MYTHS OF IMMORTALITY: PART 3
The three-part series into religions and their beliefs in the afterlife comes to a close with the Abrahamic traditions. The conversation begins with NYU’s Islamic Chaplain where Moss revisits the draw to change his life and become a chaplain. Still faithless, he talks with a mystic Rabbi who literally wrote the book on the Jewish beliefs in the afterlife. In this surprise ending, Moss takes the biggest leap of faith yet.
RABBI SIMCHA RAPHAEL
Rabbi Simcha Raphael, is Founding Director of the DA’AT Institute for Death Awareness, Advocacy and Training. He is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Religion and Theology at LaSalle University and Faculty on the New York Open Center’s Art of Dying Institute. He works as a psychotherapist and spiritual director, affiliated with Mount Airy Counseling Center, in Philadelphia, and is also a Fellow of the Rabbis Without Borders network.
He is the author of numerous publications on death and afterlife including the groundbreaking Jewish Views of the Afterlife, published in a 3rd (25th anniversary) edition in 2019. His website is www.daatinstitute.net.
IMAM KHALID LATIF
Imam Khalid Latif is Executive Director and Chaplain (Imam) for the Islamic Center at New York University (NYU). In 2005, Imam Latif was appointed the first Muslim chaplain at NYU. At NYU, Khalid initiated his vision for a pluralistic American Muslim community, rooted on campus and reaching out to the city. In 2006, Imam Latif was appointed the first Muslim chaplain at Princeton University. In 2007, Imam Latif's position was fully institutionalized at New York University, and so he committed himself to that institution and the building of a Muslim life institution. Today's Islamic Center is a leader among American Muslim organizations, uniquely shaped to contribute to the future of Muslim practice in the West.
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Music Attribution
transcript
transcript
MUSIC: "Dancing Tiger" By damscray
D.S. MOSS_VO
Back in episode 2 of this season, Zen Buddhist priest Trudi Hirsh-Abramson suggested through a compliment that I'd make a good chaplain.
RABBI RAPHAEL
And so, working with the dying, it's to help people make the transition more gracefully, and working with the bereaved ... It's to help people realize that there is some of continuity of connection with loved ones who have died.
D.S. MOSS_VO
Now three episodes later here I am, talking with chaplains and religious leaders and considering it...
IMAM LATIF
...so a chaplain in a hospital has to be well versed in, what are patients really going through in terms of terminal illness, conveyance of actual ailments to a patient, family members of a patient, doctors needing to know how to navigate specific religious customs and cultural norms intertwined with that.
D.S. MOSS_VO
We wrap up the three-part exploration into religious belief systems and their views on the afterlife with some Abrahamic traditions.
Please join me as I talk with a Muslim Chaplain and a Jewish Rabbi slash Psychologist slash end-of-life grief counselor in part three of: The Myths of Immortality.
MUSIC: "MEMENTO MORI" BY MIKEY BALLOU
RUTHIE_VO
From The Jones Story Company, this is: THE ADVENTURES OF MEMENTO MORI, A Cynic's Guide for Learning to Live by Remembering to Die - the podcast that explores mortality. Here's your host D.S. Moss.
CHAPTER 1: THE BASICS OF ISLAM
IMAM LATIF
My name is Khalid Latif. I serve as the university chaplain at NYU.
D.S. MOSS_VO
Imam Latif also serves as the executive director of NYU's Islamic Center...
...he is also the former chaplain of the New York Police Department.
Recently, I visited his office nestled right behind Washington Square Park to discuss the Islamic beliefs of the afterlife.
But, before we get into that - let's begin with the basics...
MUSIC: "Uskudara gideriken" BY Nomads of the silk road
D.S. MOSS_VO
Islam is a monotheistic faith in the Abrahamic tradition. With over a billion and a half adherence globally, you find Muslims in all cultures.
Imam Latif
The essential framework of the religion is based off of a canon that has ritual obligations and prohibitions, but fundamentally what it's called the practitioner to is a deflation of an egocentric perspective and world view and a shift that a perspective that's more god-centric that you as a Muslim are not engaging in ritual just for it to serve as an end but a means to something, and to reflect on the relationship between the inner self and the outer self, and cultivating a relationship with God through the most important vessel that you have within you, which is your heart.
D.S. MOSS_VO
Islam believes the prophet Muhammad was sent from God as a final prophet to all of mankind.
IMAM LATIF
The Koran is the main scripture for Muslims. It's believed to be the revealed word of God through the Angel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad over 23 years.
