Jewish eschatology is the area of Jewish theology concerned with events that will happen in the end of days and related concepts. This includes the ingathering of the exiled diaspora, the coming of the Jewish Messiah, the afterlife, and the resurrection of the dead. In Judaism, the end times are usually called the "end of days" (), a phrase that appears throughout the Tanakh. These beliefs have evolved over time, and according to some scholars there is evidence of Jewish belief in a personal afterlife with reward or punishment referenced in the Torah.

Sources

In Judaism, the main textual source for the belief in the end of days and accompanying events is the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible. The roots of Jewish eschatology are to be found in the pre-exile prophets, including Isaiah and Jeremiah, and the exilic prophets Ezekiel and Deutero-Isaiah. The main tenets of Jewish eschatology are the following, in no particular order, elaborated in the Book of Isaiah, the Book of Jeremiah, and the Book of Ezekiel.

Events to occur

  • God redeems the Jewish people from their captivity that began with the Babylonian captivity, in a new Exodus (Kibbutz Galuyot)
  • God returns the Jewish people to the Land of Israel
  • God restores the kingly House of David and the Temple in Jerusalem
  • God appoints a regent from the House of David (i.e., the Messiah) to lead the Jewish people and the world and usher in the Messianic Age, which is characterised by justice, righteousness, and peace
  • All the gentile nations recognize Israel's God as the only true God and gather to the Mount Zion
  • God resurrects the dead and judges all souls (and sends some for a year to Gehinnom)
  • God creates a new Heaven and new Earth

Biblical Sheol

The Hebrew Bible reflects the belief of the Israelites in an arguably Hades-like afterworld, where both the righteous (see Samuel) and the unrighteous continue to exist in a miserable manner.

World to come

The afterlife is known as olam ha-ba (), being related to the concepts of Gan Eden— heavenly "Garden in Eden", or Paradise—and Gehinnom. The phrase olam ha-ba itself does not occur in the Hebrew Bible. In Jewish theology, the widely accepted Halakha is that it is impossible for living human beings to know what the world to come is like.

Second Temple period

In the late Second Temple period, beliefs about the ultimate fate of individuals were diverse. The Pharisees and Essenes believed in the immortality of the soul, but the Sadducees did not. The Dead Sea Scrolls, Jewish pseudepigrapha, and Jewish magical papyri all reflect this variety of opinions.

Medieval rabbinical views

While classical rabbinic sources discuss the afterlife, medieval scholars disputed the nature of individuals' continued existence after the Messianic Age. While Maimonides describes an entirely spiritual existence for souls, which he calls "disembodied intellects", Nachmanides proposes a spiritual existence on Earth in which spirituality and physicality are merged. Both agree that life after death is, as Maimonides describes, the "End of Days". This existence entails a heightened understanding of and connection to the Shekhinah. All classical rabbinic scholars share this latter view.

According to Maimonides, any non-Jew who lives according to the Seven Laws of Noah is regarded as a righteous gentile and assured a place in the world to come (the final reward of the righteous).

There is a great deal of surviving rabbinic material concerning the fate of the soul after death, its experiences, and where it goes. At various points in the afterlife journey, the soul may encounter: hibbut ha-kever, the pains and other experiences of physico-spiritual dissolution or reconfiguration within the grave; Dumah, the angel in charge of funerary matters; Satan, as the angel of death or another equally grim figure; the Kaf ha-Kela, the ensnarement or confinement of the stripped-down soul within ghostly material reallocations, described in chapter 8 of the Tanya, Chabad's primary philosophical text, as devised for the cleansing of souls needing punishment not severe enough to warrant Gehinnom; Gehinnom; and Gan Eden (a place of heavenly respite or paradise characterized by spiritual purity). Classical rabbinic scholars agree that these concepts are beyond typical human understanding, so these ideas are expressed throughout rabbinic literature as parables and analogies. Seven clouds of glory overshadow Paradise, and under them, in the center of Paradise, stands the Tree of Life. The soul is transfigured into an angel, with the ugliest person becoming as beautiful and shining as "the grains of a silver pomegranate upon which fall the rays of the sun".

