Judaism

by Israel Abrahams

The opposition of Talmudism against the neo-mysticism was thus on the whole just and salutary. This opposition, no doubt, was bitter chiefly when mysticism became revolutionary in practice, when it invaded the established customs of legalistic orthodoxy. But it was also felt that mysticism went dangerously near to a denial of the absolute Unity of God. It was more difficult to attack it on its theoretical than on its practical side, however. The Jewish mystic did sometimes adopt a most irritating policy of deliberately altering customs as though for the very pleasure of change. Now in most religious controversies discipline counts for more than belief. As Salimbene asserts of his own day: 'It was far less dangerous to debate in the schools whether God really existed, than to wear publicly and pertinaciously a frock and cowl of any but the orthodox cut.' But the Talmudists' antagonism to mysticism was not exclusively of this kind in the eighteenth century. Mysticism is often mere delusion. In the last resort man has no other guide than his reason. It is his own reason that convinces him of the limitations of his reason. But those limitations are not to be overpassed by a visionary self-introspection, unless this, too, is subjected to rational criticism. Mysticism does its true part when it applies this criticism also to the current forms, conventions, and institutions. Conventions, forms, and institutions, after all, represent the corporate wisdom, the accumulated experiences of men throughout the ages. Mysticism is the experience of one. Each does right to test the corporate experience by his own experience. But he must not elevate himself into a law even for himself. That, in a sentence, would summarise the attitude of Judaism towards mysticism. It is medicine, not a food.

CHAPTER VII

ESCHATOLOGY

That the soul has a life of its own after death was a firmly fixed idea in Judaism, though, except in the works of philosophers and in the liberal theology of modern Judaism, the grosser conception of a bodily Resurrection was predominant over the purely spiritual idea of Immortality. Curiously enough, Maimonides, who formulated the belief in Resurrection as a dogma of the Synagogue, himself held that the world to come is altogether free from material factors. At a much earlier period (in the third century) Rab had said (Ber. 17 a): 'Not as this world is the world to come. In the world to come there is no eating or drinking, no sexual intercourse, no barter, no envy, hatred, or contention. But the righteous sit with their crowns on their heads, enjoying the splendour of the Shechinah (the Divine Presence).' Commenting on this in various places, Maimonides emphatically asserts the spirituality of the future life. In his Siraj he says, with reference to the utterance of Rab just quoted: 'By the remark of the Sages "with their crowns on their heads" is meant the preservation of the soul in the intellectual sphere, and the merging of the two into one…. By their remark "enjoying the splendour of the Shechinah" is meant that those souls will reap bliss in what they comprehend of the Creator, just as the Angels enjoy felicity in what they understand of His existence. And so the felicity and the final goal consists in reaching to this exalted company and attaining this high pitch.' Again, in his philosophical Guide (I. xli.), Maimonides distinguishes three kinds of 'soul': (1) The principle of animality, (2) the principle of humanity, and (3) the principle of intellectuality, that part of man's individuality which can exist independently of the body, and therefore alone survives death. Even more remarkable is the fact that Maimonides enunciates the same opinion in his Code (Laws of Repentance, viii. 2). For the Code differs from the other two of the three main works of Maimonides in that it is less personal, and expresses what the author conceives to be the general opinion of Judaism as interpreted by its most authoritative teachers.

There can be no question but that this repeated insistence of Maimonides has strongly affected all subsequent Jewish thought. To him, eternal bliss consists in perfect spiritual communion with God. 'He who desires to serve God from Love must not serve to win the future world. But he does right and eschews wrong because he is man, and owes it to his manhood to perfect himself. This effort brings him to the type of perfect man, whose soul shall live in the state that befits it, viz. in the world to come.' Thus the world to come is a state rather than a place.

But Maimonides' view was not accepted without dispute. It was indeed quite easy to cite Rabbinic passages in which the world to come is identified with the bodily Resurrection. Against Maimonides were produced such Talmudic utterances as the following: 'Said Rabbi Chiya b. Joseph, the Righteous shall arise clad in their garments, for if a grain of wheat which is buried naked comes forth with many garments, how much more shall the righteous arise full garbed, seeing that they were interred with shrouds' (Kethub. 111 b). Again, 'Rabbi Jannai said to his children, Bury me not in white garments or in black: not in white, lest I be not held worthy (of heaven) and thus may be like a bridegroom among mourners (in Gehenna); nor in black, lest if I am held worthy, I be like a mourner among bridegrooms (in heaven). But bury me in coloured garments (so that my appearance will be partly in keeping with either fate),' (Sabbath, 114 a). Or finally: 'They arise with their blemishes, and then are healed' (Sanh. 91 b).

