Presence

What is Death? Obviously, this is a futile question to attempt to answer; we cannot even begin to hope to know what lies in store for us beyond this world. That has not stopped us from positing various explanations for what Death is. In general, these explanations carry a moral message (unless you're a nihilist, in which case, nothing does).

As an example, the popular understanding of Death amongst Orthodox Jews goes something like this: Man, in essence, is a combination of spiritual and physical components (guf and neshamah, body and soul). At birth, the soul is joined with the body, and at death, they are separated, the soul returning to God. This explanation carries with it the moral value of spiritual (or, in our time, intellectual or knowledge-based) pursuits over physical pursuits. Until recently, I liked to think of Death from an existentialist perspective; Death provides definition and distinction to our existence, defining our lives and making each one unique. Death, from this perspective, encourages a value of creative expression and actualization of the self.

The Torah itself presents a different view of Death, revealed through the narrative of the Chumash. According to the Torah, before eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Man did not experience Death as we know it. Only after the sin did Death become Man's final destiny. Death, therefore, becomes linked with a lack of the Divine Presence.

When the Jewish people accepted the Torah on Har Sinai, their relationship to Death changed; they became, in a sense, free from Death. With the Sin of the Golden Calf, however, this freedom was taken away; the Jewish people once again were subject to Death.

In Parshas Chukas the relationship with Death is refined yet again. Death is still anathema to Divine Presence. The two cannot coexist in the same context. Man, who at this point has little hope of rising above Death, still yearns for access to the Divine. The Parah Adumah grants this, by atoning for the Sin of the Golden Calf.

The view of Death presented by the Torah is brought out through the narrative; it is not an essential quality posited a priori, nor is it a completely existential phenomenom. Death is an expression of the presence, or lack there of, of the Divine. Man's enslavement to Death shifts in terms of his relationship the the Divine Presence.

[Originally written 6/28/04 - I'm cleaning out my archives and publishing some old drafts that never made it out the door.]