The Book of Daniel promised literal resurrection to the Jews in concrete detail. Alan Segal interprets Daniel as writing that with the coming of the archangel Michael, misery would beset the world, and only those whose names were written in a divine book would be resurrected. The Mishnah lists belief in the resurrection of the dead as one of three essential beliefs of Judaism:

In the late Second Temple period, the Pharisees and Essenes believed in resurrection, while Sadducees did not. In contemporary Judaism, both Orthodox Judaism and Conservative Judaism maintain the traditional references to it in their liturgy. However, Conservative Jewish leadership has officially acknowledged metaphorical rather than literal interpretations, too. Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism have altered traditional references to the resurrection of the dead in the liturgy, revising "who gives life to the dead" to "who gives life to all" in the second blessing of the Amidah.

The last judgment

In Judaism, the day of judgment happens every year on Rosh Hashanah; therefore, a future "last day" of judgment for all humankind is disputed. Some hold that there will be such a day following the resurrection of the dead. Others maintain that there is no need for that because of Rosh Hashanah. Yet others hold that this accounting and judgment occur at death. Others contend that the last judgment only applies to the gentile nations and not the Jewish people.

In contemporary Judaism

thumb|Irving Greenberg

Irving Greenberg, representing an Open Orthodox viewpoint, describes the afterlife as a central Jewish teaching deriving from the belief in reward and punishment. According to Greenberg, suffering medieval Jews emphasized the world to come as a counterpoint to the difficulties of this life, while early Jewish modernizers portrayed Judaism as concerned only with this world, in contrast to "otherworldly" Christianity. Greenberg sees each of these views as leading to an undesired extreme—overemphasizing the afterlife leads to asceticism, while devaluing the afterlife deprives Jews of the consolation of eternal life and justice—and calls for a synthesis, in which Jews can work to perfect this world, while also recognizing the immortality of the soul.

Conservative Judaism both affirms belief in the world beyond (as referenced in the Amidah and Maimonides's principles of faith) while recognizing that human understanding is limited and we cannot know exactly what the world beyond consists of. Reform and Reconstructionist Judaism affirm belief in the afterlife, though they downplay the theological implications in favor of emphasizing the importance of the "here and now" as opposed to reward and punishment. The Union for Reform Judaism believes the righteous of any faith have a place in heaven, but does not believe in a concept of hell.

Jewish messianism

The Hebrew word mashiach (or moshiach) refers to the Jewish idea of the messiah. In biblical times the title mashiach was awarded to someone in a high position of nobility and greatness. For example, Cohen ha-Mašíaḥ means High Priest. While the name of the Jewish Messiah is considered to be one of the things that precede creation, he is not considered divine, in contrast to Christianity where Jesus is both divine and the Messiah.

In the Talmudic era the title Mashiach or מלך המשיח, Méleḵ ha-Mašíaḥ literally means "the anointed King". The Messiah is to be a human leader, physically descended from the Davidic line, who will rule and unite the people of Israel and will usher in the Messianic Age of global and universal peace.

Early Second Temple period (516 BCE – c.220 BCE)

Early in the Second Temple period hopes for a better future are described in the Jewish scriptures. The Messiah might be a kingly "son of David" or a more heavenly "son of man", but "Messianism became increasingly eschatological, and eschatology was decisively influenced by apocalypticism," while <!-- " open quote marks without end started here -->messianic expectations became increasingly focused on the figure of an individual savior. Throughout their history Jews have compared these passages (and others) to contemporary events in search of signs of the Messiah's imminent arrival, continuing into present times.

The Talmud tells many stories about the Messiah, some of which represent famous Talmudic rabbis as receiving personal visitations from Elijah the Prophet and the Messiah.