Conversations with a Priest and a Rabbi: Heaven

Hello, and welcome to another episode of conversations with a priest and a rabbi with rabbi Ethan Adler and father Craig Swan. This podcast was recorded, live at St. Peter's by the church in Narragansett, Rhode Island. Today, they talk about heaven and how each of their faiths view it. And where there are similarities and where there might be some differences. It's definitely worth a listen. Please subscribe to our podcast on whatever platform you're listening. Thanks for your time and attention. And we hope this finds you well.

Well, welcome to another episode of the priest in the rabbi. I'm father Craig Swan, and I'm the rector of St. Peter's by the sea in Narragansett, Rhode Island. And I am joined by

Rabbi Ethan Adler. A spiritual leader of congregation, but David here in Narragansett as well as a congregation in westerly, Rhode Island.

And this podcast theme is that of heaven. What is heaven from the perspective of Judaism and Christianity. So I got to start off first, last week. So I'm going to let my friend Ethan begin this week.

Not a problem. Pleasure to be here again. So in taking a look at the concept of heaven and the other side of the universe from a Jewish perspective in Judaism, we did not really. Believing in heaven and hell. Although we do believe that there is a place where people don't make it to the so-called heaven GoTo, rather we have this notion, this concept of what we called in Hebrew Olam Hubei, the world to come there's this notion that outside of this physical life that we live. When we die, we enter into another realm, another existence, another world that's waiting for us a world in which there is eternal bliss, a world of peace, a world in which everybody has a share. The quality of that share is determined by our life here on earth. It's sort of consistent with the notion that this, this life that we're living here is merely a corridor to a great hall and that great hall is this Alamaba this world, this world to come where again, as I mentioned, everybody has a share. It is believed that when we die our souls. Are uplifted and brought to this and other world, if you will, it is believed that there's, our souls would meet up with other souls. Who've gone before us. So we get to meet them again. And we will leave that in order for us to enter into this other world in a very spiritually clean manner to the extent that's possible before we die. We go through a confessional basically in which we say through some prayers and readings that we hope that whatever ails us, whatever sickness we feel will serve to cleanse us of any mistakes. And he sends that we've committed before so that we can enter the portals of this. New world new existence with a pure heart and a clean and a clean soul. There is a a, Cabbalistic a Jewish mystic notion that in this other world, God exists, not necessarily in a throne, but God exists over there. And that when, when we die and our souls make it to this other world They are situated either near to near God or further away, but somewhere, and they're concentric circles. If you will, in this area where God is in the middle and our, our souls get popped in wherever the universe deems it proper, but then every time a survivor or anytime somebody does a good deed in the name of that person, the soul gets moved closer to God. So this notion that even, even those of us who are, who are left here on earth can still have an impact on our loved ones, even in that other world. So for some people, this makes a lot of sense and they live with that. Jewish people would reject that notion because they say we don't, we don't really know. And we'd rather just concentrate. On the life that we have here and make it the best. According to Hasidic thought when we observe a Sabbath going to temple and having good food and resting and visiting, and we, we observe a Sabbath to its full full degree. This gives us a taste of what that world to come, is going to be like.

It feels like Christianity built on that concept. I suspect when Chris, most Christians think about what is heaven, the images that come up for us come right out of the end of the book of revelation. In which we get a sense of that heavenly city and heaven itself. And it's in revelation that we hear the description of the pearly Gates. The Gates to heaven are made of Pearl and the streets being paved with gold. It is the place that the martyrs souls resided in. Prior to what will be the great second coming and the restoration of the kingdom of God on earth. And it is the place where Jesus, as the lamb of God sits in majesty and is praised and worshiped by the saints of God. So that's one idea that comes into people's heads. Is this physical place. If you actually read the gospels, what Jesus talks about is the kingdom of God as being near. And it really isn't so much about place. As it is about a state of reality and being, and over the last 40 or 50 years, I kind of have this sense in a modern culture. We're kind of shifting away from, you know, floating up to heaven, way up there and the pearly Gates and looking at life after death, more as an opportunity or the point in which we are Turn to the source of life being God. One of my spiritual directors used to talk about the judgment day that we hear about and is the judgment with the one question before you enter is talk about how you have loved on this earth. What I see happening at death is that we shed. The darkness of ourselves and that dies, but that, which is good, that is the part of us that reunites with God and the divine being. And there is a sense of unity in terms of what can heaven look like. So it's not so much about being this place. And yes, even in revelation, they speak of the new Jerusalem and that becomes what was described. As the city of God and heaven basically descending onto the temple Mount and this new Jerusalem, this city, where there is no darkness every nook and cranny is a lit by the light of God and all nations who have washed in the river of life. Enter this city. And with one voice praise Jesus and God, or Jesus, or God as Jesus, I think is the better word to use. Because when we say God, Jesus, Holy spirit, we're really talking about a unity of three entities that are separate yet. Not. So that's the description. I think of what we carry with ourselves. But I also find myself when I talk with people especially when a loved one is dying and death is just like birth. I tell them, you know, some people, some women will tell me they had that child and it came out in 30 minutes flat and actually our white, my wife and I had one that came out just about that fast. But there are the others who have to labor on for days and days until finally a doctor makes a decision or the baby finally decides to come out. The same is true at the opposite. End of life. Some people die quickly. Boom. It's a quick labor into new life. Some of us take our time and I tell people what's happening is just like coming into this world. Instead of the mother laboring for the child to come into the world, we have to labor and birth ourselves into a new life beyond this and the beauty of modern science and the ability that people who have died and have been resuscitated is we hear those consistent stories that in that time, when their heart has stopped, their breathing has stopped. They've experienced something greater than this earth.

