Question

What is the meaning of death in your tradition?

David Arnow Jewish

The meaning of death depends in part on what, if anything, you believe comes after it. On that matter Judaism offers answers ranging from nothing, to immortality of the soul, to bodily resurrection. The meaning of death also depends on how it influences life. Almost 2000 years ago, Rabbi Eliezer, one of the sages who appears in the Haggadah, taught that you should repent the day before you die. “Do you know when you will die?” he asked his students. “That being the case, repent today, lest you die tomorrow.”* The reality of death endows life with an urgency to live life to the fullest and to become our best selves.

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Rabbi Eleazar ha-Kappar used to say: “The born are destined to die, the dead to be brought to life, and the living to be judged.”
— Mishnah, Avot 4:22, 2nd century

One should not grieve too much for the dead, and whoever grieves excessively is really grieving for someone else. The Torah has set limits for every stage of grief, and we may not add to them: three days for weeping, seven for lamenting, and thirty for abstaining from laundered garments and from cutting the hair—and no more.
— Shulchan Arukh (1563, Judaism’s most authoritative law code)*

Surviving after death, we hope, is surviving as a thought of God…Death is not understood as the end of being but rather at the end of doing… Humanity without death would be arrogance without end.
— Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972)*

The sunset, the bird’s song, the baby’s smile…the dreams of the heart, and my own being, dear to me as every man’s is to him, all these I can well trust to Him who made them. There is poignancy and regret about giving them up, but no anxiety. When they slip from my hands they will pass to hands better, stronger, and wiser than mine.
— Milton Steinberg (1903-1950) “To Hold with Open Arms”*

Mary C. Boys Christian

God has created us in the image of the divine (Genesis 1:26). Yet, fashioned as we are out of the ground (adamah), ultimately we return to the earth. To be human is to be mortal; death, the great leveler, claims us all.

Christians view death through the lens of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In his teaching and healing, Jesus disturbed the power class, for whom his commitment to God’s reign rather than Rome’s was threatening. As Jesus becomes aware of the danger to his life, he seeks to know God’s will. The gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke depict this struggle as the so-called “agony in the Garden”[of Gethsemane] in which Jesus prays through the night, finally saying, “Not my will but yours be done.” Shortly after, Jesus is arrested, questioned by authorities and ultimately crucified, the torturous mode of execution the Roman Empire used to enforce its rule. The story, however, does not end with his ignominious death on the cross, but in Jesus re-created, as it were, appearing to his disciples, and mandating them to carry on his mission.

Even Jesus, “God with us,” is not spared death. But death is not the final word for Jesus—nor is it for us. The love of God is stronger than death.

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Lament needs to be an integral part of Christian practice in response to death and dying, precisely because we value so highly God’s gift of earthly life. The treasured promise of Romans 8:38-39 that not even death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus does not erase the fact that death does separate us from those we love on earth. Death is an irrevocable, wrenching loss for those the dead leave behind. But it is also a loss for those who die—a loss of the parts of creation they took delight in, the relationships they held most dear, and the possibilities they envisioned for the future . . . Hope of everlasting life with God does not undercut Christian gratitude and concern for this life, nor deny the place of lament in Christian responses to death.
— Amy Plantinga Pauw, “Dying Well,” in Practicing our Faith: A Way of Life for a Searching People, ed. Dorothy C. Bass (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997), 168.

For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
— Letter of Paul to the Romans 8:38-39

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real,
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

— Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems (Boston: Beacon, 1992), 10.

Muhammad Shafiq Muslim

God created us in His image and breathed His spirit [Ruh] unto us (15:29). Life on earth is mortal and every living being will taste death. God created people and blessed their intellect and free will to test them in this life. The Qur’an says: “He who has created death as well as life, so that He might put you to a test [and thus show] which of you is best in conduct, and [make you realize that] He alone is almighty, truly forgiving” (67:2). The Qur’an makes it clear that people will live on earth for a while and then will die. From there they will be brought forth on Resurrection Day (7:25). Death in Islam is an end only to earthly life. The human spirit or soul does not die, but waits for resurrection on the day of judgment. Muslims believe in life after death, including heaven and hell.

Note: Translation of the Qur’anic verses and many of the Hadith translation with references were taken from Islamicity.com; some translations of and references to the Hadith were taken from ahadith.co.uk.

Related Texts

Every human being is bound to taste death: but only on the Day of Resurrection will you be requited in full [for whatever you have done] – whereupon he that shall be drawn away from the fire and brought into paradise will indeed have gained a triumph: for the life of this world is nothing but an enjoyment of self-delusion.
— Qur’an 3:185

Say: “Behold, my prayer, and [all] my acts of worship, and my living and my dying are for God [alone], the Sustainer of all the worlds.”
— Qur’an 6:162

Say: “Behold, the death from which you are fleeing is bound to overtake you – and then you will be brought back unto Him who knows all that is beyond the reach of a created being’s perception as well as all that can be witnessed by a creature’s senses or mind, whereupon He will make you truly understand all that you were doing [in life].”
— Qur’an 62:8

He who has created death as well as life so that He might put you to a test [and thus show] which of you is best in conduct, and [make you realize that] He alone is almighty, truly forgiving.
— Qur’an 67:2

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