“If you have a sapling in your hand and someone tells you that the Messiah has come, first plant the sapling and then go to greet the Messiah.” (Avot d’Rebbe Natan 31b). This teaching by the first century C.E. rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai reflects a deep skepticism about messianism during a period of great messianic fervor in the Holy Land. However, it is also a perfect illustration of how resurrection has been and is still viewed within the Jewish world. A modern statement of this attitude would be, “Resurrection may be possible, but what has it done for me lately?”

To truly understand the historical and current view of resurrection in Judaism, an appreciation of the way in which Jews process theology is essential. Quite simply, Jews don’t worry very much about theology. The reason for this may be that Judaism is a non-creedal religion. Religious theoretical reflections often are cast in philosophic rather than theological terms. The “God of the Israelites” has over a hundred names but can never be depicted visually.

This creates an atmosphere in which questions such as “What is the nature of God?” are  pointless, since they can’t be resolved. There is also a strong prohibition against asking, “What existed before God?” With these boundaries, theological speculation about the nature of God and how God operates seems pointless for Jews.

Until the influence of the Enlightenment on Jewish communities in Europe, the primary focus of Jewish intellectual curiosity and creativity has been almost exclusively aimed at how to live a pious Jewish life. The word of our Creator, rather than the nature of that Creator, was, and still is, at the heart of all things Jewish. The book that guides Jewish life and thought is the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible–Genesis through Deuteronomy.

There is no statement about resurrection in the Torah. The text generally cited as a direct Biblical reference to resurrection is in Daniel 12:1-2, written shortly before the conclusion of the Maccabean Revolt (late 165 / early 164 B.C.E.): “And at that time shall Michael stand up…and… your people shall be delivered…. And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to reproaches and everlasting abhorrence.”

While suggestive, this text is hardly a clear exposition of a theology of resurrection. However, between the writing of the Book of Daniel and the publication of the Mishna in 200 C.E., a resurrection concept developed in the Jewish world and received the ultimate hechsher (kosher seal of approval) by the rabbis. Proof of this is in the Mishna. In Tractate Sanhedrin, (10:1-2.) we read: “All Israelites have a portion in the world to come, for it says, ‘Your people, all of them righteous, shall possess the land for ever; they are the shoot that I planted, my handiwork in which I glory’ (Isaiah 60:21); and these are the ones who have no portion in the world to come: He who maintains that resurrection is not a biblical doctrine….”

That the rabbis of the Mishna insist that there is a Biblical basis for the concept of resurrection is proof of the importance of this concept by 200 C.E. The foundation of Rabbinic Law (laws that supplement the 613 commandments given to the Jewish People by God in the Torah) requires that human-made laws must have a Biblical proof text. The strongest text to support a rabbinic law is a passage from the Torah. However, when no such text can be found, a passage from another part of the Hebrew Bible is acceptable, as with the citation above from Isaiah.

What is interesting about the Mishna text quoted is that it is not clear what is meant by the term “resurrection.” Herein lies the key to the “problem” of resurrection in Judaism from the earliest appearance of this concept to the present day.

What does resurrection mean to Jews? Does the concept of resurrection refer to individuals, or to the People of Israel as a nation? Will the body of an individual be resurrected? Is there something other than the body–something non-corporeal–that might be resurrected? Could there be resurrection of both a body and something non-corporeal in one entity? The Biblical basis of bodily resurrection is very thin. There is absolutely no Biblical basis for resurrection of something non-corporeal–something of the spirit. However, under the influence of Greek philosophy, and some scholars say also the influence of Zoroastrianism, the idea of a component of spirit or personality that is independent of the flesh, and may be related to the concept of resurrection, eventually made its way into Jewish thinking during the First Century of the Common Era.