CHAPTER 2: JOURNEY TO THE AFTERLIFE
MUSIC: "your rainbow colour changer" by damscray
D.S. MOSS_VO
Now - The journey into the afterlife...
D.S. MOSS_VO
Death is not seen as something that is finite but as a means of transitioning from this world into the next and the soul is the essence of a person that is transitioning.
IMAM LATIF
So, in Islamic theology there are angels that are designated as angels of death, and people who are prophets of God are given the opportunity to determine when they leave from the world themselves. So, the angel of death will come and essentially say to the prophet, "Are you ready to go?"
D.S. MOSS_VO
But since Muhammad is mankind's last prophet, for ordinary everyday people like us, the time and the place of our death is already determined.
IMAM LATIF
There's a period in relation to one's passing from this world that's in Arabic called the or kind of like the pangs of death for lack of better words.
For some people that moment is going to be one that's with ease. The angel comes and removes one's soul from their body, and it happens in a metaphysical sense with a lot of facility. Because that person is ready to go.
D.S. MOSS_VO
And for those that are not ready to go, meaning they didn't utilize their time in this life wisely, the soul removal is going to be a bit of a struggle.
D.S. MOSS_IN
So the angel is there, and assists with the soul, and then the soul goes where?
IMAM LATIF
So we have a notion that the grave is a place where there will also be existence, so to speak. And within the grave, there is opportunity for a lot of illumination and positive experience, and there's also opportunity for there to be a lot of turmoil and tribulation.
Where and how one experiences certain things will be based off of their relationship to their existence in this world, but there's also an idea that individuals who are in this world can bear impact on those who have passed away, as well as things that you have done while you are here can serve as residual benefit and gain for you as you move forward.
D.S. MOSS_VO
So, essentially your soul can still receive good deed residual checks while in the grave. In this tradition there are three things that can benefit you after you pass:
IMAM LATIF
An ongoing charity that they give ... So for example, if somebody builds a well and there's consist gain through that well for a population beyond just the moment that it was established, every time somebody drinks from that well the individual who was key in establishing it or played some role in its establishment, they're deriving benefit from that.
D.S. MOSS_VO
The second is if you teach somebody something beneficial, whenever they act upon it you get partial credit.
MUSIC: "Your rainbow colour changer" by damscray
IMAM LATIF
And then the third [00:29:00] element is a child that you leave behind who prays on your behalf.
D.S. MOSS_VO
So it naturally behooves a person in this life to be altruistic, teach people things that can help them and make some babies.
CHAPTER 3: MUSLIM BURIAL CEREMONIES
D.S. MOSS_IN
So I would imagine too that if the grave has such import that there are traditions around how someone is buried?
IMAM LATIF
Yeah. So we have a lot that goes into the rites of burials. And everybody is guaranteed a right to be buried according to Islamic law...
The body is supposed to be washed and usually close family members who are of the same gender [00:30:00] to the deceased will be the one who washes it...
Once the body is washed, it then becomes shrouded in a white cloth.
D.S. MOSS_VO
And then, once the body is shrouded, it's buried as soon as possible.
IMAM LATIF
There's no type of embalmment in Islam, cremation, anything like that. In a very simple way, the body is prayed over in a prayer that we call the Janazah prayer, which is the funeral prayer...
...You then recite a prayer that we send blessings on the prophet Muhammad and the prophet Abraham and their families.
D.S. MOSS_VO
Following that... there is the prayer for the deceased.
MUSIC: "SAZA NIYE Glemedin" by Nomads of the silk road
D.S. MOSS_VO
Once the prayer is done, the body is then transported to the cemetery for burial.
CHAPTER 4
IMAM LATIF
Then from the grave there's a concept of resurrection, not necessarily in the Christian sense of resurrection, but resurrection in the sense that those that are in their graves will be taken from the graves and brought to a place theologically that's known as a day of judgment...
D.S. MOSS_VO
There is a concept of heaven and hell and the direction you go is determined at the day of judgment.
D.S. MOSS_IN
... So, say for instance you are a good person and you live according in an ethical sense, is the only way to get into the eternity of Heaven is to pledge faith in this world?
IMAM LATIF
No. So Islamic doctrine doesn't say that all Muslims are guaranteed Heaven, nor does it say that anyone who's not Muslim is guaranteed to Hell.
But things are taken into consideration.
D.S. MOSS_VO
And then, after taking all things into consideration, its determined if you'll be going to Heaven or Hell.
IMAM LATIF
There's some people who will spend a portion of time in Hell, not as a punishment but as a purification process, and then taken up to Heaven, and then there's some people who will just be eternally in Hellfire.