You might they call it a near death experiences, you know, where they feel that their body lifts up and then begins to head towards some bright lights and the whole previous life flashes before them. And they, they find it very comforting, very warm. And then typically at the end, somebody tells them. It's not time yet. And these are pretty consistent. Excuse me. They were also also understandings about how this, this whole notion of heaven came about. And some, some folks believe that the notion of heaven came out because people were very scared about death. What will happen to my body? With what, what, what's my ultimate end. Could 50 years of living and that's it. I live for 50 years. I work, I play, I study and then that's it. So the notion that heaven, the idea of heaven came up to sort of answered that question that says, no, you may physically be gone, but your spirit, your energy, your soul will continue. So it's not, not as bad. Other theory say, you know what? Heaven heaven came to answer the question of, of, of Why am I suffering so much? And why do I have such a horrible life and things? Things are bad. Ah, but you know what, when the day comes and I die and I go to heaven, that's where my river or reward will be. That's that's where everything will be, will be. We'll be cool. Now what are our understanding of heaven is, I mean, no, one's no, one's been there. If I may, I recall a quick story of two, two baseball fans, basically through and through. I think you'd probably know the story, wherever they each promised each other. Once we go to, once we go to heaven, we'll let the other person of this baseball and heaven. So fortunately one of them dies and falling week, he contacts the living person. He says, Hey Joe, how you doing? And he says, Mike is that you up there? He says, yep. He says, I can't see you. Well, I can see you. So he says, what's the answer is different baseball in heaven. And he said, I got good news and bad news. Okay. He says, the good news is there is baseball in heaven. And the guy said, that's great. What's the bad news. He says, you're pitching next Tuesday. So what, what is our understanding of heaven? So Let's take a look at three, three sections of the Bible. I'm going to read a selection if okay. From Izzy kill one of the major prophets. And he, he writes about is of a vision. If you will, of this alarm Hubba this other world. And he says, then there came a voice from above the vault over their heads. As they stood with lowered wings, talking about some angels above the vault, over their heads was what looked like a throne of deep blue rock and high above. And the throne was a figure like that. Of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist, he was looked like glowing metal as if full of fire and that from there down, he looked like fire in brilliant lights, surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds of a rainy day. So was the radiance around him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell face down and I heard the voice of one speaking and another quick selection from Isaiah and another, another well-known prophet. He says, I saw the Lord high and exalted seated on a throne. And the train of his robe filled the temple above him were seraphim angels, six each with six wings with two wings, they covered their face with two, they covered their feet and with two, they were flying and they were calling to one another. Holy Holy, Holy is the Lord almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory at the sound of their voices, the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple. Was filled with smoke. And then for the book of Chronicles, very short, therefore hear the word of the Lord. I saw the Lord sitting on his throne with all the multitudes of heaven standing on his right, and on his left. So when, when you read these things, you have, you have this notion as you, as you mentioned of, of somewhere in this other place, call it heaven, call it another world where You see God sitting on a throne and sorta like ruling. And you asked most, most kids to draw a picture of God. They that's where they have got under throne with a beard sitting on a cloud, doing, doing what, what God needs to do.

The wonderful anthropomorphizing of the heavenly being exactly. I'm going to throw a curve ball out because one thing notion I've been playing with lately about what is heaven, and as you're reading it. We rarely go back to the description of the garden of Eden. Right. And that was the D that was the time when this earth was true paradise. And what is it that made the earth? Paradise was a humanity was in a state of total innocence and obedience to God live fully in the way of God. And because of that, Had no want or need that wasn't cared for. And yet we had free will as I look at at least from a Christian perspective and kind of taking the, what we call the Hebrew Bible now tore up plus, and the Christian Bible, the new Testament. And I look from beginning to end. What I see in that progression is this sense of God working with humanity through many different vehicles, trying to restore what we would refer to as heaven on earth, restore heaven to the days before evil infiltrated, and took over this world. And even as we read the text of revelation, what we see going on there and that cosmic battle. Is God defeating evil and banishing it completely from this world.

