Does the Soul Survive? (2nd Edition): A Jewish Journey to Belief in Afterlife, Past Lives & Living with Purpose

by Elie Kaplan Spitz, Brian L. Weiss M.D. (Foreword by)

Overview

Near-death experiences? Past-life regression? Reincarnation?
Are these sorts of things Jewish?

With a blend of candor, personal questioning, and sharp-eyed scholarship, Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz relates his own observations and the firsthand accounts shared with him by others, experiences that helped propel his journey from skeptic to believer that there is life after life.

From near-death experiences to reincarnation, past-life memory to the work of mediums, Rabbi Spitz explores what we are really able to know about the afterlife, and draws on Jewish texts to share that belief in these concepts—so often approached with reluctance—is in fact true to Jewish tradition.

“The increasing interest and faith in survival of the soul may grow into a cultural wave that is as potentially transformative for society as the civil rights movement and feminism. A renewed faith in ‘the soul’s journeys’ will call for a reassessment of our priorities, and will enable traditional religions to renew and transform their adherents.”
—from the Introduction

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781580238267
Publisher:	Turner Publishing Company
Publication date:	02/06/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	1,000,947
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Rabbi Elie Kaplan Spitz is the author of Healing from Despair: Choosing Wholeness in a Broken World and Does the Soul Survive? A Jewish Journey to Belief in Afterlife, Past Lives&Living with Purpose (both Jewish Lights). A spiritual leader and scholar specializing in topics of spirituality and Judaism, he teaches, writes and speaks to a wide range of audiences. He has served as the rabbi of Congregation B'nai Israel in Tustin, California, for more than a decade and is a member of the Rabbinical Assembly Committee of Law and Standards.

Brian L. Weiss, MD, the nation's foremost expert on past-life regression therapy, is chairman emeritus of psychiatry at the Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Telepathy: A Window on
the Soul's Survival

In my own life I have ignored many experiences that would have provided evidence for survival of the soul. Although I was raised to value an open mind, like many in my generation I was blind to the supernatural, which was defined as anything that could not be scientifically proven or seen. On most levels I was a predictable product of middle-class, Jewish-American values, with the most unusual aspect of my upbringing being that I was the child of Holocaust survivors.

    Allow me to digress to share with you my roots, which offer greater context for my story. When I was six years old my father, a businessman, saw the chance to make a good real estate investment, which led my parents to raise their four children on the outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona. My parents were from Czechoslovakia, and the family business revolved around wigs. My father was the son of the wig maker with whom my mother had apprenticed, making wigs for religious Jewish women, who by tradition cover their hair after getting married.

    Although my parents had minimal formal education, they strongly encouraged each of us to excel in school. As they said, "No one can ever take an education away from you." In college in the 1970s I majored in psychology and Jewish philosophy, completing most of my studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Although I had a strong inclination toward the rabbinate, I chose not to pursue that course because I felt too young and ambivalent about key religious beliefs. Instead I opted for lawschool at Boston University. My legal training furthered my ability to look at problems dispassionately and analytically. I practiced law in Boston for several years, first in the criminal sector and later as legal counsel for Brigham and Women's Hospital, part of the collective of Harvard teaching hospitals. The task of writing medical-legal protocols allowed me to pursue my philosophic interests.

    After three years of practice I became very ill with encephalitis, which in the throes of the illness left me delirious. My recovery was slow, and I was unable to continue my work. I had always loved to travel and decided to explore some new countries while recuperating. I sold my possessions and traveled backpack-style for close to a year to Hawaii, French Polynesia, mainland China, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia. At the end of my trip I needed to decide whether to resume my career in law. My college roommate invited me to join him on a trip to Los Angeles, where he had scheduled several medical residency interviews. In Los Angeles I decided to visit the University of Judaism. The dean of the rabbinical school agreed to meet me, so I borrowed my friend's blazer and told him that I would be back in a half hour. When the half hour was up he knocked on the door because he needed his blazer back to proceed to his own appointment. I returned the coat and continued my meeting with the dean, who invited me to begin studies in the winter session and to apply to rabbinical school in the spring.

