{"id":1485,"date":"2017-01-30T07:30:33","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T12:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/?p=1485"},"modified":"2019-10-23T14:22:45","modified_gmt":"2019-10-23T18:22:45","slug":"god-give-life-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/god-give-life-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"How Does God Give Life to the Dead?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Robin<\/a>\u201cI hear you have some questions about resurrection,\u201d the rabbi I\u2019d been referred to said over the phone.
\n\u201cNo, I\u2019m not asking about bodies rising from the grave, I don\u2019t think – It\u2019s just one question,\u201d I tried to explain, not wanting to take up too much time from this renowned scholar of Jewish law, philosophy, and mysticism.<\/p>\n

Days earlier I\u2019d been sitting in a synagogue in Tucson, at a young cousin\u2019s bat mitzvah<\/a>. A prayer book had been shoved at me and I was skimming through the translations, wondering when the service would end. I was a trespasser. The last time I\u2019d tried talking to god was six years earlier, when my daughter lay dying. After that, I prayed to her instead. Marika\u2019s ghost was less of a stranger to me than god. She should have been there in Tucson, sitting with me, celebrating her cousin\u2019s coming of age. Blinking back tears, I buried my face in the prayer book.
\n\u201cTurn to page 292,\u201d announced the cantor officiating at the service.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when I came across the line about how god, \u201cwith great mercy, gives life to the dead.\u201d It was written in three different places on that page. Whoa. What did that mean? I wondered, as I read it over and scoured the page for clues. The same line appeared several times more as the congregation turned to page 48 and then 10.<\/p>\n

Later I asked the cantor, how does god bring life to the dead? And I asked my cousins. Then there was a conversation I was not part of, and afterwards they directed me to the Chabad <\/a>rabbi back in my hometown. They told him I would call.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen to the voice of your soul,\u201d the rabbi said. I\u2019d never thought in terms of \u201cthe soul.\u201d Mostly I write about messages of the heart. Or sometimes of \u2018one\u2019s spirit,\u2019 which offers an intriguing other-worldly dimension. But the rabbi spoke exclusively of \u201cthe soul.\u201d My soul. My daughter\u2019s. \u201cThe soul that continues to live long past the body.\u201d My \u201csoulful need and yearning to connect with something more, with the world beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSouls departing the world gain freedom …take on a more vibrant life after leaving the body,\u201d he said. \u201cYour daughter is aware of you.\u201d And then, \u201cThe soul gets immeasurable joy from every good deed we do on earth.\u201d What? My daughter\u2019s soul? Or my own?<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t ignore that voice, the voice of the soul… Do things on behalf of that soul. Do good things in her honor.\u201d<\/p>\n

The rabbi would be pleased if I learned more about Judaism, to feed my daughter\u2019s soul as well as my own. And I may. But a small voice (mine? or Marika\u2019s?) keeps nudging me, \u201cWhat about seeing a medium? What about organizing a grievers walking group? and helping elderly gardeners? and telling someone about the cruel treatment of the horses at the stable in Tucson?\u201d Maybe it\u2019s through us, the survivors: We bring life to the dead.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What do you make of the idea that god \u201cwith great mercy, gives life to the dead\u201d? Really, I\u2019d like to hear. It\u2019s still haunting me.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I hear you have some questions about resurrection,” the rabbi I’d been referred to said over the phone. “No, I’m not asking about bodies rising from the grave, I don’t think – It’s just one question,” I tried to explain, not wanting to take up too much time from this renowned scholar of Jewish law, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1062],"tags":[1088,1091,1086,247,784,1092,1090,1087,1089],"class_list":["post-1485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1062","tag-chabad","tag-do-something-with-soul","tag-god-gives-life","tag-grief","tag-healing","tag-honor-the-dead","tag-souls-departing","tag-talking-to-god","tag-the-voice-of-your-soul"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1485"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1485\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}