After One-Hundred-and-Twenty: Reflecting on Death, Mourning, and the Afterlife in the Jewish Tradition (Library of Jewish Ideas, 9) - Softcover

Halkin, Hillel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691181160 ISBN 13: 9780691181165

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2018

Synopsis

A deeply personal look at death, mourning, and the afterlife in Jewish tradition

After One-Hundred-and-Twenty provides a richly nuanced and deeply personal look at Jewish attitudes and practices regarding death, mourning, and the afterlife as they have existed and evolved from biblical times to today. Taking its title from the Hebrew and Yiddish blessing to live to a ripe old age―Moses is said to have been 120 years old when he died―the book explores how the Bible's original reticence about an afterlife gave way to views about personal judgment and reward after death, the resurrection of the body, and even reincarnation. It examines Talmudic perspectives on grief, burial, and the afterlife, shows how Jewish approaches to death changed in the Middle Ages with thinkers like Maimonides and in the mystical writings of the Zohar, and delves into such things as the origins of the custom of reciting Kaddish for the deceased and beliefs about encountering the dead in visions and dreams.

After One-Hundred-and-Twenty is also Hillel Halkin's eloquent and disarmingly candid reflection on his own mortality, the deaths of those he has known and loved, and the comfort he has and has not derived from Jewish tradition.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

"Hillel Halkin is an uncommon and essential figure in Jewish intellectual life--a man at home in the entirety of the tradition and its languages, a secularist fascinated by religion, a scholar in the thick of the world, a critic with an insatiable appetite for exploration. All his writing is informed by a princely pride, wholly justified, in the resources of Jewish literature for the understanding of human existence. After One-Hundred-and-Twenty--this lively, even scintillating book about the passing of life--generously displays all of Halkin's virtues. It will enlighten its mortal readers, and even help them."--Leon Wieseltier

"This is a most remarkable and beautifully written book. Halkin elegantly weaves together illuminating scholarly examinations of various Jewish ideas about death, mourning, and the afterlife with his own wonderfully honest, humane, and deeply moving personal reflections on these subjects and on his own mortality. After One-Hundred-and-Twenty is in a class by itself."--Leon R. Kass, author of The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis

"Hillel Halkin displays an impressive mastery of source material and writes with his customary flair and grace."--Allan Nadler, Drew University, author of The Faith of the Mithnagdim: Rabbinic Responses to Hasidic Rapture

About the Author:

Hillel Halkin is an author, translator, critic, and journalist. His books include Jabotinsky: A Life and Yehuda Halevi, which won the National Jewish Book Award.

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 0691181160
• ISBN 13: 9780691181165
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 232