    From the day I began I loved rabbinical school. My passion had always been toward understanding people and the world, along with a desire to express my strong attachment to the Jewish people. I studied eagerly and received a superb rabbinical school education at the University of Judaism and the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York. My course of study enabled me to adeptly read sacred Jewish texts, skillfully perform traditional rituals, and describe Jewish history, values, and philosophy. Yet, in the course of my studies I never heard a discussion on survival of the soul. I did learn about Jewish concepts of messiah, resurrection, and the world to come, but they were never brought down to the level of the real world. The concepts were presented as traditional theoretical constructs rather than as communal "maps" that describe reality.

    In my work as a rabbi my concerns regarding the soul grew less abstract and more practical. I had to help people make decisions about shutting off ventilators and discontinuing dialysis. When people died I needed to offer solace and meaning. These dilemmas challenged me to contemplate the nature of life and death. At the outset my speculation remained largely legal and psychological, which matched my training. My first dramatic encounter with the paranormal shifted my attention to what happens after we die, a topic I had never really addressed in my years of education.

    One Sunday morning, Ching-Lan, the wife of a congregant, called to tell me that her husband, Al, had died the previous day. I arranged to meet with her on Monday. They had been married nearly twenty-five years when he died of a chronic wasting illness. They had met when he worked for an athletic club and she was the beautiful, gentle rebel of a formerly aristocratic Chinese family, and had fallen in love and eloped. Now they had two nearly grown children.

    Soon after Ching-Lan welcomed me to her apartment on Monday I encountered the first twist to this story when Ching-Lan shared the following experience:

Rabbi, something amazing occurred yesterday. I received a phone call from my son's former karate teacher with whom I had not spoken in about two years. He's an older Japanese man whom we call Sensei.

"Sensei," I said. "I was thinking of you because I wanted to let you know that Al died yesterday."

"That's precisely why I am calling," he replied. "During the night I awoke and I saw a lit figure in the corner of the room. It was Al. He seemed to indicate a concern for Kubbi [their son]. I reassured him that I would serve as a father figure for your son. And I want you to know that I will do so."

    When she told me this story I listened respectfully, but I didn't know what to make of it. I had no mental category in which to place stories of the supernatural and instead proceeded to my "standard intake" to prepare for the eulogy. The family made only one request. Al suffered from a progressive kyphosis, a curvature of the spine. It gave him the appearance of a deformed, clumsy person. He said that when he returned in another life he hoped to come back as something more beautiful. He said he would like to return as a butterfly. His daughter asked that I conclude the eulogy with that image.

    The second twist happened at graveside. Many congregants were present to support the bereaved widow, who was a much beloved part of the community and active as a volunteer at the synagogue. I was very fond of her, too. In the course of my eulogy I verbally slipped and called Ching-Lan "Lingchau" I had no clue where this Chineselike word had come from.

    As soon as I pronounced the wrong name I realized my mistake. Although Ching-Lan just smiled, I was struck by the enormity of my error, calling a family member at graveside by the wrong name! I paused briefly to regain my focus and then concluded with how Al imagined himself returning as a butterfly. As I shared the image I noticed that many of the people were distracted, seemingly looking past me.

    After the eulogy I immediately approached Ching-Lan and begged her forgiveness for having called her by the wrong name. "Don't worry," she said with a smile. "It's okay. That was Al's private pet name for me."

    Twist three followed immediately after Ching-Lan's words. Congregants approached me and several remarked, "Rabbi, did you know that just as you were talking about Al wanting to become a butterfly, a white butterfly passed over your right shoulder and hovered there?"

    These three incidents were not immediately transformative for me. Although they seemed dramatic, I still lacked a way to integrate them into my experience or even to acknowledge them. However, soon after I was drawn to consider the possibility of survival of the soul by an incident that occurred closer to home.

    My wife, Linda, is a professor of neurology. Hers is a world of intellectual analysis and empirical data. By nature and training she is quite skeptical of supernatural phenomena. One Friday afternoon Linda was driving on a California freeway, merging into traffic. She was preoccupied with the mundane details of her day: picking up the kids from school, making final preparations for Shabbat, ticking off her shopping list, figuring out how to get all the errands and cooking done before Shabbat candlelighting, when all work must cease. In the midst of all these considerations and the resultant stress as another driver cut her off, she suddenly experienced the powerful sensation of her Uncle Shaika's presence.

    The episode happened very fast. Linda felt as if her awareness was drawn to her Israeli uncle's presence in the upper right corner of her field of vision. She perceived her uncle somehow present, expressing his love for her. It was a riveting and unusual experience. Because Linda was running late to prepare for Shabbat, she did not have a chance to call Israel before sundown that Friday, so she called the next day as soon as Shabbat ended.