The many unresolved questions about what the term “resurrection” means in Jewish thought have endured through two and a half millennia. Perhaps the most concise statement might be that during certain periods, resurrection was understood to refer exclusively to the body, at other times to the soul, and during yet other historical periods to a combination of the two. Even within the last two hundred years, the pendulum of thought about resurrection in Judaism has swung back and forth fairly frequently. In fact, this is currently a very active issue for some Jewish scholars  

In some religions, having a theological issue like resurrection unresolved might be a problem. However, the non-creedal aspect of Judaism means that it is not necessarily important to establish canonical answers for all questions. Since there is no set of beliefs that makes someone “Jewish,” or “not Jewish” (despite the efforts of rabbis and others over the millennia to try to create such a list), finding final concrete “approved answers” to questions like “What is resurrection?” lacks fundamental importance within the Jewish world. Much more pressing are questions like “How does one observe the (Torah-given) commandment not to create a fire on the Sabbath in a world where technology has gone far beyond fire making?” The question of what resurrection implies has little if any impact on a person’s daily life, whereas how one observes the laws of Shabbat has everything to do with how one lives and acts. 

On the other hand, while resurrection (however that might be defined), is not “front of mind” for most Jews, any Jew who prays, confronts the issue of resurrection in the recitation of the Amidah, the “standing” prayer.  The Amidah is the centerpiece of every Jewish worship service. It is also called the “Tefilah” (literally prayer) or the “Shemonah Esray” (Eighteen Benedictions). There are actually 19 in the prayer’s full form. The Amidah contains original liturgical material believed to date back to the 5th century B.C.E., making it the most ancient non-Biblical text in the siddur (prayerbook.) A traditional Jew recites the Amidah three times a day, and four times on Saturday.

The over-arching metaphor for the Amidah is that the person praying has been admitted to God’s throne room. Once given access to the Divine, the supplicant reminds God of God’s responsibility for all Israelites, praises God by reciting God’s attributes, and then proceeds with a catalogue of petitionary prayers. On the Sabbath, the petitionary prayers are shortened in order to permit God to “rest” on the Sabbath. The various segments of the Amidah are known by special titles drawn from the subject matter of each particular segment.

The first part of the Amidah is  the “Avot” or “Ancestors” because the liturgy presents the traditional “genealogy” of all Jews. This prayer establishes one’s identity as a descendant of the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with whom God swore a covenant for all time. As a Jew, one is automatically included in this covenant, although there are various rituals that take place after birth which formalize one’s membership in the covenant. In liberal Jewish communities today, it is not unusual to hear the names of the Matriarchs Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachael also invoked in this segment of the Amidah.

The second part of this liturgy, the “Gevurot,” (God’s) “Mighty Works,” describes God’s power and draws our attention to the topic of resurrection six times (each marked in bold face):

“You are mighty forever, O Lord. You resurrect (revive) the dead. Great is Your power to save. (In summer: “You cause the dew to descend.” In winter: “You cause the wind to blow and the rain to fall.”) You sustain the living with loving kindness; You resurrect the dead with great mercy. You support the falling, heal the sick, free the captive, and maintain faith with those who sleep in the dust. Who is like You, Mighty One! And who can be compared to You O King Who brings death and restores life, and causes salvation to spring forth! You are faithful to revive the dead (or “restore life to the dead”). Blessed are You, Lord, who revives the dead (or “restores life to the dead”).

One of the difficulties with understanding this prayer and the statement it is making with respect to God’s actions with respect to resurrection is that the Hebrew is somewhat puzzling. The Hebrew phrase, “mehay hametim” (one who revives or resurrects the dead) is in the present tense. One might expect that it would be in the future tense: God will resurrect the dead. In his excellent book, The Death of Death, which deals in depth with the issues of resurrection and immortality in Jewish thought, Rabbi Dr. Neil Gillman discusses the many implications of this grammatical anomaly. I recommend this fascinating and well-researched book to those who are especially interested in this topic.