The popular fancy, in its natural longing for a personal existence after the bodily death, certainly seized upon the belief in Resurrection with avidity. It had its roots partly in the individual consciousness, partly in the communal. For the Resurrection was closely connected with such hopes as those expressed in Ezekiel's vision of the re-animation of Israel's dry bones (Ezek. xxxvii.). Thus popular theology adopted many ideas based on the Resurrection. The myth of the Leviathan hardly belongs here, for, widespread as it was, it was certainly not regarded in a material light. The Leviathan was created on the fifth day, and its flesh will be served as a banquet for the righteous at the advent of Messiah. The mediaeval poets found much attraction in this idea, and allowed their imagination full play concerning the details of the divine repast. Maimonides entirely spiritualised the idea, and his example was here decisive. The conception of the Resurrection had other consequences. As the scene of the Resurrection is to be Jerusalem, there grew up a strong desire to be buried on the western slope of Mount Olivet. In fact, many burial and mourning customs of the Synagogue originated from a belief in the bodily Resurrection. But even in the orthodox liturgy the direct references to it are vague and idealised. Two passages of great beauty may be cited. The first is taken from the Authorised Daily Prayer Book (ed. Singer, p. 5):

'O my God, the soul which Thou gavest me is pure; Thou didst create it, Thou didst form it, Thou didst breathe it into me; Thou preservest it within me; and Thou wilt take it from me, but wilt restore it unto me hereafter. So long as the soul is within me, I will give thanks unto Thee, O Lord my God and God of my fathers, Sovereign of all works, Lord of all souls! Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who restorest souls unto dead bodies.' The last phrase is also extant in another reading in the Talmud and in some liturgies: 'Blessed art Thou, who revivest the dead,' but the meaning of the two forms is identical. This passage, be it noted, is ancient, and is recited every morning at prayer. The second passage is recited even more frequently, for it is said thrice daily, and also forms part of the funeral service. It may be found in the Prayer Book just quoted on p. 44: 'Thou, O Lord, art mighty for ever, Thou quickenest the dead, Thou art mighty to save. Thou sustainest the living with loving-kindness, quickenest the dead with great mercy, supportest the falling, healest the sick, loosest the bound, and keepest Thy faith to them that sleep in the dust. Who is like unto Thee, Lord of mighty acts, and who resembleth Thee, O King, who killest and quickenest, and causest salvation to spring forth? Yea faithful art Thou to quicken the dead.'

The later history of the doctrine in the Synagogue may be best summarised in the words of Dr. Kohler, whose theological articles in the Jewish Encyclopedia deserve grateful recognition. What follows may be read at full length in that work, vol. vi. p. 567: 'While mediaeval philosophy dwelt on the intellectual, moral, or spiritual nature of the soul to prove its immortality, the Cabbalists endeavoured to explain the soul as a light from heaven, after Proverbs xx. 27, and immortality as a return to the celestial world of pure light. But the belief in the pre-existence of the soul led the mystics to the adoption, with all its weird notions and superstitions, of the Pythagorean system of the transmigration of the soul.' Moses Mendelssohn revived the Platonic form of the doctrine of immortality. Thenceforth the dogma of the Resurrection was gradually discarded until it was eliminated from the Prayer Book of the Reform congregations. Man's future was thought of as the realisation of those 'higher expectations which are sown, as part of its very nature, in every human soul.' The statement of Genesis that 'God made man in His own image,' and the idea conveyed in the text (1 Samuel xxv. 29), 'May the soul … be bound up in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God,' which as a divine promise and a human supplication 'filled the generations with comfort and hope, received a new meaning from this view of man's future; and the Rabbinical saying (Ber. 64 a): "The Righteous rest not, either in this or in the future world, but go from strength to strength until they see God in Zion," appeared to offer an endless vista to the hope of immortality.'

But quite apart from this indefiniteness of attitude as to the meaning of immortality, it is scarcely possible to speak of a Jewish Eschatology at all. The development of an Eschatology occurred in that section of Jewish opinion which remained on the fringe. It must be sought in the apocalyptic literature, which has been preserved in Greek. The whole subject had but a small attraction for Judaism proper. Naturally there was some curiosity and some speculation. The Day of the Lord, with its combination of Retribution and Salvation, was pictured in various ways and with some elaboration of detail. Paradise and Hell were mapped out, and the comfortable compartments to be occupied by the saints and the miserable quarters of sinners were specified with the precision of an Ordnance Survey. Purgatory was an institution not limited to the Roman Catholic Church; it had a strong hold on the mediaeval Jewish mind. The intermediate state was a favourite escape from the theological necessity of condemning sinners to eternal punishment. The Jewish heart could not suffer the pain of conceiving Gehenna inevitable. So, one by one, those who might logically be committed there were rescued on various pretexts. In the end the number of the individual sinners who were to suffer eternal torture could be named on the fingers of one hand.