    Her Aunt Sarah answered and said, "Linda, I am glad you are calling. Your Uncle Shaika died yesterday." When Linda asked when he died, she learned that it was almost the exact moment when she had experienced the powerful impression of his presence in the car. She had not spoken with her aunt or uncle in several weeks. Years before, when Linda was in college, she had spent a summer in Israel getting to know her Uncle Shaika. Ever since then, she regularly wrote to her aunt and uncle and visited them whenever she was in Israel. Uncle Shaika considered Linda as a daughter. When she told me the story, I thought back to Ching-Lan and to the surprising knowledge of Sensei that Al had died.

    Prompted by Linda's experience, I began to recall similar stories people had shared with me as their rabbi, which I had failed to consider seriously. I was surprised by how many comparable experiences I had stashed away in my mental miscellaneous file, the place in which I put stories I did not know what to do with and that left me feeling uncomfortable. Viewed collectively, they suggested a pattern of "knowing," a demonstration of the power of telepathy, the ability of minds to communicate. As a rabbi I assume that people tell me these stories because they identify me with the realm of the spirit and seek an outlet of understanding when remarkable, mysterious experiences occur. The following are some of those stories:

A woman in her fifties working on her doctorate in a literary field called to make an appointment to discuss her studies. She is a serious student, a particularly organized woman who is self-described as very rational. In the course of our conversation she said, "Rabbi, I had an experience that I want to tell you about. One night I had a very vivid dream in which my brother, who died several years before, appeared to me and said that something important was going to happen. I was so startled by the intensity and vividness of the dream and the message that I awoke and sat on the edge of my bed. Soon the phone rang. It was my family thousands of miles of away. They told me that my father had just died of a sudden heart attack. Neither I nor they had any indication that he had even been sick."

Another woman, a principal of a neighboring Jewish school, attended a presentation on Jewish mourning given by a nationally acclaimed author at my synagogue. I mentioned to the author over lunch that I had become aware of the importance of the supernatural in and around death, a topic he had excluded from his book. The principal overheard me and said, "I have a great story to tell you in that regard. My husband and I were beginning to drive the hour and a half from Palm Springs to our home when my otherwise healthy husband suddenly felt a severe pain over his heart. The pain was so severe that I had to take over at the wheel. When we listened to the messages on the answering machine at home, we learned that his father had had a sudden heart attack at almost the precise moment that my husband had that pain."

A female physician told my wife that while in medical school her roommate awakened her one night at 3:00 A.M., saying, "You are shouting 'Daddy, Daddy' and something about drooping eyelids." The next day the roommate learned that her father had suddenly been hospitalized thousands of miles away with a severe muscle disease that affected his breathing and was difficult to diagnose. When she asked about his eyelids, which were indeed drooping, the doctors were able to make the diagnosis and save his life.

Years later, when this same man was in a coma, the daughter flew cross-country, repeating over and over to herself in her mind, "Dad, wait for me, I'm coming. Don't die." When she reached his hospital room he suddenly opened his eyes and awoke from the coma. He said, "I heard you say 'Wait for me, I'm coming. Don't die,' and I waited." Soon after, he died.

    I had read similar stories of telepathy, particularly surrounding death, in Jewish sources. But I had previously relegated the phenomena to the exaggeration of folklore. The following tales are examples from the world of Hasidism (the Jewish folk piety movement begun in the early eighteenth century) of the telepathic awareness of a loved one's death.

On a day of the Festival of Simchat Torah [when the annual cycle of reading from the Five Books of Moses begins anew], the Ropshitzer [Rabbi Naftali Zevi, Galicia, 1760-1827] stood at the window, and saw how the Hasidim celebrated and danced in the courtyard. He was in an exalted mood and his countenance was illumined with great joy. Suddenly he moved his hand as a signal that they should cease. They saw that his face had become pale and they were stricken with great fright. Gradually he recovered himself and cried out with great enthusiasm: "And, if a commanding officer of the army falls, is the battle broken off? Friends, continue your dance."

At that very moment his friend, Rabbi Abraham, had breathed forth his soul in Ulanov.

Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz [Ukraine, 1726-1791] passed away suddenly while in Spitovka on a journey to the Holy Land. On the same day, the 10th of Elul 5551 [1791], Rabbi Jacob Samson of Spitovka, who already resided in the Holy Land, saw a vision: The Shekhina, God's Majesty, appeared to him in the form of a woman in lamentation; he perceived that her lamentation was for a friend of her youth who had died. Thereupon he awoke and cried with grief: "Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz has died!"