Whatever the reasons for the form of the liturgical language, what is very clear in the Gevurot text is that the worshiper is being forced to confront and acknowledge the idea that God has the power to restore/resurrect the dead. Repeating a text six times in one very short passage in the siddur is unprecedented. Therefore, one might speculate with some certainty that resurrection of the dead was not a universally accepted theological concept at the time this particular liturgical passage was inserted into the Jewish prayer book. The repetitive nature of the resurrection language in the Gevurot was a way for the rabbis to canonize resurrection as a fundamental Jewish belief even though this concept might not have found favor with all segments of the Jewish community.

Exactly what is meant by resurrection (or reviving the dead) is unclear in the liturgy of the Gevurot and continues to be unclear to this day. This has not hindered Jewish philosophers and teachers from creating a broad body of literature that seeks to explain what these concepts mean.

There is some agreement that resurrection will require a body and that in some end-of-time scenario, God will resurrect the bodies of all people—Jewish and non-Jewish. (What the “end of time” actually means in Jewish thought is a subject of debate, disagreement, and in many segments of the Jewish community, total disinterest.) For modern Jews, perhaps the most important aspect of this teaching has to do with the subject of what can or cannot be done with a body after death.

The treatment of a person’s body after death is a subject of great significance for Jews. Because the deceased is completely vulnerable, great care is given to treating the body with the utmost honor and respect. Concern for the dignity of the individual is the reason that Judaism does not permit autopsy unless absolutely necessary. From the time that a person dies, his/her body is not left alone until it is buried. A pious individual, called a “shomer” (guard) sits with the body and recites the Book of Psalms until the funeral. Those who perform this service and those who are responsible for preparing the body for burial are highly honored within the Jewish community for their service and dedication.

Given the concern about protecting the dignity of an individual after death, one can understand why Jewish law prohibits the cremation of Jewish bodies. Cremation is seen as a  desecration of the body. In addition, because of the teaching that our bodies will be resurrected at the end of time, there is concern that cremating a body would prevent that individual from being resurrected. Since the 12th century, when the great Jewish sage, Maimonides included belief in the resurrection of the dead as one of his Thirteen Principles of Faith, traditional Jewish communities have taught that cremation is a refutation of belief in God’s power to resurrect the dead. For this reason, traditional Jewish communities absolutely forbid cremation, and rabbis will not preside over a funeral in which the deceased has been or will be cremated. In these  communities, the need to have an intact body at the time of resurrection is taken so seriously that a unique custom developed. If a traditional Jew suffers an amputation, the amputated body part is buried in the burial plot in which the individual will eventually be placed so that the body can be resurrected with all its parts. In more liberal Jewish communities, where the concept of resurrection has less resonance, some individuals choose cremation and some rabbis are willing to preside over these funerals.

The cremation of Jewish victims of the Nazis during the Holocaust raises very troubling questions in Jewish circles where the issue of resurrection is a matter of serious study and debate. While there is no suggestion that the victims themselves are to blame for the manner of their deaths, the issue of how the victims will be resurrected is of great concern.  One possible solution to this problem may come from the teachings of the great 10th century Jewish philosopher and scholar, Rabbi Saadia Gaon. His monumental work, “Emunoth ve-Deoth,” written in Arabic, was the first systematic attempt to integrate Jewish theology with Greek philosophy. In one of his teachings about resurrection, Saadia discusses the fact that our bodies disintegrate after they are buried. He goes on to suggest that since God created the entire universe from nothing, God can certainly recreate a disintegrated body and resurrect it. Following this reasoning, one might posit that gathering and resurrecting the ashes of cremated victims of the Holocaust should not be beyond the powers of such a Deity.

The importance of the concept of resurrection has not been and is not now universally accepted across the Jewish world. One of the most significant challenges to the concept of resurrection arose during the development of the Reform Jewish Movement in Germany and America in the 19th century. For Reform Jews, especially those in America in the mid 1800s, the concept of bodily resurrection seemed old fashioned and irrelevant to a “modern” understanding of Jewish life.

