Many Views Of An Afterlife Kept Judaism Alive

Several years ago, Canada began a program called Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID). Now it is beginning to reshape how Canadians are facing end-of-life situations. An article published in The Atlantic in August of 2025 reports that 5% of all Canadian deaths in 2024 happened through physician assisted suicide.

This is a topic that will garner increasing attention in the United States as medical aid in dying is already legally permissible in 13 states and Washington DC. The General Social Survey has been asking a four question battery about suicide (with various justifications) for decades now.

The Association of Religion Data Archives makes it easy to search the codebook for the GSS and pull out the relevant questions. They all start with the same preamble – Do you think a person has the right to end his or her own life if this person: 1. A person has an incurable disease 2. A person has gone bankrupt 3. A person has dishonored their family Or 4. A person is tired of living.

It is clear that the American public has been much more open to the idea of suicide in the case of incurable disease compared to the other three situations. In 1977, 37% of the sample supported someone ending their own life if they had a disease that couldn’t be cured. That rose quickly through the next 15 years, crossing the majority support threshold by the late 1980s and rising to 60% in favor by the mid-1990s. It stayed there for a while but then rose again after 2010 and it’s now at an all time high: 69% in favor.

Christians who go to church weekly or more are more likely to oppose suicide in the case of incurable disease compared to those who attend less often. The other three scenarios have never got near the same levels of support in the general public. The share who favors a right to suicide for people who go bankrupt or dishonor their family has never been robust: 6-7% back in the 1970s and then creeping up very slowly over time to where it now stands, around 15%.

The question about suicide when a person “is tired of living and ready to die” gets a bit more support, though. It was 12% back in 1977 and that share has doubled in the last couple of decades. Now, a quarter of Americans favor an individual ending their own life if they just don’t want to live anymore.

The dominant view in Christian circles is that suicide is an affront to God’s gift of life and is strongly discouraged. Protestants tend to not see suicide as an “unforgivable sin” but still a tragedy in which humans try to usurp God’s ownership of life. But do you believe that God created a place of eternal punishment? Most Christians do; 70% of Catholics and 68% of Protestants according to a Gallup poll.

Jewish teaching about life after death has varied from historical age to age. The Bible refers to some kind of an after-life but only very briefly and vaguely. The Rabbinic sages did teach that there is a reward and punishment in store for each individual according to his or her manner of living on earth. The Kabbalah teaches that souls undergo reincarnation. This teaching became widespread during the 16-18th centuries, especially among the Hassidim. The majority of modern Jews are closer to the Biblical teachings. but all the various positions can be found among Rabbis today.

Christians frequently wonder why Jews try to do good if they do not expect a reward or punishment in their after-life. Jews. in turn. find it hard to understand why that is so important to Christians. Judaism teaches that the reason for doing the Mitzvah, is the Mitzvah itself.

Judaism places the primary emphasis upon life in this world. Although there have been times when belief in an after-life was an important part of the Jewish consciousness, it never assumed the significance (either in the folk or in the philosophical mind) that it did in Christianity.

A Gallup poll shows this clearly. People were asked, “Which do you think you should be most serious about – trying to live comfortably, or preparing for a life after death?” 46% of Catholics, 62% of Baptists, 50% of Methodists, 47% of ‘ Lutherans and 00% of Jews said. “Prepare for life after death’’. Whether they were conscious of it or not, the Jews were simply articulating the teaching of the Talmud that states, “Better one hour of repentance and good deeds in this world, than the whole of the life in the world to come”.

Only 40/o of the Jews polled believed in hell. Usually Christians are quite surprised to learn that not only do most Jews not believe in hell, but not that many Jews believe in heaven. The same poll noted that only 20 % of Jews agree with the 90% of all Protestants and Catholics who believe in heaven.

The Quran and Hadith have explicit prohibitions for suicide in the Islamic faith. The same is true for non-Orthodox Jews, but my experience as a Reform Rabbi in California, is that many Jews admire people who leave life early, because they are much less afraid of death and hell. These Jews do not think they are committing suicide as an “unforgivable sin” or a tragedy in which humans try to usurp God’s ownership of life. These Jews see it as a hastening gift for others.