He was asked how he knew this.

"Outside of him," he replied, "there exists in this day no tzaddik [saintly person] for whom the Shekhina would lament." He stood up, made the rent in his garment according to tradition as a sign of his grief, and spoke the blessing of God's righteousness. For many days he mourned his passing.

After a long time the news came to the Holy Land: Rabbi Pinchas is no more.

    Since my transformation from skeptic to believer I have learned how many people have similar tales. You don't need to be a rabbinic master, I learned, to mysteriously perceive a friend's death many miles away. Most people, on a less dramatic level, have experienced thinking about an old friend only to have that friend call, send a letter, or arrive in town. Our minds are potential receptors for information in ways we can't always analytically explain. A German-Jewish psychiatrist told me that although he remained unsure about survival of the soul, he was convinced of the human capacity for telepathic communication. He could consistently think of a song, he said, which his wife would then spontaneously begin to sing, or he and his wife could intuit what the other was thinking.

    An awareness of telepathic communication may also have a great influence on a person's life. The following is a story of Hans Berger, the discoverer of the electroencephalogram (the EEG):

As a nineteen-year-old [German] student, I had a serious accident during a military exercise near Wurzburg and barely escaped certain death. Riding on the narrow edge of a steep ravine through which a road led, I fell with my rearing and tumbling horse down into the path of a mounted battery and came to lie almost beneath the wheel of one of the guns. The latter, pulled by six horses, came to a stop just in time and I escaped, having suffered no more than fright. This accident happened in the morning hours of a beautiful spring day. In the evening of the same day, I received a telegram from my father who enquired about my well-being. It was the first and only time in my life that I received such a query. My oldest sister, to whom I had always been particularly close, had occasioned this telegraphic enquiry, because she had suddenly told my parents that she knew with certainty that I had suffered an accident. My family lived in Cologne at the time. This is a case of spontaneous telepathy in which at a time of mortal danger, and as I contemplated certain death, I transmitted my thoughts, while my sister, who was particularly close to me, acted as the receiver.

    The experience so deeply affected Berger that he left his study of astronomy to devote his life to inquiry of the mind's relationship to the physical world. His achievement, the invention of the electroencephalogram, endures as a key tool in the exploration and diagnosis of brain activity.

    Not all stories of soul survival demonstrate telepathy or are to be taken at face value. Hope and expectation may explain many cases in which a widow, widower, or loved one believes that he or she has seen an apparition or has received a message. There is the possibility of coincidence, too. Yet, among the large number of telepathic stories there is a consistent pattern of love, death, and knowledge that transcends the five senses. The apparent ability of a person who has died or is dying to send a message demonstrates that there are means of communication that we cannot explain scientifically. Moreover, telepathy makes more plausible the existence of a part of us—a soul—that transcends our physical body and survives death.

    My curiosity about survival of the soul was reinforced by a near-death experience account I recalled having heard toward the beginning of my rabbinate. In 1989 an out-of-town visitor to my synagogue approached me on a Friday night after services. "Rabbi," he said. "Do you have a moment? I'd like to tell you of something that changed my life." We moved to a corner away from other people so we could speak privately. He related the following incident:

A few years ago I was in a very serious car accident. My car was totaled, and I was lying unconscious on the side of the road. It was as if I was no longer in my body. I looked down and could see myself bleeding. Paramedics gathered around me, and I was drawn toward a light along with a feeling of great calm. At a certain point I was given a choice to return to my body and did so. All of a sudden I became aware of my bodily pain, but my life was changed. Somehow in that moment I both lost the fear of death and began to appreciate that each day is a gift.

    The visitor told me his story a few years before Linda's experience with telepathy; as such it was toward the bottom of my mental miscellaneous file. In the months leading up to my 1996 Rosh Hashanah sermon, as my curiosity grew about survival of the soul, I asked myself: How do these kinds of telepathic communications occur? In what sense is the ability of a person to communicate upon death related to survival of the soul? These stories and questions drew me deeper into the literature of near-death experiences.

