The 18th World Congress of Jewish Studies

Theories of Post-Mortem Existence in b.Berakhot 18a–19a

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The third pereq of b.Berakhot opens with a discussion of the exemption from reciting Shema if one is preoccupied with burying their dead. The discussion of liturgical obligations gives way to one about the proper way to treat the dead, and finally ends in a dispute over whether or not the dead are aware of what takes place in the realm of the living. The argument unfolds with no clear resolution, citing no less than four cases of purported communication between the living and the dead. This paper seeks to understand the presence of stories predicated on post-mortem existence within their wider halakhic context. Each story raises fundamental cosmological and theological questions about the ordering of the universe and the fate of humans after death. Do the editors of this sugya merely redact these rich stories in order to justify the halakhic principle that the dead must be treated with dignity? Or might they bear traces of a late babylonian attempt to develop a robust theory of post-mortem existence, and work out its theological and sociological implications for the living? Ultimately, this paper attempts to draw out the multi-valent legal, theological, and psychological considerations at play in the construction of this sugya.