D.S. MOSS_VO
So that's good to know. If you go to hell, you're not necessarily burning for eternity. Once purified you can ascend up to heaven.
CHAPTER 5: ISLAMIC HEAVEN
MUSIC: "Your Rainbow Colour Changer" By DAMSCRAY
D.S. MOSS_VO
And so then, what everyone wants to know, what is Heaven like?
IMAM LATIF
The ability to rationalize what Heaven would be becomes an exercise that's limited for us to conceptualize. Because Heaven within an Islamic framework [00:36:00] is just the epitome of a place of purity.
In Arabic the word for Heaven is Jannah, and is derived from a root in Arabic that denotes a hidden-ness to it. But it's not because [00:37:00] it's hidden in that sense, but the idea is that it's such a place that's lush and filled with vibrancy.
The way that you are looking over the most serene of forests that are so vibrant in their growth, if you looked at it from the sky everything under it would be hidden because of just how cloaked it is with that beauty. If that makes sense.
D.S. MOSS_VO
Um...yes.
MUSIC: "Bir Demet Yasemen" by Nomads of the silk Road
D.S. MOSS_VO
5 religions explored and one to go. In Buddhism there was the 4 noble truths and samsara - the cycle of death and rebirth until liberated into consciousness. There was Vedic Hindu which follows a similar cycle of death and rebirth with the divine manifest all around us. The divine also was manifest in the elemental world of Vodou, where after a year our spirits could be brought back to guide our families.
In Christianity, the first Abrahamic religion we dove into, the only pathway into Heaven was absolute faith in Jesus as the son of God and then Islam, another Abrahamic tradition in which Heaven is the destination but path there depends more on your contributions to this world.
And now Judaism, the sixth and final religion we'll explore.
Right after this.
CALL TO ACTION 1
MUSIC: EMERGENCY EXIT BY DR. FRANKENSTEIN
RUTHIE_VO
Hello fellow provocateurs that believe death is a topic worth talking about. We need your help spreading the word. Be the slightly odd yet endlessly fascinating conversationalist at your next party and tell your friends about The Adventures of Memento Mori.
Have show ideas? Contact us on our site remembertodie.com
Be sure to stay up to date with the quest for enlightenment on Instagram and Twitter by following @remembertodie.
And now, back to show...
CHAPTER 6: INTRO TO JUDAISM
Rabbi Raphael
I'm Simcha Raphael. I am a psychologist, and a rabbi, and I have been investigating the whole question about what Judaism has to say about life after death for on and on at least three lifetimes, but in this lifetime I've been working on this for a good 25 years.
D.S. MOSS_VO
This work includes the book, Jewish Views of the Afterlife, which is considered the authority on the topic.
RABBI RAPHAEL
And in my counseling work with people I've done a lot of bereavement work helping people walk through the quote, "Valley of the Shadow of Death"...
MUSIC: "Bir Demet Yasemen" by Nomads of the silk Road
D.S. MOSS_VO
So, let's get straight into the basics...
D.S. MOSS_VO
Judaism is the monotheistic religion of the Jewish people with the Torah as its foundational text. This religion is the source of Abrahamic tradition and precursor to Islam and Christian belief-systems.
RABBI RAPHAEL
... I've often heard that Jews don't believe in life after death or that Judaism [00:03:00] believes in life and living.
D.S. MOSS_VO
In fact, Jewish beliefs on the afterlife are famously vague.
RABBI RAPHAEL
...And it turns out that in the premodern period, before scientific rationalism and enlightenment thinking and the major migration of Jews from Eastern Europe to America, in the old world so to speak, in the world of Fiddler on the Roof for example, the grandmother comes through and talks from the other side.
In the world of the cabalistic masters of centuries ago, there was never any question that there is a continuity of consciousness after death.
MUSIC: "Bir Demet Yasemen" by Nomads of the silk Road
D.S. MOSS_VO
So, yes - Judaism does believe in life after death and Rabbi Simcha argues that in the modern world they've simply lost touch with it.
CHAPTER 7: JUDAISM JOURNEY OF AFTERLIFE
D.S. MOSS_VO
But I have to admit, I find Rabbi Simcha's description of it rather surprising.
RABBI RAPHAEL
Afterlife is not so much a place one goes to, but rather a journey that one goes on.
D.S. MOSS_VO
The Jewish faith believes that the soul is the human essence disembodied - similar to that of Christianity and Islam. But the way in which the Rabbi describes the soul journey sounds not too dis similar from the Buddhist's The Tibetan Book of the Dead with some Hinduism mixed it.