When the great German/American rabbi David Einhorn published his revolutionary siddur, Olat Tamid: Book of Prayers for Jewish Congregations in 1856, worshippers found the reference to resurrection of the body replaced with more “spiritual” language. In the Gevurot, instead of the text “Who raises the dead,” “m’chayeih hameitim,” Einhorn substituted the phrase “Who has implanted immortal life within us.” Olat Tamid became the template for the New Union Prayer Book, published in 1895. This became the prayer book “bible” of the American Reform Movement. In the New Union Prayer Book, a further emendation to the Gevurot replaced Einhorn’s phrase with the words “m’chayeih et hakol,” literally “who gives life to all.” The New Union Prayer Book remained the authorized liturgy for American Reform Jews until the publication of The Gates of Prayer in 1975.

The Gates of Prayer was replaced with Mishkan T’filah in 2007. This new siddur, which took almost 20 years to produce, replaced gender specific language for God with gender neutral language and incorporated transliteration of Hebrew prayers within the body of the text. In addition, it included some traditional liturgy that had been modified or excised when The Gates of Prayer was written. These changes reflect the strong spiritual revolution and rededication to tradition and Hebrew liturgy that have been developing in the Reform Movement over the last several decades. One of the most notable changes in Mishkan T’filah was a return to the original language about bodily resurrection in the Gevurot.

 In a 2007 interview, Rabbi Eugene Borowitz, one of the Reform Movement’s most eminent scholars and philosophers, commented on this change. “once one understands that there are good reasons for hoping that there is life after death, and since we know ourselves as embodied persons, the traditional terminology (m’chayeih hameitim) makes sense, although it has to be taken quite poetically.” In the interview, Borowitz goes on to credit the Reform Movement’s theological shift on this issue to the impact of Jewish feminist thought. (The Reform Movement began to ordain female rabbis in 1972, but no female rabbis were involved in the creation of The Gates of Prayer.) Borowitz continues: "Gender is substantially a bodily matter, so if body is that critical to our proper sense of self, then to hope that God will grant us life is—with all the difficulties involved in the phrase—a way of saying that in some sense life after death is also embodied."

The interest in and importance of “end of time scenarios” and related concepts like resurrection, seems to increase during periods of great stress and social upheaval. The onset of a millennial era activates deeply buried atavistic fears that are apparently hardwired into the human psyche. Doomsday scenarios, like the current one that says the world will end on December 21, 2012, proliferate. Social, political, and financial upheaval are hallmarks of millennial change. Even people who do not buy into end of time scenarios may find themselves feeling unsettled and anxious about the future. With these fears as a background, it makes sense that religious concerns might shift from long established patterns, with a new or greater emphasis on ideas, rituals, and philosophies that offer consolation, comfort, and hope.

 We find ourselves living in such a time. Throughout the Jewish world and in all Jewish Movements, issues of bodily resurrection, the immortality of the soul, the resurrection or reincarnation of the soul and the nature of the “end of time” are generating new interest. Each movement will ultimately determine its own philosophy about these concepts and will move to “canonize” these new ideas in the way which is most natural for its followers. What is almost certain, however, is that there will be no universal agreement about these philosophical ideas.  In the Jewish world, that’s just fine. We will probably be debating the issues of what will happen at the end of time a hundred years from now. That is, unless the world ends on December 21, 2012.

About the author

Jo David wrote 3 articles for this publication.

Rabbi Dr. Jo David is an adjunct professor at Berkeley College in Manhattan. She holds a Doctor of Ministry in Multifaith Ministry from New York Theological Seminary and earned a Master’s Degree in Judaic Studies from New York University. She was ordained as a rabbi under the auspices of the Academy for Jewish Religion in New York. Rabbi David is a published author of books, articles and poetry on subjects as varied as feminist theology, spirituality, Judaism, Torah, food and wine, archaeology and genealogy. She has presented papers and workshops in many different venues around the world.

• Blog