LEV866 An important--perhaps the most important--consolation the Jewish tradition offers mourners is its belief in an afterlife. Hence, the advice recorded in the Talmud: "Weep for the mourners and not for their loss, for [the deceased] has gone to eternal rest, but we [the mourners] are suffering" (Mo'ed Kattan 25b). The traditional Jewish belief is that the soul survives and remains aware of those left behind. Many Jews are under the misconception that Judaism does not believe in an afterlife and are heartened to learn that it does. [I believe there is a connection between the Torah's non-discussion of an afterlife and the fact that the Torah was revealed after the long Jewish sojourn in Egypt. Egyptian society in which the ancient Israelites long resided was obsessed with death and afterlife, as reflected in the holiest of Egyptian literary works, The Book of The Dead. The major achievement of many Pharaohs was the erection of pyramids, which were giant tombs. In contrast, the Torah focuses on this world, so much so that it forbids Judaism's kohanim (priests) from having contact with dead bodies [this verse; in Egypt, the priests helped prepare the body for internment). Thus, the Torah may well have been silent about afterlife out of its desire to ensure the Judaism not evolve in the direction of Egyptian religion. Throughout history, religions that have assigned a major, and perhaps exaggerated, role to the afterlife often have permitted other religious and ethical values to become distorted. Thus, it was belief in an afterlife that motivated the Spanish Inquisition to torture innocent human beings; the inquisitors believed it was morally right to torture people for a few days in this world until they repudiated their supposedly heresies and excepted Christ, and thereby save them from the internal torment of hell. In our own times, the strong belief of afterlife among Islamic terrorists enabled them to kill themselves while murdering innocent people--mainly non-Muslims--with whom they disagree. Thus, the nineteen Islamic terrorists who murdered 3,000 people on September 11, 2001 were convinced that after crashing their planes into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, they would immediately be granted heavenly reward. How much less evil might they--and, centuries earlier, the inquisitors--have done had they not believed in an afterlife.] Helping the mourner--if he is open to such a belief--to focus on the continuing existence of the soul of the one who died can help assuage his or her hurt and anger.