Positive Aspects of Death in Judaism / גישות חיוביות ביהדות למוות

Despite the fact that "death" appears in over 1,100 places in the Bible, in only two dozen instances in death portrayed in a positive light. As a result, the impression created is that death is bad and life is good. "And you have chosen life...". The many types of death, according to Talmudic tradition – 903 in number, are for the most part, very difficult deaths. The only positive death, according to the Midrash, is the natural, painless death. This was the death of the founding fathers and leaders of the children of Israel. The most positive approach to death is found in the speech of Elazar Ben Yair to the entrapped warriors at Massada. A later halach (Jewish Law) justifies the actions of the Masada warriors and also the actions of King Saul, that brought about their deaths. A positive confrontation with death, together with sanctification of God's name, was the fate of persecuted Jews in the 11th and 13th centuries. These Jewish people, steadfast in their belief, chose death over the renunciation of their beliefs, thereby reaffirming their trust in the kingdom of God. Among the Bible scholars of Lithuania death was viewed in a positive light beacuse: A) acceptance of the ruling that "the father of widows and orphans" is preferable to the biological father and B) the educational value of a "return to the ways of the law before the day of your death". Amongst the kabalists and hasidim, death became a singular event, towards which the individual strives his entire life. For a chosen few death encompasses the possibility of approaching God and even unification with Him. With the establishment of the State of Israel and before that, following the events of the Holocaust, certain interpreters of Jewish laws came to the opinion that self-inflicted death or death at the hands of a friend is nonetheless the lesser of two evils. The obligatory confessional prayer before death, that in recent generations has not been widely observed, should be said with joy, in the belief that pardon and forgiveness will be granted in order to enter the world of everlasting good.