Table of Contents

Foreword byBrian L. Weiss, MD xiiiPreface to the Second Edition xvAcknowledgments xxvIntroduction xxvii

1 Telepathy: A Window on the Soul's Survival 12 Near-Death Experiences (NDEs): The Literature 113 What Is Soul? 214 Survival of the Soul: Judaism's Views 315 What Happens After I Die? 396 Traditional Judaism on Resurrection of the Dead 477 Past-Life Regression: An Introduction 558 Training with Dr. Brian Weiss 639 Reincarnation: Judaism’s Views 7910 Tales of Reincarnation: The Role of the Rebbe 9311 Mediums: Judaism’s Position 9912 Psychic Gifts of a Medium: James Van Praagh 10713 Weighing the Evidence 12114 Discrepancies in Afterlife and Reincarnation Accounts 13115 The Impact of Affirming the Soul’s Survival 14116 Cultivating the Soul 153

Conclusion: Live Now Gratefully and Responsibly 163Appendix: Torah and Immortality of the Soul—A Hot Debate 169Discussion Guide 191Notes 197Glossary 229Selected Bibliography 235Index 243

Editorial Reviews

Spitz, a Conservative rabbi, sets out to convince readers that it's kosher to be Jewish and believe in reincarnation and the afterlife. He details his personal journey from skepticism to belief in the reality of the soul, distilling along the way the work of pioneering mediums like Brian Weiss and James van Draagh. Spitz discusses one seminar he attended in which he found himself revealing images of a previous life as a Native American, and another in which his wife's deceased grandparents "communicated" with her. Spitz employs an array of Jewish sources--particularly mystical texts--that affirm a faith in the survival of the soul, although the concept remains controversial in traditional Judaism. He claims that this faith can provide comfort to those struggling with death. "Letting go is easier when one believes death is not final," he says. He offers the personal example of coping with his mother's death, followed by dramatic instances of how he has used guided imagery to ease congregants into accepting death. While we are alive, our "homework assignment" is to nurture our souls through good deeds and to express gratitude to God, "rooting us more deeply in living this life each day as a precious gift." Spitz's compelling arguments may cement the beliefs of Jewish readers already receptive to the existence of the supernatural and open a doorway for doubters to reconceptualize life and death. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Through his studies, his life experiences, and the stories he heard as a rabbi, Spitz (rabbi, Congregation B'nai Israel) came to believe that the soul exists after a person dies. He uses this book as a forum to discuss how he came to his beliefs and to investigate Judaism's teachings about the soul after death. He includes stories of people's near-death experiences, describes his own study, and summarizes what biblical, rabbinical, and mystic writings say to support his thesis. This introduction to the biblical writings and how the modern thinkers address this issue will interest people wanting to read a Jewish response the concept of a soul's existence after death. Students beginning their studies may also find this a useful resource. Recommended for public libraries that have collections supporting Judaism, the afterlife, near-death experiences, and popular psychology.--Naomi E. Hafter, Broward Cty. P.L., Ft. Lauderdale, FL Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

The concepts of the nature of the soul and the prospect of life after death are core questions as compelling today as they were millennia ago. Rabbi Spitz's Does The Soul Survive?: A Jewish Journey To Belief In Afterlife, Past Lives & Living With Purpose specifically addresses these questions based upon his own personal observations, extensive scholarship, and firsthand accounts by others of a spectrum of relevant experiences. Rabbi Spitz surveys and examines a wide range of issues from near-death experiences to reincarnation, from past-life memory to the work of spiritual mediums as he explores what we are truly able to know about the afterlife. Drawing on Jewish texts, Rabbi Spitz makes a convincing and persuasive case in favor of the argument that all such experiences are within the scope of Jewish tradition and understanding. Does The Soul Survive? is an impressive and highly recommended contribution to Judaic and metaphysical studies.

"Very worthwhile.... People do not know enough about the Jewish point of view on death and dying, and people need to know that reincarnation and afterlife is a fact. It's about time and the time is now. This is a brilliant book that keeps you fascinated."
—Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

"A wise, moving, carefully thought out and provocative first-person exploration into the immortality of the soul. Indispensable for anyone who has ever wondered about the mysteries of life before and after this one. A beautiful book."
—Lawrence Kushner,rabbi-in-residence, Hebrew Union College; author,Invisible Lines of Connection: Sacred Stories of the Ordinary and other books

“His initial reticence to believe people's stories about life after death and past incarnations ... gives this book credibility even for skeptical philosophers like me.... Rabbi Spitz has me wondering!”
—Rabbi Elliot N. Dorff, PhD,rector and professor of philosophy,American Jewish University

