Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site rochester.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!sdcsvax!sdcrdcf!hplabs!hao!seismo!rochester!sher From: sher@rochester.UUCP (David Sher) Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish Subject: Re: Afterlife Message-ID: <4166@rochester.UUCP> Date: Wed, 28-Nov-84 00:51:16 EST Article-I.D.: rocheste.4166 Posted: Wed Nov 28 00:51:16 1984 Date-Received: Fri, 30-Nov-84 07:45:31 EST References: <1902@pegasus.UUCP> <27400007@uiucdcsb.UUCP> Organization: U. of Rochester, CS Dept. Lines: 21 > I posted the original question. I received exactly one (1) reply, by > private mail. (I wonder why there were no more replies -- was I > offensive? was it a simple-minded question?) > I guess its time to add some flame to the fire. I can describe the attitude transmitted to me from my familly of devout nonobservant Jews. This is hardly an expert opinion, more like the opinion of the common man (caveat caveat!). Anyway I believe that Judaism concentrates entirely on the living. The only responses I got as a kid from the normative sources (parents and hebrew school) is that the dead live on in the memory of the living. At the time of the messiah there will be no death (this is more from my recent reading for Maimonides I think Judah Ha Levi had a different opinion on this). I have however read some stuff that purports to be Jewish mythology or stories and legends. In it a concept of heaven which is taken to various levels of sophistication is described (the most sophisticated described a hierarchical multilevel heaven only some of which are used to hold soals). In any case such ideas are irrelevant except as mysticism since Judaism tells one how to live not how to die. -David