Life after death

• Beliefs about life after death

  The souls of the righteous go to heaven, the souls of ordinary people go to hell to be punished and purified<|>Belief in life after death is one of the 13 principles of faith
• Some believe only the righteous will be resurrected, others believe everyone will be resurrected
• According to Jewish belief, the Day of Judgement, or Yawm ad-Din, will occur after the coming of the Messiah
• Jews believe that God judges how good or bad people have been in order to decide their destiny in the afterlife. This is often seen as motivation to behave well and obey all of God’s rules.
• God will bring every deed into judgement … whether it is good or evil. -— Ecclesiastes 12:14
• Some Jews believe that they will be judged as soon as they die, while others believe that they will be judged by both God and the Messiah on the Day of Judgement. On this day, some Jews believe that everyone will be resurrected so that they can be judged, while others believe that only those who are morally good will be resurrected.
• Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake; some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. — Daniel 12:2
• Jewish scripture has very little to say on matters of life after death. This is because Judaism puts far greater focus on people’s actions and purpose in their earthly lives which the call olam ha-ze, than on speculating about what might happen after people die.
• Many Jewish people also believe in olam ha-ba (meaning ‘the world to come’). - Perfect version of the world that will exist at the end of days, after the Messiah has come and God has judged the living and the dead.
• In order to have a good afterlife, Jews believe that all efforts should be made to repair the world around us.
• Some Jews believe that reincarnation is happening all the time and that souls are reborn to continue tikkun olam.
• Many think of Heaven as Gan Eden (the Garden of Eden), which is a place of sunshine where people of all nations will sit and eat together when the peaceful Messianic Age comes.
• Others believe that Gan Eden is not necessarily a physical place but instead is a state of consciousness, or a place where the soul feels close to God.
• Jews who have lived a sinless life will be sent straight to Gan Eden. However, it is possible that souls could be sent to Sheol or Gehinnom (or Gehenna)
• • Sheol is a place of waiting where souls are cleansed and purified.
  • Gehinnom is a place to be punished and a place of torment.
• Some believe that the souls of those who have committed serious acts of evil - for example, people who have committed murder - will never move on from this place of torment as they cannot be changed for the better.
• Most Orthodox Jews believe that the physical body will be resurrected in the Messianic Age, when the good will rise from the dead. For this reason, Orthodox Jews forbid many procedures that they consider to cause damage or destruction of the body after death, and will bury their dead rather than cremate them for this reason.