“Elegantly written.... Rabbi Elie Spitz’s 'journey’ will inspire its readers to follow his example and search for what is meaningful in Jewish life and learning.”
—Elie Wiesel

“See your (future) world in this life.... Read Rabbi Elie Spitz’s book and experience what your own intuition corroborates and you will not fear death at the end of your life’s journey.”
—Rabbi Zalman M. Schachter-Shalomi (z"l), author, Davening: A Guide to Meaningful Jewish Prayer

“Rabbi Spitz has taken a fascinating journey from skepticism to hope. No matter our ultimate conclusion, this record of that journey is certain to tantalize, intrigue and uplift the questing spirit.”
—Rabbi David Wolpe, Sinai Temple, Los Angeles; author, Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times

“A path-breaking book. When Elie Spitz writes about Judaism and reincarnation, he not only examines relevant texts drawn from two thousand years of teaching, he integrates them with his own remarkable experiences. This is a book that has the capacity to expand your soul.”
—Joseph Telushkin, author, Jewish Literacy and other works

“Whether or not we believe, having the conversation about the continued existence of the soul contributes to the healing. Opening to the possibility that there is more than a rigid and unpenetrable curtain between the worlds allows us to approach loss with questions. These call forth creative possibilities for continuing our connection with those we have lost.”
—Rabbi Anne Brener, LCSW, internationally recognized bereavement therapist; author, Mourning & Mitzvah: A Guided Journey to Walking the Mourner’s Path Through Grief to Healing

“Rabbi Spitz is not your grandfather’s old rabbi. He explores issues of life and death that go back to our earliest traditions and go forward into the next millennium. He proves that Judaism is a many branched menorah with something important for everyone. He shows how to explore the deepest reaches of mind, body, and spirit—and do it Jewishly.”
—Alan M. Dershowitz, author, The Vanishing American Jew

“Rabbi Spitz has treated a topic that many approach with doubts in a learned, cogent, Jewishly informed and, above all, human manner. His personal touch, as well as his mastery of both classical Jewish and modern historical, philosophical and psychological writings on the topic of the soul and its transmigration makes for challenging and thoughtful reading.... Indicates that Judaism has a great deal to say about a subject that is all-too-often exclusively associated in the popular mind with eastern religions. Readers of all stripes and faiths will be provoked and moved by this book.”
—Rabbi David Ellenson, PhD, president, Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion

“With intelligence and compassion, Rabbi Spitz has written a beautiful book that explores one of life’s great mysteries—what exists beyond life. His look at the subject is so compelling because he draws both on ancient Jewish tradition and on the contemporary experience of Americans.... An important book that will change your thinking about life—and the afterlife.”
—Ari L. Goldman, author, The Search for God at Harvard

“A wonderful book on the afterlife. It fills a great void in this area. It is carefully researched and articulately presented. I loved it.”
—Rabbi Abner Weiss, PhD, author, Connecting to God: Ancient Kabbalah and Modern Psychology

“Elie Spitz provides a map for some very tricky territory. With admirable candor and real openness of heart, he leads his readers through contemporary and traditional views of the soul, its nature and purposes.... He is clear without being simplistic, inspiring without beating a drum for his views. I know of no book on the soul which so seamlessly blends the personal and the scholarly. Rabbi Spitz brings to this subject a passion and clarity which will engage and enlighten his readers.”
—Peter Pitzele, PhD, author, Our Fathers’ Wells: A Personal Encounter with the Myths of Genesis

“Elie Spitz’s personal quest for an understanding of the soul and afterlife benefits all who read this remarkable book. In the tradition of Dr. Brian Weiss, he brings credibility and a religious context to belief in reincarnation. Even the skeptic will be swayed by Rabbi Spitz’s personal experiences.”
—Rabbi Stewart Vogel, coauthor, New York Times bestseller The Ten Commandments

“Rabbi Elie Spitz masterfully blends scholarship, inspiration and information.... His courageous, heartfelt journey into unknown territory will most assuredly survive with his soul.”
—Nancy Rosanoff, author, Knowing When It’s Right

“Rabbi Spitz has taken our most profound human question and given us an exciting journey into religious, historical and present-day answers.... This inspirational book shows us just how important living our purpose is.”
—Carol Adrienne, PhD,author,The Purpose of Your Life

“In Does the Soul Survive? Rabbi Spitz allows all of us to take that same journey of soul: to be able to look without fear through the healing lens of faith at what it means to be alive, what it means to be human, what it means to be God’s child. Anyone who reads this book will find it, as I did, uplifting, insightful and profoundly true. It transforms all our lives for the better.”
—Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, dean, Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies, American Jewish University; author, Passing Life’s Tests: Spiritual Reflections on the Trial of Abraham, the Binding of Isaac

From the Publisher

Tustin rabbi shares his experience in hopes of helping others in despair.

