SCHOLAR OF AFTERLIFE MYTHOLOGY

 Selections from Jewish Views of the Afterlife

AFTERLIFE IN MEDIEVAL JEWISH MYSTICISM - ZOHAR

HIBBUT HA-KEVER/PANGS OF THE GRAVE:

Rabbi Yehuda said: "for seven days the soul goes to and fro from his house to his grave from his grave to his house, mourning for the body"

ANCESTRAL GUIDES - ARCHETYPAL BEINGS OF LIGHT:

No man dies before he sees the Shekhina , and because of its deep yearning for the Shekhina the soul departs in order to see her. ( Zohar , Emor , 88a)...  And with the Shekhina there come three ministering angels to receive the soul of the righteous  (I, 98a  Midrash ha-Ne'elam ).

ANCESTRAL GUIDES - FAMILIAL BEINGS:

Rabbi Shimon said: 'Have you seen today the image of your father? For so we have learnt, that at the hour of a man's departure from the world, his father and his relatives gather round him, and he sees them and recognizes them, and likewise all with whom he associated in this world, and they accompany his soul to the place where it is to abide .

We have further learnt that at the time of a man's death he is allowed to see his relatives and companions from the other world. 

LIFE REVIEW :

When a [person] departs this world [s/he] goes to give an account of all his [her] actions in this world while body and soul were still joined together. ( Zohar , Noah , 65b)

GEHENNA 

There are five kinds of punishments in Gehenna , and Isaiah saw them all.... He entered the second compartment , and he saw two men hanging by their tongues; and he said, "O You who unveils the hidden, reveal to me the secret of this."  He answered, "These are the men who slandered, therefore they are thus punished." He entered the third compartment , and he saw there men hanging by their organs.  He said, "O You who unveils the hidden, reveal to me the secret of this."  And He answered, "These are the men who neglected their own wives, and committed adultery with the daughters of Israel." [ Keitzad Din Ha-Kever , 1-3).

GAN EDEN:

Gan Eden has two gates of carbuncle, and sixty myriads of ministering angels keep watch.  Each of these angels shine like the radiance of the heavens .  When the righteous person approaches, angels remove from him the clothes in which he had been buried, and clothe him with eight robes of the clouds of glory, and place upon his head two crowns, one of precious stones and pearls, and the other of gold, and they place eight myrtles in his hand and praise him.  And they lead him to a place full of waters surrounded by 800 species of roses and myrtles. ( Masekhet Gan Eden , 1-2)

TZROR HA-HAYYIM - "RETURN TO SOURCE":

...in the same way as the soul has to be clothed in a bodily garment in order to exist in this world, so is she given an ethereal supernal garment wherewith to exist in the other world, and to be enabled to gaze at the effulgence of life radiating from that "land of the living" [tzror ha-hayyim] ( Zohar , Noah , 66a).

GILGUL:

The primal shape of humanity corresponds to the mystical shape of the Godhead ... Everything in [the hu]man, each of his 248 limbs and 365 sinews , corresponds to one of the supernal lights, as these are arranged in the structure of the Shi'ur Komah , the primal shape of the highest manifestation of God.  Man's task is to bring his own true shape to its spiritual perfection, to develop the divine image within. This is done by observing the 248 positive and 365 negative commandments of the Torah , each one of which is linked to one of the organs of the human body, and hence of one of those supernal lights.  Whoever fulfills the Torah properly makes his body into a dwelling place for the Shekhina . But a person must undergo gilgul for every limb that does not become a 'Throne for the Shekhina' - i.e., for every commandment that a [hu]man fails to observe or prohibition that [s]he transgresses - until he has carried out his original task.  (G. Scholem, On Nature of the Godhead , p. 219)

Unless otherwise noted, texts are from Zohar , Vayehi , 217b-222a, and appear in Simcha Paull Raphael, JEWISH VIEWS OF THE AFTERLIFE , Northvale, NJ:  Jason Aronson Publishers, 1996.