Does God revive the dead? Many Jews think that resurrection is a Christian belief, some strange holdover from the Jesus cult. Makes sense; I mean, they think that God died and was resurrected...so that must be their territory. Well, as in many other cases, the Christians stole our best chops.
Resurrection of the dead is a traditional Jewish belief. Three times a day we bless God for being m'chayeh ha-meitim, the one who gives life to the dead.
I don't spend a lot of time thinking about hearing Sammy Davis Junior crooning again in the afterlife, so for me the prayer doesn't bring much on that level. I have been struggling recently with another kind of deadness - a lack of umph/enthusiasm. Part of it has to do with returning from the emotional high of Israel and part of it is just who I am.
When I meditate daily to M'chayeh ha-meitim, I'm thinking of the possibility of coming out of these periodic slumps, a struggle that in itself is life-affirming. So, I pray for a kind of life-giving, if not for bodily resurrection...
Response to Rabbi Rose’s Blog “Meditations on Jewish Psychedelia”
ReplyDeleteVol. III
Rabbi Rose addresses the resurrection of an individual in two ways. On is the literal physical resurrection and the other is the spiritual resurrection.
Just as many in the Christian church have lack of faith in a literal resurrection of our body, so too I have found that many in the Jewish world have lack of faith in the ability of the Lord God of Israel to bring back to life a person who has physically died. Many Jews use the obvious ignorance of many in the Christian community, who claim that the Lord God died and came back to life (in the form of a man, Jesus), to cover up their lack of faith that the Lord God of Israel can literally resurrect anyone at anytime. These detractors do it in a negative way by condemning the obvious false claim of Christians that God can die.
There is another just as important understanding of the Lord God Almighty of Israel. That is for Him to be able to touch a soul who is dead spiritually and no longer believes that God exists. In cases like this and similar cases of depression the Lord God Almighty often revives, resurrects the person spiritually, so that he may once again taste of the blessing of his Creator, the Lord God Almighty of Israel. Not only does this bring peace, happiness and a desire for justice to him now, it insures that he will partake of the gift of salvation if he is not turned away by Satan or his own material world desires.