Rabbi Elie Spitz has been in Tustin 21 years and has been with Congregation B'nai Israel, at 2111 Bryan Ave., for more than 10 years. His second book, Healing from Despair: Choosing Wholeness in a Broken World has been published by Jewish Lights Publishing, and he'll be speaking on Nov. 18 at the Orange County Jewish Book Festival in Irvine.

Spitz is also author of Does the Soul Survive? A Jewish Journey to Belief in Afterlife, past Lives and Living with Purpose.

Q: What inspired you to write the book?

A: One thing was the satisfaction of finishing a book. It's a story I felt I needed to tell. A friend who's a teacher of journalism says everybody has in them one book because everyone has a personal story worth telling, but the challenge is the second or third book. So I was up to the challenge.

Q: Tell us about Healing from Despair.

A: This one is about my being a mental patient. It's about despair, including the continuum of depression or emotional pain from the blues to suicide, and it's in part my own story of hospitalization in my 20s for depression.

It's not about me. I only have credibility to explore the topic because of my own experience. It's a lot about other people.

It's about three things. One; it's normal in the course of life to experience emotional pain on a continuum. Two; it's about hope to get better. An, three; drawing light from moments of darkness.

Examples are in part from the Bible, like Moses says to God, "If I have to go on like this just kill me." Or God, who says, "I regret I created the world, so I'm going to wipe it out," from Genesis. God is probably the most emotional personality in the Bible. It's people who we identify as having great strength. People with great strength in life are people like Abraham Lincoln or Winston Churchill. People who suffered pain.

Q: What is the continuum?

A: One end is the blues—an emotional flu which I think just about everybody in life experiences. In one of the books, George Howe Colt, says one of four people in the course of their life will be depressed enough to warrant medical care.

The middle is clinical depression. Clinical depression is often identified with self-deprecation.

Q: What is your goal with the book?

A: My goal is to provide normalization and hope, and to remind people that something they might be embarrassed by may be a source of compassion and insight.

Almost everyone has someone in his or her family experiencing depression. My goal with the book is that it will be helpful to people.

My hope for the book is to acknowledge emotional pain, despair and depression, and to normalize it and let people feel less embarrassed and more open to listening and seeking care. This book is not for someone who's suicidal.

That's the extreme. It's more the continuum. It's a call for the family to get help for the person who is in despair and to be open to receive help, and last for the person out of despair to see it as a source of strength.

Q: Do you think it will transcend religious lines?

A: I hope so. The book does touch on my own struggle with depression in my 20s.

There are blurbs from all kinds of people. It's not a book about Judaism as much as it's about becoming more fully human. Because I'm Jewish, some of my references are biblical and Jewish.

Q: Is it difficult to share your story?

A: I spoke about it recently to my congregation, and I have shared stories about being in a mental health clinic. I hadn't given a sermon about it. I got many positive e-mails from people thanking me. But it wasn't about me.

I'm only a witness for something larger.

I have two friends who committed suicide. It's a major taboo to discuss suicide, let alone when it's in your family because there's a sense of guilt, shame and anger that a person would cause pain to so many others.

Q: Do you have any suggestions for people struggling with depression?

A: The book has a lot of self-help checklists. It helps for people to gain perspective in the aftermath of a loss.

The blues is a product of a loss and can be biochemical.… Often depression is a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness so by providing help or hope for others they can gain from the experience for themselves.

There are many ways people can be kind to others. It can be as simple as making a point to talk to a waiter or waitress, to volunteer, and gather food for people in need. You have to set goals with a low bar so you meet the goals.