RABBI RAPHAEL
So the earliest part is leaving go of attachments to the body. There are spirits that stick around because they're not ready to leave go. Then eventually those spirits move on and then there's what I call ... They call it Gehenna in Jewish text. It's sort of like purgatory, a little bit Hellish, but it's not eternal damnation. It's cleaning up all of the SH that's left under the rug.
D.S. MOSS_VO
This phase is reminiscent of what happens in the grave for Muslims. As Imam Latif puts its - an opportunity to eliminate our turmoil and tribulation.
RABBI RAPHAEL
Then there's visions like the heavenly descriptions of paradise and all that, but they're really metaphors of some exulted consciousness. And then there's a return back to the source of life, merging with the divine.
D.S. MOSS_VO
Which sounds a lot like Vedic Hinduism.
CHAPTER 8: JEWISH JUDGMENT
D.S. MOSS_IN
So is there a concept of how you lived in this life on Earth. Does that influence the afterlife at all and actually your journey through the afterlife as you described it?
RABBI RAPHAEL
Now, Saint Augustine, who wrote City of God, said there's eternal damnation. But, in Judaism there is no eternal damnation. It's not so much of a process of punishment, though the metaphors are of punishment, but it's more of a process of cleansing.
D.S. MOSS_VO
The cleansing of the SH under your rug.
RABBI RAPHAEL
So, the old metaphors, the medieval metaphors look like a penal colony. You actually read some of the texts that talk about this process of Gehenna and they call it a process rather that a location. It looks like what might've been done and the punishments in the penal colony.
D.S. MOSS_VO
Rabbi Simcha makes the point - at least with this topic - that it serves us better to disambiguate literal interpretation from metaphor. And that spiritual metaphors can be re-illustrated in cultural context.
RABBI RAPHAEL
Today, the new metaphor? One of my colleagues said, "It's not the penal colony. It's rehab." So, the postmortem journey has a period of rehab where you have to go in and you clean up all of the SH that's under the rug, and you encounter all of those places of guilt, and of shame, and of incompletion in your life.
So one of the texts I study, one of the texts I teach says that the punishments in the postmortem realm of Gehenna is people who sinned from their tongue hang from their tongue. People who sinned from their genitals hang from their genitals. And I say, "What would it be to look in the mirror and see all of the times that you shot from the lip and you were verbally abusive to people you loved. It might feel like hanging from the tongue. What would it be to look in the mirror, [00:14:00] do what they call in the fourth step the fearless moral inventory, and see all of the times you acted with impropriety in your intimate relationships and you hurt someone else? It might feel like hanging from your mmm." So, suddenly the images of torment are really metaphors of some kind of process of cleansing.
So, we're always in a process of self betterment when we're alive, and my reading of the afterlife text is that there's a period of time where we have to continue to do that work that the Jews call Tuvah, return, repentance. [00:15:00] But it's really intentional self betterment... Then you go on, you harvest the highest spiritual potentialities that you've accrued also in your lifetime.
D.S. MOSS_IN
So, in a way, they are meant as metaphors for direction in this life. They are a way to check the way in which we live now?
RABBI RAPHAEL
Well, certainly in Judaism, the rabbis use it very much like a carrot on a stick. Absolutely. There's a lot of teachings about, oh you want to avoid the torments of Gehenna.
Therefore, go visit the sick and do your prayers and be kind to other people. Act morally and ethically in this lifetime and you will reap the rewards of that. Boy, we sure can use that today.
D.S. MOSS_VO
We sure could. But for the sake of argument, let's say we followed the moral and ethical carrot. Would we go to Heaven?
CHAPTER 9:HEAVEN
RABBI RAPHAEL
So it turns out what I've discovered is afterlife is not a location. The normative Christian view is, well, you know, you're either going to get into an elevator [00:04:30] and you're going to go up or get in an elevator and you're going to go down. It's understood very much as a location...
... but when you see it as a spiritual awareness,...
...a part of spiritual path, the more we open up to transcend into awareness while we're alive, the more we open up to feeling our sense interwoven into the weave and the fabric of all universal life, into the cosmos itself.
MUSIC: "Bir Demet Yasemen" by Nomads of the silk Road
The more we open up to feeling that sense of connectedness with all human beings through what we refer to as love. The more we do that while we're alive, it may be that that as a reward or that as a state of consciousness without the body is what awaits for us.
D.S. MOSS_VO
And if that didn't sound Buddhist and Hindu enough for you, guess what? There is actually a Jewish belief in reincarnation.
