By Marv Rosenthal
Contributions of the Jewish People
Jewish people are filled with a zest for life. Candid and outgoing, they are often more recognizable by expression and gesture, than by facial appearance.
Rarely satisfied with being spectators, Jewish people prefer to roll up their sleeves and climb into the arena to actively participate in the “game” of life. Proportionately, no other people have made greater contribution to humanity than the Jewish people.
Medicine, science, technology, mathematics, law, literature, art, government, and education – these represent but a few of the disciplines to which the Jewish people have put their hand to enrich human experience. And yet, these contributions, considerable as they are, fade into insignificance when compared to the religious legacy given to the world as the descendants of Abraham and Isaac.
But what about when this earthly journey is over? What is, and was, the Jewish viewpoint of death and that which follows?
Because of their great impact on the life of humanity, I find it interesting to note the Jewish notion of death and beyond. Here are three looks at death by various Jewish scholars of different eras.
A Rabbi (2nd Century A.D.)
Rabbi Jochanan Ben Zaccai was lying on his death bed. His disciples came to visit him, and on seeing them, tears filled his eyes and he cried bitterly. “Rabbi,” exclaimed the astonished disciples, “do you cry, you the light of Israel, the right-hand pillar of the temple, the mighty analyzer of the law?”
“Ah, my children,” the dying sage sobbed, “I would not weep if I were not at this moment brought before an earthly king who may be in his grave tomorrow; whose anger and punishment could not last forever, and might be moved to pity by words of entreaty, or might be pacified with a gift.
“You ask me why I weep when I am about to be led into the presence of the King of kings who lives forever, who will not be moved by pity or by words of entreaty or will not be pacified by an offer of a gift. There are two ways before me, one leading to paradise and the other to Gehenna [Hell], and I do not know wither I am going” (Perachoth 28B).
A Reformed Jewish Man (19th Century A.D.)
Emanuel Deutsch, a noted reformed Jew, wrote a book titled, What is the Talmud? In it he tried to show that Jesus was a plagiarist and that He copied the rabbis. When Deutsch was at the height of his popularity, his health gave way and he was advised by his physician to try to regain his lost vitality.
Soon after reaching Egypt, he realized he was fighting a losing battle and he wrote this pathetic confession in his diary: “I cannot take comfort in death. I want to live. There is so much life, full life within that it shrinks from darkness and deadness.
“I envy those who can fly in the mind’s wings to this harbor of refuge; I cannot follow, but keep tossing outside in my broken craft through foam and rock and mist” (from the library remains of Emanuel Deutsch, page 12).
A Believing Jewish Man (1st Century A.D.)
Saul of Tarsus was a godly, zealous Jew of the 1st century. He trained under the distinguished Rabbi Gamaliel in preparation for service in the Sanhedrin (Israel’s governing body). But one day he saw Jesus Christ of Nazareth as the precise fulfillment of all the Messianic hopes and longings as revealed in Israel’s Holy Scriptures.
After a dedicated life of service to his Lord, Saul found himself in a Roman prison – soon to be executed. He wrote:
For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing” (2 Timothy 4:6-8).
His confidence in life on the other side of death was so strong that more than 10 years earlier he had written: “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (2 Corinthians 5:1).
And once again, Paul displays the proper Christian view of life and death: “For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).
Two Viewpoints
Two views of life: the rabbinic and reformed Jewish view on the one hand, and the believing Jew on the other. What a contrast! The difference is marked between despair and hope; it is as night and day.
The greatest contribution Israel made to the world was religious. Her greatest theologian was Saul of Tarsus, later to be called Paul the Apostle. By divine revelation, he saw clearly that there is hope, meaning, and purpose to living because there is life beyond the grave – and for the one who accepts the provision of Christ’s death on Calvary it is eternal life, abundant and free.
Christian poet Helen Steiner Rice put it this way:
“On the ‘wings of death’ the soul takes flight,
Into the land where there is no night.
For those who believe what the Saviour said,
Will rise in glory though they are dead …
So death comes to us just to ‘open the door’,
To the Kingdom of God and life evermore.”
Marv Rosenthal, founder and President of Zion’s Hope, has been an acclaimed international Bible teacher for more almost decades.
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