Orange County Register - ELYSSE JAMES

Rabbi Spitz bases his conviction that life continues after death upon nine phenomena; (1) his belief that there is a soul; (2) mental telepathy; people sensing what they can't hear or see, such as a person sensing that a relative thousands of miles away suddenly became ill; (3) communications from dead relatives, as when a father appears in a son's dream and tells him that he just died; (4) biblical statements that other people see as metaphors, but which the rabbi takes literally, such as "he was gathered to his people," which he understands as a departure to "the world to come"; (5) reincarnation, as when a person said that he would like to return to earth as a butterfly, and a butterfly is seen flying around the rabbi's head at the man's funeral; (6) mediums delivering communications from the dead; (7) the ability of people under hypnosis to recall past lives that they say they lived; (8) the existence of many mystics who insisted that there is life after death and who say that they went through some of the above-mentioned experiences; and most of all (9) "near death experiences." The book is written well, is interesting, and worth reading, but not everyone will find it persuasive. The following are some thoughts on each of his proofs.

The belief in the existence of a soul is very widespread, but science has been unable to prove that a soul exists. Philosophers have questioned how it is possible for an inanimate soul to control a body when the two have no physical connection. While ancient post-biblical Greeks mention the soul, many, such as Aristotle (384–322 BCE) understood soul as a synonym for life forces. Thus Aristotle included the digestive and respiratory systems and intelligence in the term soul. He wrote that only the intellect exists after death, not the person's personality. Furthermore, the notion of the existence of a soul is not in the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew term used today for soul, nefesh, means "life" or "person" in the Torah, such as when it states "When a nefesh offers a sacrifice." Rabbi Spitz admits that "any attempt to define soul in clear, unequivocal terms results either in distortion of glibness,"

True, people claim that telepathy works. However, many scientists say that these are coincidences. Additionally, even if telepathy works, such as being able to identify what number is written on a covered card, this ability really has nothing to do with life after death.

Similarly, scientist call claims of having had communications with a dead person, such as in a dream, coincidences. We also know that dreams are prompted by thoughts during the day, and the dreamer may have been thinking during the day about the physical condition of the person who appeared in his or her dream.

Just as the Torah does not mention "soul," it does not speak of life after death. However, the rabbi reads it into metaphors such as "gathered to his people." He is most likely the first person who read these words in this literal manner. The words have always been understood as a poetic way of saying "he died." It is similar to the English phrase "he passed on."

There is no proof that resurrection occurs. The rabbi rejects the notion that the soul returns to the individual's dead body since the body has deteriorated. It seems equally illogical to imagine that the soul would enter another body. Even people who believe that it occurs say that it is a miracle and science has never proven that miracles occur.

Mediums are frequently frauds. The rabbi reads the biblical story of King Saul visiting a medium who brought up Samuel from the dead to allow Saul an opportunity to discuss his impending battle with the dead prophet. True, many fundamentalists accept the story as a true occurrence. But rationalists such as the great Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) recognized that the tale is impossible and explained it as a dream by an agitated king.

Rabbi Spitz recognizes that the recollections of people under hypnosis of past lives are questionable. The recollections are usually the result of statements made by the hypnotist. Spitz underwent such an experience. Prior to being hypnotized, the hypnotist asked him what he thought about as a youngster and he mentioned Indians, and when he was hypnotized he saw himself as an Indian.

True, there are many statements by mystics, Jewish and non-Jewish, claiming that there is life after death and speaking about reincarnation and similar notions. These include statements by famous Jewish sages that they received instructions from angels and that they were resurrected from earlier Jewish heroes. However, these are the same people who claim that God was composed of ten parts, became separated, and needs human help to be put together again.

No doubt many people believe in near death experiences. However, this is a rather recent phenomenon and may be the result of the recent popularity of the subject and many people being led to expect it. Hardly any ancients spoke about it. The rabbi states that it seems to be true because all of the experiences are remarkably the same. Yet in another section of his book, he admits that there are sticking differences between the experiences of various people. For example, he tells the tale of a soldier who had a near death experience, but there was no white light and no dead relative greeting him, as others claimed. Instead, he was greeted by God who asked him if he wanted to return to life. When he answered "yes," he recovered. Similarly, many Christians said they saw Jesus, but no Jew made this claim. If Rabbi Spitz truly believes the near death stories are true, why doesn't he believe in Jesus who allegedly appeared to the Christians?

In summary, none of my comments should be read to suggest that there is no life after death, only that there is no proof that it exists. Whether readers accept Rabbi Spitz's view about life after death, reject it completely, or remain an agnostic regarding it, readers will enjoy the rabbi's analyses and the many stories that he tells to support his view, and will be stimulated by the discussions to think more deeply about this and related subjects.

The Jewish Eye - Israel Drazin