RABBI RAPHAEL
From the 12th century onward in Judaism, reincarnation is normative. It disappears with the enlightenment and with modernity but it's pretty much hardwired into a lot of teachings from the 12th through the 14th, 16th into the 17th, 18th centuries.
D.S. MOSS_VO
The reason for the similarities to traditional Eastern practices is For the 25 years Rabbi Simcha has been part of a movement that has been reclaiming spirituality and mysticism within religions. Making them less about dogma and bringing a modern feminist thinking, Gaia consciousness about ecology, and social action.
I, of course, am not a religious scholar but just while doing these episodes on religion I've certainly noticed that trend.
MUSIC: "Bir Demet Yasemen" by Nomads of the silk Road
Another reason for the similarities is because, well, they're similar. Most all have some idea of the soul and after death there's some transitional journey that souls go on. They're just described in different cultural metaphors.
And so the Hindus paint it in Hindu-like iconography, and the Christians paint it in Christian iconography, but we all survive death via the transcendence of soul - the myths of immortality.
And now on to my path to Chaplaincy, after this...
CALL TO ACTION 2
MUSIC: "O CEREBRO DO MORTO" BY DR. FRANKENSTEIN
RUTHIE_VO
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CHAPTER 10: CONCLUSION
MUSIC: "Dancing Tiger" by Damscray
IMAM LATIF
...so a chaplain in a hospital has to be well versed in, what are patients really going through in terms of terminal illness, convenance of actual ailments to a patient, family members of a patient, doctors needing to know how to navigate specific religious customs and cultural norms intertwined with that.
D.S. MOSS_VO
Back with Muslim Chaplain, Imam Latif.
IMAM LATIF
It's very different from a chaplain who's in the prison system, because if I'm sitting with somebody in a hospital and I need to be able to convey to them that, hey, you know what? Your [00:08:30] child didn't make it, or you just diagnosed with a terminal form a cancer, or even something to the effect of, hey, you're going to be totally fine.
D.S. MOSS_VO
What I've learned is, technically - you don't have to be religious to be an end of life chaplain. For example, there's such a thing as a Humanist and Agnostic Chaplain. Hell, there's even such a thing as an Atheist Chaplain. But like Chaplain Trudi said, it helps to be spiritually connected to something because the work is so emotional.
And it's that emotional toll that keeps me from jumping in. I'm not sure I could or want to handle it.
In the meantime, or as a beginners step, I've decided to volunteer being a friendly visitor with hospice care where I spend an hour a week with people who are dying - just chatting and listening - and of course trying new material.
D.S. MOSS_VO
There was, however, An unexpected thing that happened in all of these religious conversations. I was inspired to take a leap of faith. A big big leap of faith.
MUSIC: "Dancing Tiger" by DAMSCRAY
It began with something former Vedic Monk Chris in the last episode...
Chris
I said to myself, "I'll do it as long as it makes me happy. I'll give it a shot for six months." With any kind of deep spiritual practice, you need to do it for a bit, but within a very short amount of time, I started having really powerful spiritual experiences.
D.S. MOSS_IN
No booze, sex?
CHRIS
No booze, no sex.
D.S. MOSS_IN
No meat.
CHRIS
No meat, no drugs, no relationships.
D.S. MOSS_VO
And something Imam Latif said in this one.
IMAM LATIF
Islam in terms of the obligations and prohibitions setting for the practitioner parameters through which they can cultivate and elevate in that sense of mindfulness and consciousness to reach their individual potential best in the acquisition of that relationship with God.
D.S. MOSS_VO
Obligations and prohibitions for the practitioner that can cultivate and elevate consciousness to reach their individual spiritual potential.
And so I've decided to focus on my meditation practice and give up booze and sex for six months.
Pray for me.
MUSIC:"Twist and Science" BY Damscray
OUTRO
D.S. MOSS_VO
Thanks for joining me on another episode of The Adventures of Memento Mori...
Thanks to Muslim Chaplain, Imam Latif and Rabbi Simcha Rapheal for sharing your beliefs.
Please go to www.remembertodie.com for a link to their work.
I am D.S. Moss. Back again next time for more...The Adventures of Memento Mori.
CLOSING BUMPER
MUSIC: END WITH OUR THEME MUSIC
RUTHIE_VO
The episode was produced by Josh Heilbronner, D.S. Moss and Hannah Beal. Theme music composed by Mikey Ballou. This has been a production of The Jones Story Company. Until the next time... remember to die.