A guide to the AfterDeath: Maimonides onolam ha-ba’

Abstract

AbstractThis article analyses Moses Maimonides' account of the AfterDeath and, more specifically, ofolam ha-ba’(lit.: the world to come), the state of ultimate human happiness and perfection (in contrast to this world). Maimonides is unequivocal about whatolam ha-ba’is not. Contrary to a competing medieval Jewish tradition, it is utterly incorporeal and, contrary to rabbinic tradition, it is not a motivational reward nor compensation for undeserved suffering in a theodicy. Instead, Maimonides gives two positive accounts of the metaphysics ofolam ha-ba’. The first is an intellectualist account on which the denizens ofolam ha-ba’are perfected intellects engaged in intellectual apprehension of the deity. The second is sceptical: it denies that humans have any understanding or knowledge (‘ilm, episteme) ofolam ha-ba’and claims that all language used to describe it is purely equivocal or homonymous, although it allows that some immutable thing, whatever it is, survives death. Instead of being a motivational reward or compensation,olam ha-ba’is the end, that is, final cause or telos, of the best possible human life in this world at which one aims and which one attempts to approximate even if one cannot actually realize it.