And that does, that's very interesting. You mentioned that because when we study the flood and Noah, we may have mentioned this before. I'm not sure. So God saw the evil in the world and he saw that his garden of Eden plan didn't quite work out. And things were, things were getting really, really bad and evil. And so God said, you know what, I'm going to S I'm going to, I'm going to get rid of this evil. And I could've done it by fire. I could've done it by earthquake. Could have done it by plague. And yet God decided to do it with the flood with water. And the question we ask is why, why destroyed the people through a flood? Of course we don't know why God does things, but one of our understandings is exactly, as you said that God decided to bring the world back to the garden of Eden state, in which even before that, because if you read the book of Genesis, it says in the beginning, there was just nothing but water. So it's almost the idea, God saying, I'm going to start fresh. I'm going to bring water upon the earth. Have nothing there and then begin again and start a garden of Eden prototypes, so to speak on earth. Whereas I had Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. I've got no one in his family to start. So yeah,

there's an interesting detail in that. It's the only time I believe that we hear God looked down on this earth. And not say it is good. It is no longer good. He proclaims it bad before he does the destruction. Another way to look at the water too, is that water oftentimes represents chaos. And basically, you know, as you've talked about, he contained the chaos by pushing it and giving it boundaries and opening up. The earth. So he said from a symbolic standpoint, what he does is he basically the chaos, which is the water comes to reclaim the chaos and pull it away. Unfortunately as we found out, trying to work through Noah did not go well either because humanity has that propensity through our freewill, given to us by God that we teach to choose whether to follow God. Or to follow something else. Ultimately, we always think the grass is greener on the other side and it, somehow we pursue something other than pleasing God, we're going to find something better. And so, again, as we talk about heaven, we talk in a two-fold way. We talk about that afterlife place. That sense of. Becoming one with our creator, again, being restored. What is the mission of our church is to restore all people to God. And I believe that Paul and his writings, when he talks about just about to be killed or executed, he says to Timothy, the Victor's crown is before me I've run the good race and I fought the good fight. And somehow goes into his death, knowing through his faith, that there is something greater waiting on the other side that Christ talked about. And yet there's still that sense that that other side is not just in the cosmos somewhere, but that we who are on this earth now are moving towards. That other side in that restoration of creation. And that really is what from the revelation standpoint is the discussion of the new Jerusalem coming down. It's that total restoration of heaven, where all nations, all people turn their backs on evil and unified without division praise, the one God. And so it's so easy to think that we are waiting for something out there. But when we talked about having it also talks about work for us, Isaiah and telling Israel that their time has come to an end, it says, prepare the way for God. And that we on this earth have a job to do those of us who are faithful is to prepare that way in the possibility for heaven itself.

Right. Right. And I think because having how soul. Are are things that we can't, I can't say we can feel them. Certainly we can't see. So over the years, a number of legends, at least from the Jewish perspective have, have found their way into literature. I thought I'd share some of these with you. And again, these are just legends and, and ideas that you find here and there about what would happen is I'll just read you. Some of these are very interesting that there's a double gate. Kind of at the front of this next world does Goddard by 600,000 angels house. They came to that number. I'm not really sure that in this, in this Alama, Alamaba in this coming world, the tree of life is there standing right in the center. When you enter it, there's an art, an Archangel who had Mika L. Who brings your soul to God where the soul is transformed into an angel and you eat each soul angel gets a space of their own, according to their merit and surrounded by four rivers made from the contained milk, honey wine and bolts. The light that you see in this other world is a light that emanates from all the righteous people who live there. And that each day in this other world one wakes up as a child, goes to bed as an elder to enjoy the pleasures of childhood youth, adulthood and old age. So you go through that, you go through your whole life every night, kind of in an interesting way. Some people call it, God, call it the garden of Eden actually, which is where we may, may, may end up that people will be once we die, we'll be resurrected and joined with our families and live with comfort with them forever, which I've explained some of the biblical narrative when somebody dies, the Bible would say he was gathered onto his forefathers, gather onto his people. So. Does that mean literally is gathered up with them. And so an effort to try to understand what would, what this heaven is really, really all about. And I think along the way, we, we sort of hope and rely that there is something more than our experience here on earth. There is, there is something that, that really allows us to find that comfort and that peace that we all we are long for. And I have faith personally, that there is this other existence that my life will not be over once it's over here and that I will get to meet. My parents, my late wife and other people that have gone during my lifetime. So that, that gives me hope.