The Hebrew Bible has a book of deep wisdom. Ecclesiastes 3:19 (NIV) states: “Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals.

Ecclesiastes 12:7 (NIV )states: “…and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it”. So many Jews see it as a hastening gift for others. This is hasten-cide not suicide.

Ecclesiastes 9:5 (NIV) states: “For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even their name is (after 1-2 centuries) forgotten”.

The Hebrew Bible does not express much interest in the afterlife, in contrast to some of its neighbors such as Egypt, Ugarit, and Mesopotamia. The basic view of the afterlife expressed in the Bible is that the dead go down to Sheʾol (Genesis 37:35). This word sometimes refers to the underworld or sometimes to the underground grave or tomb itself (Psalm 30:4). “Sheʾol is dark and quiet (Psalm 88:13, 115:17). The dead living in Sheʾol continue their existence in a permanent torpor (Psalm13:4, Job 3:13); their physical existence is minimal or limited, like a shadow of their former selves (Isaiah 14:10–19).

AFTERLIFE: Seven different Jewish views; or seven options.
1- Humans no different from animals. All have same end place. Ecclesiastes 3:19-21

2- Sheol; the big question. there is something, but who knows what it is: it is not heaven or hell Psalms 6:5, 88:10 115:17.

3- Resurrection during the Messianic Age as part of God’s final Judgement. Good people live again on earth, evil people die quickly. Daniel 12:1-4, Isaiah 26:19-21, 17:15.

4- Postmortem reward and punishment for individuals: between death and resurrection everyone, except saints, goes to Gehennom-purgatory for 1-12 months to atone for their sins. Most people, including non Jewish good people, then go to Gan Eden, a good place since it is populated by good people. Evil people who are still unrepentant after 12 months of painful confrontation with their sins are extinguished (avadon).

The great majority of people are basically good (that is why custom is to say Kaddish for only 11 months) and only really evil people do not enter the spiritual world to come. All these ideas are post Biblical rabbinic ideas.

5- Immortality: Based on the laws of Physics that matter and energy are never destroyed but only transformed. Thus just as the body disorganizes into its basic molecules and is recycled in the ground; so does the soul lose it’s personal memories and yet its basic energy becomes part of the cosmic energy of the universe. This view was popular among Jews in the Greek/Roman Empire and was revived by many Reform Progressive Jews in the 19th century.

6- Gilgul- Recycling: Reincarnation is a Kabbalistic concept that arose in the 12th century and became popular in Eastern Europe through Hassidism. Unlike Indian concepts, gilgul is limited to humans and does not occur to everyone. There are new souls born all the time. Most current living souls do not return. Some of those who return, do so as a punishment but for most souls it is a second chance to improve themselves.

Souls of Jews cut off from the Jewish people are reborn in a descendent and return to the Jewish people through conversion/reversion to Judaism.

7- Some of these concepts are not mutually exclusive. Most Kabbalists and Hassidim believed in #3 and #4 and #6 Many Jews today believe in #5 and #6. For most of the 20th century most non-Orthodox Jews believed in #1 and #2. What happens to you might depend partly on what you believe will happen to you #7. If you believe in Gilgul you become a gilgul. If not, you don’t. So what you believe is important.

However, if you do not believe in a reward and you deserve it you will still receive it; and it does not matter what Hitler or Stalin believed: there is a judge and there is judgement. Genesis 18:25.

In the Roman period, the Jewish historian Josephus presents the belief in the immortality of the soul as a key tenet in of Jewish theology. In his narration of Elazar ben Yair’s final speech, immediately before the mass suicide in Masada, Josephus includes a long passage that describes the eternal features of the soul (Jewish War 7:7–8 §338–388). In quoting his own speech to his men, Josephus reports that he said (Jewish War 3:5 §372): “All of us, it is true, have mortal bodies, composed of perishable matter, but the soul lives forever, immortal, it is a portion of the Deity housed in our bodies.”

So 69% of Americans think every person has the right to end his or her own life if this person has an incurable disease. It is a Non Orthodox Jewish gift to others as well as oneself.