The point of view from which the Ḥasidim regarded earthly existence was that man was born for another and a better world than this. Hence Abraham is told by God: “Depart from this vain world; leave the body and go to thy Lord among the good” (Testament of Abraham, i.). The immortality of martyrs was especially dwelt on by the Essenes (Josephus, “B. J.” vii. 8, § 7; i. 33, § 2; comp. ii. 8, §§ 10, 14; idem, “Ant.” xviii. 1, § 5). The souls of the righteous live like birds (See Jew. Encyc. iii. 219, s.v. Birds) in cages (“columbaria”) guarded by angels (IV Esd. vii. 32, 95; Apoc. Baruch, xxi. 23, xxx. 2; comp. Shab. 152b). According to IV Esdras iv. 41 (comp. Yeb. 62a), they are kept in such cages () before entering upon earthly existence. The soul of martyrs also have a special place in heaven, according to Enoch (xxii. 12, cii. 4, cviii. 11 et seq.); whereas the Slavonic Enoch (xxiii. 5) teaches that “every soul was created for eternity before the foundation of the world.” This Platonic doctrine of the preexistence of the soul (comp. Wisdom viii. 20; Philo, “De Gigantibus,” §§ 3 et seq.; idem, “De Somniis,” i., § 22) is taught also by the Rabbis, who spoke of a storehouse of the souls in the seventh heaven ("'Arabot"; Sifre, Deut. 344; Ḥag. 12b). In Gen. R. viii. the souls of the righteous are mentioned as counselors of God at the world’s creation (comp. the Fravashi in “Farwardin Yast,” in “S. B. E.” xxiii. 179).Upon the belief that the soul has a life of its own after death is based the following story: “Said Emperor Antoninus to Judah ha-Nasi, ‘Both body and soul could plead guiltless on the day of judgment, as neither sinned without the other.’ ‘But then,’ answered Judah, ‘God reunites both for the judgment, holding them both responsible for the sin committed, just as in the fable the blind and the lame are punished in common for aiding each other in stealing the fruit of the orchard’” (Sanh. 91a; Lev. R. iv.). “There is neither eating nor drinking nor any sensual pleasure nor strife in the world to come, but the righteous with their crowns sit around the table of God, feeding upon the splendor of His majesty,” said Rab (Ber. 17a), thus insisting that the nature of the soul when freed from the body is purely spiritual, while the common belief loved to dwell upon the banquet prepared for the pious in the world to come (see Eschatology; Leviathan). Hence the saying, “Prepare thyself in the vestibule that thou mayest be admitted into the triclinium”; that is, “Let this world be a preparation for the next” (Ab. iv. 16). The following sayings also indicate a pure conception of the soul’s immortality: “The Prophets have spoken only concerning the Messianic future; but concerning the future state of the soul it is said: ‘Men have not heard nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God beside Thee, what He hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him’” (Ber. 34b; comp. I Cor. ii. 9, Greek; Resh, “Agrapha,” 1889, p. 154). “When man dies,” says R. Meïr, “three sets of angels go forth to welcome him” (Num. R. xii.); this can only refer to the disembodied soul.Nevertheless, the prevailing rabbinical conception of the future world is that of the world of resurrection, not that of pure immortality. Resurrection became the dogma of Judaism, fixed in the Mishnah (Sanh. x. 1) and in the liturgy (“Elohai Neshamah” and “Shemoneh 'Esreh”), just as the Church knows only of a future based upon the resurrection; whereas immortality remained merely a philosophical assumption. When therefore Maimonides (“Yad,” Teshubah, viii. 2) declared, with reference to Ber. 17a, quoted above, that the world to come is entirely spiritual, one in which the body and bodily enjoyments have no share, he met with strong opposition on the part of Abraham of Posquières, who pointed in his critical annotations (“Hassagot RABaD”) to a number of Talmudical passages (Shab. 114a; Ket. 111a; Sanh. 91b) which leave no doubt as to the identification of the world to come ("'olam ha-ba") with that of the resurrection of the body.
