like an antechamber before the World to Come. Prepare yourself in the antechamber so that you may enter the banqueting hall.

 Scripture references are from the English Standard Version (ESV) adapted by the author.