I think the crux for Christianity is that hope assured because we. Really declare. I mean, Paul tells us through the cross of Christ. The devil has been basically vanquished and we have nothing to fear, not even death, because death is no longer this scary end, but a truly wonderful beginning. And it's fascinating how much we. Yeah, I know Christianity draws greatly off of traditional Judaic understanding. And I think we just kind of bring it sometimes to another level or package it in a new way. Yeah. And I think about the fact that what I want to say to people who are listening, you know, I sit in so many funerals and you know, it's usually for grandma. And I have this wonderful time encouraging families to offer eulogies, especially the grandchildren, especially the young adults that they oftentimes give the best eulogies because they knew that person as mostly the all loving, fun individual, they couldn't be for their children. So they have a very different understanding than a daughter or a son would have. 99.9% of the time. Those young people will tell me, well, I really don't believe in this stuff. They're not religious. I don't go to church, et cetera. I have yet here. One eulogy, not end, but my loved one I know is in a better place. And I always want to scream out. How do you know that? Because you've denied the faith that tells you that. And so you carry that piece with you. And what I want to say to the world is yes, there is life after death and we know that. Because of our traditions and traditions and stories of our forebears, whether it be the patriarchs and the stories and the words of the prophets or through the words of Jesus, of Nazareth and St. Paul and St. Peter and the writers of the early church, it is our Judeo-Christian heritage that gives us the assurance. To come up during a funeral and speak about a loved one and say, without a doubt, I know they are in a better place and that was hard fought for them and for us. So I think as we talk today, we realize heaven is about a combination of. Objects or understandings is a place somewhere out in the cosmos. As we see in revelation, we see through the prophets heaven can be here on earth as well in heaven is also a state of being one in which we're truly United with the creator itself. And the good news in all of this. Is that allows us to live our lives on earth, knowing they're imperfect that they're suffering with the assurance, that they will come a point that this suffering will truly end. And as revelation says, it'll be the place where there is no weeping or mourning or pain. And

it requires, requires like so many other things to leap of face. Yeah. You know, logic will only take us so far and. I can think logically, well, it doesn't make any sense to me die. I mean, you know, we can't see her. So, you know although they've done some studies very interestingly enough, where that they'll weigh people like a minute before they die. And as soon as they died, they'll weigh them sometimes they'll, they'll see, like there's a little difference, like attentive announce. And he believed that's when the soul left the body. Interesting. Interesting. The point is that logic will only bring us so far and we need, we, we can take this leap of faith that says, I can't tell you for sure. There's no evidence that I can think of. Other than people reporting stories that their grandparents spoke to them, or they have communication with a loved one was passed away or things. Things happen. But it's it's okay. It's okay to have this faith. And it could be a source, a source of comfort and strength. That's really available to all of us. You know, we can choose to only believe that our existence is bounded by birth and death. Or we can choose to believe that we carry within us some of our past. And at the same time when we die, we bring some of that into the next world. And maybe there's another world after that. We don't, you know, we don't, we don't know. As a rabbi once said to me, we're talking about this and he says he said, I have a hard time believing that a God who is all knowing all loving all powerful, who created a universe that we don't even know how big it is, what creates human beings that would only exist for 40 50 years. He says I can't comprehend. It has gotta be, there's gotta be more to it. And I think, I think, I think he's right. You know? I'll, I'll just share it something else with you that again, in an effort to try to figure out what this seven or would this. Next world looks like, you know, people have, have all, all, all sorts of ideas. And during the first millennium of the common era there was this notion that there are actually seven heavens and then the first heaven is where Adam and Eve are. The second heaven is where Moses is in any fallen angels. Lived there in the third heaven was where the garden of Eden the tree of life in a fourth heaven is where you'll find Jerusalem and the temple and the altars, the fifth heaven are acquires and angels. Six sevens is no, no description, but the seventh heaven is the holiest place. This is where God dwells and under God's city are all the yet unborn souls. But it it's, it's, it's the holiest place. And according to some, that might have been the origin of the expression, seventh heaven, seventh heaven. So we don't know what's there. To be honest with you. I'm not anxious to find out soon, but we all will find out eventually

the good news is through faith. We know it is there that we say, amen,

amen to that.

You have been listening to conversations with a priest and a rabbi with father Swan and rabbi Adler, please subscribe to our podcast and you'll never miss an episode wherever you go till next time. Thank you for your attention. Have a wonderful day. And God bless.