Death

On Rosh Hashanah, our judgment is written; on Yom Kippur, it is sealed; and on Hoshana Rabbah, it is sent out to be fulfilled. It is said that on the night of Hoshana Rabbah, those judged to die that year will lose their shadows. Sefer Chasidim relates that, in a final plea for forgiveness, even the spirits of the dead rise from their graves to pray for the living.

Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones did not assume personal resurrection, a belief that entered Judaism in a later period. In its original context, the imagery of bones rearticulating and coming back to life draws upon the ancient burial practices of Judahite family tombs, offering a message of hope to the exiles in Babylon that YHWH will return them to their land.

Is there a difference between human and animal souls? Is there a hereafter at all, and if so, does righteousness or wickedness affect it? These questions, discussed by Greek philosophers, inspired the Judean discourse of the Hellenistic period. Ecclesiastes on one side, 1 Enoch and the Wisdom of Solomon on the other.

Why the promiscuous daughter of a priest and Tamar, the widowed daughter-in-law of Judah, are sentenced to die by fire. The “poetic justice” of immolation.

Sheʾol and its synonyms, בּוֹר “pit,” שַׁחַת “chasm,” and אֲבַדּוֹן “oblivion,” was the fate of all people upon death. The wicked were sent there early, while the righteous were rewarded with a long life. During the Second Temple period, the negative attitude about death and sheʾol develops into a concept of post-mortem punishment and eventually hell. 1 Enoch’s four chambers for the dead is the first step in that direction.

A mother’s joy, loss, and recovery serves as an etiology of human grief.

The body of an executed criminal is hanged but must be buried on the same day, כִּי קִלְלַת אֱלֹהִים תָּלוּי, “because a hanged body is a cursing of God” (Deuteronomy 21:23). What does this phrase mean?

The answer lies in his bed.

How was ancient mummification carried out? What does it say about Jacob and Joseph that their remains were handled in accordance with Egyptian burial practices?

The Bible pays little attention to the death of its female characters, writing only cursory death notices, or sometimes none at all. Second Temple period authors retell the Torah’s stories to give more pride of place to the death scenes of its heroines.