The Meanings of Death in Rabbinic Judaism (review)

David Kraemer has written an original, intelligent, and thought-provoking study of the meanings of death in Rabbinic Judaism. Methodologically sophisticated, Kraemer is sensitive to the oral world context of his sources, asking how preserved literary traditions relate to the sociological realities in which they developed. He asks perceptively how the views of Rabbinic élites concerning death may or may not reflect the attitudes of common people, and brings to bear on his study evidence from material culture, in particular the catacombs of Beth Shearim, exploring how such archaeological data relate to written sources. Kraemer works beautifully with the classical texts of Judaism, moving deftly from one source to another, chronologically tracing a path from the Mishnah to Tosephta, from Talmud Jerushalmi to Bavli, concluding with examples from medieval material. He introduces each source simply and elegantly, placing it in historical and cultural context and thus making his study accessible to non-experts. An astute exegete, Kraemer presents the fine details of Rabbinic argument with clarity, but this attention to detail is balanced by a probing engagement with the big questions surrounding significance, meaning, and message.

Kraemer observes that the processes of dying and mourning are parallel rites of passage, and is attuned to the polysemous meanings of ritual symbols. He explores, for example, how the mourner symbolically identifies with the dead and shares his/her experience of separation from society. Perhaps his most interesting suggestion is that the Rabbis regarded the dead as sentient. The dead feel pain as the soul is ripped from the body, and the soul itself hovers around for three days hoping to find its way back into the body. Anointing and washing the body are not merely gestures of honor, but are meant to comfort the dead in an actual, visceral way, for they feel the pangs of being dead. Equally significant is the relation Kraemer finds between death and mourning and sin and atonement. The suffering of death atones for one’s sins, but the loss of dear ones also serves as punishment for the mourner. Death as Paul suggests in 1 Corinthians is intimately related to sin.

Kraemer discusses the meaning of death with a kind of personal, palpable sym pathy; his manner of writing as if he were asking himself critical questions and his expression of surprise at some of his own findings and responses are unpretentious and altogether appealing. One rarely finds such qualities of intimacy and empathy in scholarly work.

In a fascinating and controversial conclusion, Kraemer examines briefly the way in which classical Rabbinic beliefs in life after death affect attitudes to important theological and ethical issues including capital punishment and the sufferings of the Holocaust. Kraemer suggests that Jewish responses to the Holocaust in the twentieth century must be understood in the context of a cultural and religious climate in which most Jews no longer shared the Rabbis’ views of the meaning and experience of death. Kraemer’s work will be of special interest to contemporary readers who are discovering anew the spiritual roots and resources of Judaism.