Is Death Really the End

While discussing the topic of death, a very good friend of mine, who is over 80 years old, said to me: “I hope that I will slip out of life in a second without me being aware of it. And I will be gone. And that is all.”

I listened in silence and left him to his naiveté. But what I should have asked him is “How do you know that ‘that is all’?” Perhaps it is only the beginning? Perhaps you will be confronted with an entirely different form of life. After all, your body is not you. Your personality, your being, and your soul are not your body. Perhaps they live on?

Nobody knows whether or not there is life after death. But we cannot say with certainty that there is not!

And so I should have asked my friend: don’t you think your assumptions are a bit childish? Are you not guilty of wishful thinking? Perhaps you are trying to avoid the consequences of life after death—a kind of ostrich policy?

And yet millions—if not billions—of people live as if they were certain that there is no life after death. This is a great tragedy, because it may be a radical untruth.

Could it be that the “here and now” is really all there is?

The answer to this question has a tremendous influence on how we live our lives.

One who lives with the possibility that there may be an afterlife will probably think more carefully about what to do with his or her life on earth. After all, if there is an aspect of life that is eternal, this life on earth may have an entirely different meaning than we think. To seriously consider such a possibility is radically different from living life merely for the here and now.

Perhaps all the challenges in our lives are educational in nature, allowing us to grow spiritually, as preparation for when we leave physical existence and enter another plane of existence?

Now obviously experiences of suffering, such as that of those who perished in the Holocaust cannot just be written off as “educational in nature”. And yet, we cannot say for sure what is the meaning of such experiences. We simply do not know.

That admission of uncertainty is itself meaningful. Modern society is largely a spiritual desert. A great number of people are certain that this life is all there is. As a result, most people live lives deprived of any ultimate meaning.

Many people convince themselves that only science matters. But this is taking the easy way out, and is immature. Science has no answer to the most serious existential question of why. It only tells us what is but never what should be. It has no moral voice. It leaves us totally in the dark when it comes to the most important question of all: How to live our lives?

According to the Jewish Tradition, there is indeed an afterlife. Our tradition even claims that we will be asked a series of questions about how we acted on earth. Not all of us believe this to be literally true, but nobody can be certain that it is untrue.

In this week’s Parsha, Sarah, Avraham’s wife dies. We are told that “Sarah’s lifetime was one hundred years, and twenty years and seven years” (Bereshit 23:1). On this, Rashi comments: “They [the years of Sarah’s life] were all equally good.”

But how could that be? Sarah had a hard life, with many ups and downs. For most of her life, she was barren. She was kidnapped both by Pharaoh of Egypt and Avimelech, the king of Gerar, because of her beauty. All of her life was spent on the road, following her recalcitrant husband, Avraham. She had constant trouble with Hagar, her servant…

Interestingly enough it was the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche (1844-1900) who gave us the answer to this question: “One who has a Why to live for, can bear almost any How.”[1] We can deal with suffering and sorrow when we believe that it all has meaning, that we are part of a larger plan, even when we do not know what that plan is.

But that is only true when we believe that there is a greater meaning to life that surpasses the insignificant number of years that we spend on this earth. When we know that there is a higher purpose, all years are meaningful—and thus good—even when they are difficult.

Before we declare: “I hope I will die in a second and be gone,” we should wake up and ask ourselves: How do I know? Perhaps my real life will only start at the instant I leave this world. Perhaps I will be asked “How did you live?” And perhaps my answer will be found wanting.

Notes:

[1] Twilight of the Idols, Maxims and Arrows, 12.